Titanfall player count "based on fun"

Johannes Leander talks with Titanfall's lead artist, Joel Emslie, about the beta that just kicked off, some of the subtleties to be found when playing the game, and the inspirations behind the hugely anticipated title from Respawn Entertainment.

In particular, Emslie explained some of the more intricate gameplay subtleties that players will be able to take advantage of when they're playing the game: "We have some stuff in the beta, it's a parkour kit that helps you do... you can stick on the wall longer. Basically we have stuff like that that helps augment or increase the play-style of the character, the pilot. You know we have similar elements that go with the Titans that you'll unlock as you go... I think it's a pro move but there's a trick you can do as a pilot where you can jump onto a wall and hit the ADS button - the Aim Down Sight button - you can actually throw a dado knife into the wall and stick to the wall for a little while, which is kind of cool when you wanna hide up in the rafters and wall hang."

But wait, you couldn't do that in real life, we said: "Yeah, but this is Titanfall," Emslie replied. "This is kick ass crazy. It's like these future ninjas, that are able to do this crazy stuff. I mean we have stuff in the game that explains that stuff. I mean, you can't survive a two-hundred feet fall ejecting out of a Titan and landing, but we took some stuff into the game artistically and FX wise to make sure there's a little bit of fringe science that supports things like that, where the jump kit that the pilots wear has a gravity well in it. And even if you look at a pilot that's basically wall running you'll notice that the jump kit has little thrusters built into it and you'll notice when they're running against a wall like this [demonstrates], the thruster will be working harder out of the right side of the pilot to kind of visually ground the pilot into the wall run itself... to really sell it."

In the same interview, we also discussed balancing the AI and the player count. "We introduced AI into the environment which I think you have to play to understand, but there was a fine balance of AI happening in the environment - the grunts and the spectres - and the AI of your own Titan (which you can actually get an upgrade for and make him smarter). All of that is calibrated into this living, breathing environment, that half of it wants to help you, half of it wants to kill you."

The lead artist then continued: "And then you layer in the other pilots, who are people, and put them in the mix. So I think what Titanfall does is, we're essentially building two games in one with the Titan and the pilot, and there's a third ground game that's happening with this living, breathing environment that you can use to your advantage and you can use it advance your character. I think there's a lot of cool opportunities happening within those elements altogether... it's like an orchestra of different pieces that makes this good, awesome song."

Finally, Emslie commented on the player count, which has drawn some criticism from certain quarters since it was announced that it would be 6v6: "We came to that number based on fun. There were times that Titanfall was so full, there were too many players in the environment."

You can read our hands-on beta impressions to get our thoughts on the game so far, and more information on beta sign-ups can be found here.