Titanfall’s director is working on ‘something new’ at Respawn

A “very small” team is in the early stages of developing an original IP at Respawn Entertainment.

In an interview with Axios, Respawn boss Vince Zampella said the “skunkworks” team is being led by Steve Fukuda, the game director of Titanfall and Titanfall 2.

“The mission is to find the fun in something new,” he said.

In another recent interview, Zampella said he’d “love to see” Titanfall 3 happen, but that “there are no exact dedicated plans for that”.

“It has to be the right thing. It’s such a beloved franchise for the fans and also for us,” he told Barron’s. “If it is not the right moment in time, the right idea, then it just doesn’t make sense.

“Apex [Legends] is the Titanfall universe, right? There’s how do you do something that doesn’t confuse people that are Apex fans, but not necessarily Titanfall fans yet. It’s a hard question to answer, but ultimately I would love to see something.”

In January, Respawn owner EA announced plans to close Apex Legends Mobile. It also reportedly cancelled an unannounced Titanfall game that was being planned as a single-player experience for Apex Legends.

Respawn recently opened a third development studio to work on Apex Legends. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, it’s working hand-in-hand with Respawn’s LA and Vancouver branches to help deliver a new season of the battle royale game every 90 days.

Apex Legends Season 17 will launch on May 9. Titled Arsenal, it will introduce new hero Ballistic, an updated World’s Edge map and an expanded Firing Range.

Further reading

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Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was released last week, and the studio has at least two more Star Wars games in the works.

One is an internally developed first-person shooter helmed by former LucasArts veteran and Medal of Honor co-creator Peter Hirschmann. The other is a strategy game developed in collaboration with Bit Reactor, a new studio formed by veterans of XCOM and Civilization maker Firaxis Games.