'Titanfall 2' Review: Single-Player Is A Great Addition, And Will Leave You Wanting More

The original Titanfall released to some praise, but the biggest complaint was that gamers wanted more. The world created for Titanfall seemed so rich and interesting, but thanks to it being a multiplayer-only game, there wasn’t much room to tell a story.

Enter Titanfall 2. This game comes packed with both online multiplayer modes as well as a campaign that dives into the reason you’re even fighting in the first place. While the story itself isn’t that groundbreaking, the gameplay from the campaign really surprised me with how innovative and fun it was.

In the campaign, players take on the role of Jack Cooper, a simple rifleman looking to train to become a Pilot. Pilots are the military elite, not only getting cool rocket packs and the ability to run on walls, but also the ability to control massive Titans - giant mechs that can unleash devastating attacks on enemies.

While Cooper is training to be a Pilot, things go wrong. Cooper fights for the Militia, who are basically the Rebels in Star Wars. The IMC, or Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation, is working on expanding humanity’s foothold in space, but does so at the cost of bleeding other planets dry. The Militia is the band of forces working together to stop the IMC from destroying any more planets.

On what should have been an easy mission for the Militia, the IMC ambushed troops and kill Cooper’s Pilot mentor. Instead of calling it quits, Cooper teams up with the only surviving Titan, nicknamed BT, to complete the mission, despite not being fully trained.

One thing that’s important to note if you are unfamiliar with the Titanfall universe: these Titans aren’t simply robot suits for humans to control. Titans have personalities, can operate without a human inside them and can carry on a conversation if you so choose.

It’s the conversations that really give Titanfall 2’s campaign life. While gameplay is excellent, the back-and-forth you develop with your Titan is charming. Cooper will often use phrases or speak sarcastically, only for BT to respond as dryly and robotically as possible. These conversations help lift the heavy tension of the plot and allow both Cooper and BT to let their personalities shine through without lengthy cutscenes.

As for the actual gameplay, Titanfall 2’s campaign is diverse and well-paced. Like any shooter, you’ll have plenty of segments where you’ll be running and gunning enemies, both on foot and inside a Titan, but there’s so much more.

Thanks to the incredible movement that Pilots have, there are some platforming segments which all work just as well, if not a little better, than those found in Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. One memorable segment includes players having to jump in time between the present and a past date. This becomes more important when obstacles appear in either the present or the past. Players end up not only jumping from platform to platform, but also do so by having to jump between the two time periods simultaneously. It sounds complicated, but works really well.

My only major complaint about the campaign is that it is fairly short. I beat the entire thing over the course of seven or eight hours. Like any big game or movie these days, there is a post-credits scene hinting at a sequel, or at least a continuation of the story, so hopefully we’ll get more time with Cooper now that he’s more comfortable in the seat of a Titan.

As for multiplayer in Titanfall 2, it all works great, but I’m concerned. The original Titanfall community didn’t really stick around long after launch to keep playing, and I’m afraid that might be the case again here. Especially since Titanfall 2’s release is sandwiched right between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Titanfall 2 could fall to the wayside. Respawn did announce that all future maps will be released to everyone for free, so hopefully new maps can keep players logging back in and calling for more Titanfalls.

With such a quality campaign, it makes you wonder if we’ll ever see a single-player only Titanfall game in the future. The world certainly is interesting enough that I would like to explore it more, both on foot and in a massive robot.

With a surprisingly phenomenal campaign, Titanfall 2 should definitely be a must-get for those interested in a great shooter, or want something more from a shooter than just walking around with a ton of guns. It’s too early to tell how long the community will be around, but the multiplayer as of right now is great fun as well. Hopefully some single-player DLC will be releasing alongside the new maps to keep the story of Jack Cooper going.

So what do you think? Have you already played, or will you be playing Titanfall 2? Are you more excited for the single-player or multiplayer game modes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.