Several Titanfall devs have left Respawn for Infinity Ward after EA acquisition. - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.pcgamesn.com/titanfall-2/titanfall-devs-leave-respawn-infinity-ward An exhaustively-sourced Reddit post lists eight developers who have recently left Respawn and, in some cases, returned to Infinity Ward. They include lead game designer Geoffrey Smith, senior game designer John Mundy, and art lead Joel Emslie. Respawn was acquired by EA last year in a deal worth more than $400 million USD, and the publishers have said they are committed to the Titanfall franchise, Respawn’s excellent first-person shooter series. https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE

What a shame. I thought Titanfall 2 was one of the best shooters of recent memory.

Of all the companies they could be acquired by, they thought EA was a good idea? I doubt EA will be able to properly manage Respawn and the Titanfall franchise well - this was already shown by their release date for Titanfall 2. Now with 3 yearly (ish) shooter franchises (Battlefield, Star Wars™ Battlefront™, Titanfall) I have very little doubt EA is going to end up killing (intentionally or not) one of their IPs merely by trying to avoid their own properties competing with one another. I _wonder_ which one they'll kill, and which studio will be destroyed .

Going back to IW? It's like a fucked up game of hot potato.

Those poor bastards honestly should've just opened their own independent studio. Titanfall 2 was one of the best shooters released in the last couple years, and it got fucked either through incompetence or malice by EA. And I don't think I need to state why Infinity Ward isn't much better.

Then get a decent dev like ubisoft/DD.

I still believe EA deliberately pushed that launch date to between Call of Duty and Battlefield in the hopes that Titanfall 2 would get enough sales that the offer of acquisition wouldn't raise too many eyebrows but low enough that Respawn would be in a poor financial situation for their next title.

I dont know where else in the AAA sector they could've gone to since all of them did a public fuckup at one point It might've been better if they went indie and made medium sized games like Hellblade under a bit smaller publisher

Titanfall 2 is one my all time favorites, so hearing this news really makes my heart sink.

Everyone knew the writing was on the wall when they first announced being acquired. In fact the studio head said he knew what he was doing, but apparently the team says otherwise.

I think primarily IW/ActBlizz is poaching the shit out of talent right now, a few of the developers that left have hinted. That said, I think the EA deal was a literal deal with the devil and Respawn should've told EA to pound sand.

I always felt EA acquiring Respawn was inevatible since they helped publish (and even finance, I believe) both Titanfall 1 + 2. It's still a shame, but not unexpected. It's another hopeful and promising franchise that's likely to get chocked to death by EA's microtransactions bullshit.

Since Titanfall 1 (and possibly 2) were derived from Source Engine I really wish Valve stepped in and did something.

Titanfall 1 and 2 are proof of the potential of source engine. I would not trust valve in taking in the Titanfall devs, cause that potential would be pretty much stagnated due to Valve's horrendous company structure.

Acquire Respawn Entertainment so they put Titanfall 3 on hold long enough for all of the writers and designers to find jobs actually releasing products?

T2 wasnt made with source exactly, it was made with a hacked version respawn put together. Like how IW's engine is a hacked version of quake.

i mean down to the files its basically source engine. Its structured exactly the same from me digging it apart to extract models and such. So i wouldn't exactly call it a completely new thing.

Stop going back to EA or Activision, jesus fuck, you guys keep getting fucked by them. Make a studio, do kickstarter, something else.

Most of these guys are older now and require stable paying jobs which the big companies provide. Making a new studio or relying on crowdfunding is a big gamble.

Sadly I think they migt've gone back to IW simply because at least there they have simpler and more secure jobs, CoD will sell every year regardless and the pay was presumably good enough for them to take it. I don't mean to sound defeatist but perhaps the best bet for each individual dev would be to find some secure work and just sit comfortable for a while, I wouldn't be surprised if some Ex-Maxis and Westwood lads tipped them off telling them to bail ASAP because of what EA is like.

Ranon Sarono, one of Titanfall 2's animators, and the man responsible for these atrocities, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WasgRxx6r4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUoH1QY4CyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YvoiYHs9Dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRm-BSukPds ...also left Respawn a while ago. I find it unfortunate because in Titanfall 2, you can clearly tell which weapon reloads he did and did not do, because the ones he didn't do just aren't as good. ;_;

He joined Infinity Ward along with Mark Grigsby, who was the lead animator at IW up until MW2 and at Respawn as well as the voice/likeness for Sgt. Griggs in CoD4. Rumor has it that their next game is Modern Warfare 4, so I guess that's why IW has been trying to hire a lot of these guys back. They must have been offered a pretty good deal to get them from Respawn. I also get the impression that Hyper might like animating real guns more than made-up ones.

It'd be a shame if Respawn doesn't get to make another Titanfall. Seriously, Titanfall 2 was great fun, and probably the only EA game that I would buy in a heartbeat, if only to support the Respawn team and keep them from dying on the same hill as Visceral. I'm just hoping their Star Wars game doesn't get canceled and kill the company.

So apparently this is from a resetera post by Rayme Vinson, senior programmer at Respawn "To calm things a bit: Geoff, Joel, and Grigsby (and Madison, and others) all transferred well before the EA sale, over the course of a year or so. There’s not some run-for-the-door exodus. They’ll all do good work, and you can bet I’ll forever throw down cash for a Geoff Smith map. So expect good stuff from them . But yeah; the majority of the team that built Titanfall 2 (hi), and plenty of new hires, are again working away on a Video Game for Your Enjoyment. Expect good stuff there, too. ;) (As for Respawn-within-EA: speaking only for myself: the new overlord situation is going well from my PoV. Ask me again after some titles have shipped and we’ve lived through the full cycle, fair enough, but I expected to be 60% disgruntled by now, and am pleasantly... not. =p)" (source: https://www.resetera.com/threads/lots-of-respawn-folks-are-re-joining-infinity-ward.43658/page-3#post-8114807)

The double take and the mozambique animations in slowmo was godlike. Dude is a magician with detailed movement and animations.

People need money to put bread on the table. Not every developer has a publisher on speed-dial to help fund them a new studio...

Respawn bought a full Source Engine license (Portal 2 build) and added/replaced a few parts. It's not an engine overhaul by any means.

games like titanfall are expensive to make and distribute. they unfortunately needed a big publisher

I would by no means called it a ""hacked version"" but I think calling it an engine overhaul is pretty accurate considering they pretty much entirely rebuilt the rendering engine.

not entirely and there's significantly more to a game engine than just the renderer and map loader.