Titanfall Fans Disappointed: Is Extraction Shooter Cancelation the End for Titanfall 3?

Fans of *Titanfall* are grappling with the recent news that EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, while also laying off a number of team members across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience divisions.

Bloomberg first reported that the now-canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the beloved *Titanfall* universe. Although not the long-awaited *Titanfall 3* sequel fans have been hoping for, many still expressed deep disappointment over the lack of progress on a true follow-up to *Titanfall 2*, which launched nearly a decade ago.

"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one emotionally affected player, while another simply wrote: "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."

"How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?" lamented yet another fan.

However, not all reactions were negative. Some fans believe that canceling an extraction shooter within the *Titanfall* universe could actually help preserve the franchise’s legacy, as there's concern such a title might have underperformed commercially and led to the brand being permanently shelved.

"Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited a Redditor. "A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say 'see, the people just don't like Titanfall anymore,' instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS."

"I’m fine with this one being canceled," responded another user, followed by: "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance."

"So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot a bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving through big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning, and titans blastin'," suggested this passionate fan.

"Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," summarized someone else.

The layoffs reportedly impacted around 100 roles at Respawn, including developers, publishing staff, and QA personnel working on *Apex Legends*. Smaller groups from the *Jedi* team and two canceled incubation projects were also affected—one of which was previously reported back in March, and the other believed to be the recently announced extraction shooter tied to *Titanfall*.

These cuts are part of a broader trend of workforce reductions at EA in recent years. Earlier in 2024, BioWare underwent restructuring, where some developers were reassigned to other projects while others were laid off. In 2023, EA cut approximately 50 jobs at BioWare and an unknown number at Codemasters. Additionally, a larger company-wide restructuring earlier this year resulted in about 670 job losses, including roughly two dozen at Respawn Entertainment.

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In 2023, it came to light that Respawn had worked on *Titanfall 3* "in earnest" for 10 months before ultimately shifting focus to *Apex Legends*.

Mohammad Alavi, who served as narrative lead designer on the ill-fated sequel, shared insights into the development process during an interview with The Burnettwork. According to Alavi, significant progress had been made on *Titanfall 3* before it was shelved.

“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?

We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right?

But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?

And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”

What ultimately led to the cancellation, according to Alavi, was a combination of challenges with multiplayer balance and the growing popularity of the Battle Royale genre following the release of PUBG in 2017.

“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.

“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?

So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.

And then PUBG came out.”

Developers at Respawn found themselves more engaged with a Battle Royale-style map using *Titanfall 3* character classes than with the traditional multiplayer modes they were developing. This realization led the team to pivot entirely, effectively ending *Titanfall 3* in favor of building a new, more marketable experience.

“And at the time, I had just literally become the narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’

We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’

And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”