Updated February 5, 2019: In a new interview, Respawn said that EA had no role in developing Apex Legends.
Today, Respawn Entertainment — now owned by EA — launched a battle royale experience called Apex Legends. There were rumors that it would be a free-to-play version of Titanfall, but it's more along the lines of Overwatch than anything else. The first piece of information to get out of the way is that the game seems to take place in the Titanfall universe, but it doesn't feature mechs or any other towering contraptions you can control. It's a standard run-and-gun shooter, where each character has various special abilities.
Many gamers expected Respawn to unveil Titanfall 3 or a similar project today, but it turns out that wasn't the case at all. Furthermore, there are numerous articles that Titanfall 3 may have been cancelled in favor of Apex Legends. According to a report by Kotaku, "What was once Titanfall 3 has become Apex Legends... In other words, a third Titanfall is not currently in development, despite the critical acclaim for the first two." Respawn producer Drew McCoy told Eurogamer that Titanfall 3 wasn't happening in a blunt manner.
The world thinks we're making Titanfall 3 and we're not — this is what we're making. To try and convince a skeptical audience for months with trailers and hands-on articles, we're just like, 'Let the game speak for itself' — it's the most powerful antidote to potential problems. We're doing a free-to-play game, with essentially lootboxes, after we were bought by EA, and it's not Titanfall 3. It's the perfect recipe for a marketing plan to go awry, so why have that — let's just ship the game and let players play.
Kotaku states that Titanfall 3 was in development during Fall 2017 when EA purchased Respawn. It seems that Titanfall 3 was looking quite dated so it was cancelled in favor of this. Hopefully the project will be revived after Respawn's Star Wars game ships later this year. However, only time will tell. Titanfall 2 failed to set the sales charts on fire.
Do you want to play Titanfall 3? Let us know. What do you want out of the project if it happens in the future?
