Respawn Entertainment’s upcoming FPS multiplayer-only offering Titanfall is set to be one of the biggest titles of the coming year, mostly because of its unique human-machine combination. While the audience seems to have accepted that the game is indeed something more, Respawn is upping the ante, saying that their game's non-playable character are more than simple "bots."
Speaking with EDGE Online, Producer Drew McCoy has rejected the notion that the game's NPCS are not just bots, but, “a different class of people."
“They’re not bots. They’re not meant as a human replacement. They’re a different class of people. Pilots are these super-awesome soldiers that have the gear to do double jumps, the weapons to take down Titans, but the AI are the low-level guys that are always on the ground – they’re not double-jumping and they’re really weak, but the purpose they serve design-wise is multifaceted,” said McCoy.
“They show new players where to go. And once they start fighting, they’re usually fighting other AI because all the experienced players are fighting on walls and rooftops. New players start getting kills on AI, when usually in multiplayer games they’re getting completely whacked."
Additionally, McCoy also confirmed that the game has three core mechanics related to Titanfall that the team wanted to introduce. “Mobility, survivability and scale. Once the Titans started to come in you naturally started to get this longer lifespan, and even if you get destroyed you can eject and keep living. A lot can happen in a single life.”
As far as survival is concerned, it was revealed that although living in the game is easy, “a shotgun to the chest will drop a Pilot in one hit, but Pilots are so mobile and the maps so large that there’s always a way out of any compromising shootout.”
“Every Pilot has an anti-Titan weapon, a double jump, gravity-defying footwear, and a cloaking system that’s especially effective against a Titan’s optics when making a break across open ground.”
“Rack up enough kills or just wait long enough and you’ll call in a customised Titan of your own, effectively wrapping your pilot in a tank costume and adding an extra life to your current spawn. Those are all the tools Titanfall needs to break free of the Call Of Duty spawn-die-spawn-die loop,” the report adds.
Titanfall, set to retail for $60 for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC, will release some time next year.