Preparing for Titanfall: mobility
As the official release is midnight tonight, this will be the final Preparing for Titanfall article, focusing on one of the game’s key traits: player mobility. While some of the topics covered here were mentioned in the verticality article, the main point here is to emphasize just how fast you are in the game. If you’re used to games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, prepare to be surprised by your character’s agility. If you come from games like Quake, Tribes, TF2, the kind of speed possible in Titanfall is nothing new, but for a shooter as rote as Respawn’s game is, mobility is a welcome relief.
Gotta go fast, gotta jump high
As yet another successor to Quake, based as it is in the Source Engine, Titanfall is all about speed, reflexes, and constant, frenetic movement. Pair high character speed with a double jump and, if you’ve played Tribes or the Scout in TF2, you know what you’re looking at. Unlike either game, Titanfall gives everyone the same capabilities from the get go. Your sprint speed is set, as is your base jump height, and there’s only one way to get around faster while on foot: wall running. Skiing isn’t a thing, as the maps aren’t big enough, and there are no other players moving faster or slower than you. From a purely technical standpoint, the only reason you’ll get anywhere before your enemies is if you can parkour better than they can.
On that note, the greatest additions to mobility Respawn added were the free running elements, and the momentum based mechanics grant the most freedom this side of a rocket jump. The best Titanfall players will be those who can capitalize on the roads, or walls, not traveled, traversing the map in unexpected ways at unexpected speeds, escaping into a window when the heat gets too high.
Coupling character speed with wall running will only get you so far, of course. To that end, there’s mantling and wall hanging, usable and useful given the right context. Your skill at finding and exploiting every corner of the maps will help determine your success, sometimes more than you gunskill or proficiency in a titan.
Titans too are vulnerable to the mobile opponent, despite their own agility. Give a speedy pilot a good area to haunt and a rocket launcher and even the mightiest titan had best run to avoid inevitable doom. Parkouring pilots, played in tandem with aggressive titans are a recipe for victory time and again, and you would be well served learning the ins and outs of every map you come across, especially how best to not be seen.
