Titanfall

Titanfall was the debut title of Respawn Entertainment, founded by former Call of Duty creators Vince Zampella and Jason West, and became one of the most anticipated exclusives of the early Xbox One era. The game combines fast infantry shooting with wall-running parkour movement and double jumps with massive bipedal mechs called Titans, which the player calls down to the battlefield after a countdown and either personally pilots or lets fight autonomously.

The switch between the agile pilot and the ponderous but devastating power of a Titan creates unique dynamics, where experienced players can attack Titans from behind, rip the fuel cell out of their hull, jump out of the cockpit on the run, and become vulnerable infantry again. The maps were designed with two layers at once — ground-level streets and halls for the mechs, and a tangle of rooftops, walkways, and walls for the pilots — so the same arena offers two different games simultaneously, and escaping a Titan simply means jumping somewhere it can't reach. The feel of the shooting, and especially of the movement, was exceptionally polished and still ranks among the best the genre has offered.

The game was purely multiplayer, without a classic single-player campaign; the story played out through radio chatter and scripted events happening directly during network matches divided into two factional campaigns. Respawn Entertainment also relied heavily on Microsoft Azure server infrastructure, among other things for the behavior of the non-player soldiers who fill the battlefield and give less experienced players opportunities for easier kills and a faster Titan call-in. Despite the lack of offline content and a gradually thinning player base, Titanfall became an influential title that defined the trend of fast, acrobatic multiplayer design and paved the way for a more successful sequel two years later.