Titanfall Fans Disappointed: Extraction Shooter Canceled - Is This the End for Titanfall 3 and the Franchise?

Fans of the *Titanfall* franchise are grappling with the recent news that Electronic Arts (EA) has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, accompanied by layoffs affecting multiple departments, including its Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the now-canceled title—codenamed R7—was an extraction shooter set within the *Titanfall* universe. While this isn’t the long-awaited *Titanfall 3* sequel fans have hoped for, many are still disheartened that nearly a decade has passed since *Titanfall 2* without a follow-up.

"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one emotionally affected player, while another fan 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 disappointed fan.

However, not all responses were negative. Some players believe that canceling an extraction-style shooter in the *Titanfall* universe could actually help preserve the brand’s legacy. An unsuccessful release might have led executives to mistakenly conclude that the franchise is no longer viable.

"Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited one 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."

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

Some fans expressed broader frustration with the current trend of extraction shooters, criticizing them as overly formulaic and lacking the fast-paced action *Titanfall* is known for.

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

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

The layoffs reportedly impacted around 100 roles at Respawn, including personnel involved in development, publishing, and QA across *Apex Legends*, smaller groups on the *Jedi* team, and two canceled incubation projects. One of those was previously reported earlier this year, and the other is believed to be the now-revealed *Titanfall*-inspired extraction shooter.

This latest round of cuts continues a troubling trend at EA. Earlier this year, the publisher restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others. In 2023, 50 positions were eliminated at BioWare, along with an unknown number at Codemasters. Then in 2024, EA underwent a larger restructuring effort, resulting in 670 company-wide layoffs, including around two dozen at Respawn.

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

Mohammad Alavi, who served as narrative lead designer on the abandoned *Titanfall 3* project, revealed to The Burnettwork that significant progress had been made on the sequel 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?”

Alavi explained that a combination of challenges in evolving the multiplayer experience and the rising popularity of Battle Royale games like PUBG in 2017 prompted a major rethink.

“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 found themselves more excited about experimenting with a Battle Royale format using *Titanfall 3* character classes than playing the traditional modes they were building. This led to the pivotal decision to pivot away from *Titanfall 3* toward what would become *Apex Legends*.

“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!”