Titanfall

Titanfall was made by Respawn Entertainment, founded by Jason West and Vince Zampella after they left Infinity Ward, where they had helped create Call of Duty. Published by Electronic Arts, the first game, released in 2014, launched as a heavily promoted title for PC and Xbox. It paired extremely fast wall-running and double-jump movement with giant walking mechs called Titans that players could switch into on the fly, and it relied purely on multiplayer interspersed with short scripted scenes instead of a traditional single-player campaign.

Titanfall 2, in 2016, addressed that gap with a full campaign whose bond between pilot Jack Cooper and the Titan BT-7274, along with inventive levels such as Effect and Cause, rank among the most praised sequences of that era's shooters, while also expanding play with more Titan types and pilot skill trees. Despite critical acclaim, its commercial performance was overshadowed by launching between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and the series then went quiet for several years; in the meantime a mobile spin-off, Titanfall: Assault, a real-time strategy game, also appeared but did not last long.

Respawn Entertainment eventually followed up with the battle royale spin-off Apex Legends, set in the same universe, using a similar movement system and featuring characters drawn from Titanfall's pilots. Apex Legends became far more successful than either previous game and, for years, became the studio's main focus, while the fast movement Titanfall was known for went on to influence how later big action shooters handled traversal.