Respawn is having a bad time getting projects not named Apex Legends or Star Wars: Jedi off the ground. But maybe, just maybe, they may have dodged a bullet by canceling a Titanfall extraction shooter.
If you're out of the loop, let me recap: this past April 29, Respawn announced layoffs that will impact the company's future, with two incubation projects being canned as a result.
A follow-up report by Jason Schreier shed some light on the situation, explaining that somewhere between 300 and 400 EA employees were laid off, with 100 being from Respawn. One of the canceled projects was an extraction shooter in the very early stages of development set in the Titanfall universe.
Chasing trends is a tough task. But, with a good long-term plan and a vision that separates a project from the rest, it can be a fruitful endeavor. After all, Respawn did it with Apex Legends. When they launched their battle royale in 2019 it felt like a breath of fresh air in a market that was slowly starting to feel overcrowded with the likes of Fortnite, Call of Duty Blackout (the precursor to Warzone), and PUBG.
With no proper plan set from the beginning, you can crash and burn like the infamous Radical Heights, a battle royale by Cliff Bleszinski's now-defunct studio Boss Key. It was released in 2018 in such a poor, rushed state, thatthe developers had the audacity to try and save face by stating it was a product in "X-Treme Early Access."
The issue with putting big money into an extraction shooter is simple, and it's quite the opposite of dealing with oversaturation: there's not a proven market for it. Despite the FPS genre having mass appeal, extraction shooters have remained a niche only hardcore players tend to enjoy, with no big AAA developers able to make a compelling project that brings it to the masses.
Bungie is set to become the first major player to take a crack at it with Marathon. Reception has been mixed, to put it lightly. From people claiming the shooter is set to be dead on arrival after it was confirmed as a paid experience to those who believe the Destiny and Halo creators have another hit on their hands. Safe to say, at the very least, the future of Marathon is uncertain.
Seeing the lukewarm reception could have made EA pull the plug on the idea of a Titanfall extraction shooter before they committed resources that could become more costly to scrap down the line. It's not the first time a studio would have done this.
In July 2024, reports surfaced of Riot Games canceling a platform fighter similar to Super Smash Bros Melee (a.k.a it would have been focused on competitive rather than casual players) after Warner Bros' MultiVersus failed spectacularly to capitalize on its initial interest.
Of course, the actual reason for the Titanfall extraction shooter's cancelation is still unknown. Respawn hasn't been able to figure out what it wants to do beyond becoming the Apex Legends caretaker and the Star Wars: Jedi series.
With many trend-chasing money-hungry higher-ups treating their developers as disposable human labor, discarding them when the latest generic rushed project fails to rack up the dough, opting to not move forward with an extraction shooter might be the sanest thing EA could have possibly done.
Layoffs are terrible, and it's hard to see many talented people suffer the consequences of bad management. But considering the alternative is a potential catastrophic failure that could deprive us of one amazing studio completely, I know which scenario I'm picking.