Titanfall's Death Spiral: A 'Consolidation' of Game Modes Kills CTF

We've never covered a game more extensively than we did Titanfall; it was the first game featured in our individualized video card benchmarks, we wrote crash fix guides to mitigate rampant bugs in beta, and produced a Last Titan Standing strategy guide for fans of the mode. The game has long been a bit of a shortcoming in my eyes, though; it wants desperately to be a twitch shooter, and yet so many things are wrong -- like the weaponset (should be more explosive, like in Unreal Tournament) and lack of a server browser. Once again, PC gamers have been handed a console interface and been told to toddle off and have fun.

Still, we could get by with the matchmaking UI by selecting the preferred game mode and waiting the arduously long pre-match period. It took approximately 3-5 minutes to find a CTF match (and included the oh-so-necessary 80-second delay between rounds), but that was fine for those who enjoyed the game mode. EA and Respawn say that this wait was ruining the gaming experience, so, naturally, they've elected to remove the option to play CTF almost entirely.

CTF and Pilot Hunter will remain in "variety" pack rotation, but have been eliminated from the matchmaking screen as individual options. In place of these, Respawn has added two new "Expedition" modes, which both require the $10 Expedition DLC or $25 " SeasonPass." Because where CTF allegedly split the community, introducing modes that require DLC somehow won't do the same. Flawless logic.

Here's what Respawn had to say:

"CTF and Pilot Hunter have not been widely used modes on the PC version. Players trying to access these modes had overlong wait times to find other users and it was making for a poor experience. We want to make sure that not only is there compelling content in the playlists we offer, but that the experience of joining a match works well."

And here we've got developers still trying to move away from proper server browsers, which would solve the issue of playerbase naturally and absolve Respawn of all responsibility of involvement. Phenomenal. Just phenomenal levels of ignorance.

Titanfall still lists CTF and Pilot Hunter on the official website (good spot, RPS). 

- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.