As the old saying goes, “bigger is better” although in the case of multiplayer shooter games this isn’t always true. While Titanfall may go big in terms of the giant mechs it features, the player count for Respawn and EA’s upcoming sci-fi shooter is a little on the smaller side.
While we’ve know for a while that Titanfall would contain a smaller number of players in matches (the E3 demo had 7 on 7), Respawn founder Vince Zampella confirmed on Twitter that Titanfall matches would max out at 12 humans, so 6 versus 6. The backlash to this news has been kind of over the top, as is the way with the Internet, but is 6v6 really that bad?
Many of the best competitive shooters out there, from Counter-Strike to Halo, have always had smaller matches because with more people things just get a little too hectic. Battlefield is one of the only games to pull this off because that’s their gimmick, but sometimes a full 64 player match can get kinda of crazy. Respawn additionally confirmed that the Titans, while capable of being directly controlled by a player, can also be automated to defend a specific area or follow a person around, so the matches are essentially 12 v 12 with some AI enemies padding things out.
I played Titanfall at PAX Prime 2013 and I honestly didn’t notice that it was a smaller game. With all of the AI enemies constantly dropping in, the action felt fast and frenetic and captured the feeling of being a small part of a larger battle. I’ll wait to actually play the game proper before making my judgement, but given how Titanfall felt at PAX, I imagine 6 v 6 will be just fine.
What do you guys think about this? Did the Internet overreact? Are more players essential, or do you prefer things to be a bit more…intimate?
Source – Vince Zampella Twitter