Titanfall is the new shooter from Call of Duty veterans Jason West and Vince Zampella, who have since formed development studio Respawn Entertainment. Its multiplayer focus pits humans and giant, usable robots against each other in 6 versus 6 matches, aided by artificial opponents.
It’s quite different from your normal modern shooter and it moves at a fast pace, so take a moment to read this Titanfall guide to move up in the ranks as fast as possible. You’ll be taking down those Titans singlehandedly in no time.
Training Simulation:
Go through the tutorial. Just do it. It’s an extremely fluid session that takes 15 minutes and tells you more things that you’ll use in your starting matches, so you’ve got room to spare. Incidentally, it’s also a nice tribute of EA towards the free running elements in Mirror’s Edge.
Important basics to remember are wall running to get to new places, double jumping appropriately, using the stealth skill to stay undetected and learning how the Smart Pistol works. For the Titan robot, it’s important to learn how to guard, as well as getting away to recharge the shield protection.
Things To Remember:
Just in case you want an extra reminder, here’s a quick reminder of your skills and various things in the game:
- Wall run: Simply jump against the side of the wall and you’ll start speeding. You can also jump to another wall to prolong your run.
- Double Jump: Once in the air, you can jump again, to allow you to reach higher or further places. This resets when you hit a wall, so you can jump even higher!
- Climb: Jumping to the edge of a platform allows you to automatically climb on. You can do this on friendly or enemy Titans as well!
- Sprint: An option in the settings will allow you to turn this on automatically. Speed is important, so either put it on full auto or delayed.
- Melee: You can take down opponents with a flying kick. If you do it from the back, you’ll instantly snap their neck and kill them. Your Titan has a powerful blow as well!
- Titan: This is your robot pal that you can drive. It takes a few minutes to get ready and if it explodes, you’ll need to wait some time to get a new one.
- Embark Titan: Holding the action button will let you climb in your Titan. Hold again to disembark and engage pilots manually.
- Dodge: A Titan can’t jump. Instead, they get two dodges, which recharge over time. Learn to use these when engaging opponents and not so much just to get to places faster. It makes the difference.
- Doomed: If you see that your Titan is doomed, it means that it’s going to blow up when the gauge has run down. It’s inevitable, so make sure to get the hell away, before it’s too late.
- Eject: When your Titan is doomed, it will explode. Triple click the action button to safely get propelled out of the machine. There’s no fall damage, so don’t worry.
- Core Ability: Your Titan’s special power that charges up over time. Unleash it to temporarily gain benefits, such as more damage.
- Burn Card: An item that you won’t see in the beginning period of the game, as it only unlocks after several levels. It can give you a temporary boost, depending on the card’s effect, until you die.
- Map: The top left has all the info you need on your surroundings, including friends, enemies, artificial opponents and possible control points. It’s the most important part of the game, so pay attention to it.
Pilot Loadouts:
Before jumping in a match, you want to make sure that you’re equipped for your first fight. In the very beginning, you’ll have the choice between a Rifleman with a powerful rifle or an Assassin with a pistol. A few levels later, you’ll get a CQB class, equipped with a shotgun.
It’s possible to customize a pilot, but at the start of your multiplayer journey, the Assassin is actually the perfect fit. We’ll explain your choices below:
Assassin Loadout:
- Primary Weapon – Smart Pistol MK5: This gun finds your targets on the screen and locks on automatically. You don’t even need to aim; just wait quietly for it to turn red and squeeze the trigger.
- Anti-Titan Weapon – Sidewinder: The more powerful Archer Heavy Rocket is too slow. This weapon allows you to pop quick shots and hide before the Titan retaliates.
- Sidearm – RE-45 Autopistol: Its accelerated fire will allow you to be less accurate, while you get started. It’s also a powerful alternative to the Smart Pistol when facing fast opponents.
- Tactical Ability – Cloak: As fresh meat, you want to stay undetected. By using your skill, you’ll temporarily become less visible, allowing you to quietly run through open spaces.
- Ordinance – Frag Grenade: This is the standard for everyone, but it helps to clear a room of pesky soldiers, before terminating the rest with the Smart Pistol or a few good kicks.
- Kit 1 – Power Cell: This allows you to recharge your Cloak ability faster, making you less visible more times. Don’t go for extra ordinance, as your enemy can spot that. You can’t fight what you can’t see.
- Kit 2 – Minion Detector: Keeping further control over the battlefield, this will expand the info on your map, to reveal more enemies. This allows you to choose if it’s wise to engage a threat or throw a grenade beforehand.
Titan Loadouts:
Starting off, you’ll receive the choice between an Assault Titan with a machine gun, a Tank with a powerful rifle and the Artillery build with rocket launchers. Each mech comes with both a regular health bar and a shield that recharges over time.
Similar to your pilot pick, it’s possible to customize a setup, but the Tank Titan is perfect as is.
Tank Loadout:
- Weapon – 40MM Cannon: This all-purpose weapon has a sizable kick and has enough ammo to shred through defenses, without requiring the accuracy of the weaker machine gun. While the rocket launcher will sound appealing, it’s way too slow and you need to keep moving.
- Tactical Ability – Vortex Shield: Mastering this is the most important part of your Titan, more important than your weapon. The shield allows you to stop incoming ammo and shoot it right back at your opponent in one incredibly damaging blow.
- It can instantly kill Titans when charged up sufficiently. Don’t panic by pressing it immediately, but wait to see exactly when your opponent starts firing. Master this and you master the field.
- Ordinance – Rocket Salvo: Similar to grenades, everyone starts with these. They shoot a set of unguided missiles, so make sure you’re lined up correctly before blasting. It helps if you see that your opponent has depleted their two dodges.
- Kit 1 – Nuclear Ejection: You’re going to lose your Titan a lot at first. It’s best if you get a final use out of it by blowing it up in a giant explosion that does tremendous damage.
- Unlike every other action you’ll do in the beginning, where you run away from combat, you’ll want to get really close to opponents before ejecting. This is your most risky move in the game. Ejecting is a priority though.
- Kit 2 – Survivor: Ensuring you have the time to line up your nuclear injection and eject, this skill will prolong the time your Titan stays doomed, without detonating.
- Core Ability – Damage Core: When your gauge is filled up, you can use this to temporarily do a lot more damage. It takes a while though, so stay alive by periodically running away to charge up your defense shield.
Game Mode:
To get you started, you need to know what weird-sounding modes offer the known gameplay of other shooters. Items like Attrition stand for the Deathmatch genre, while Hardpoint will work as a control point system.
Hardpoint: Attrition will get you killed too often while learning the ropes, so you don’t want to lose it for your team. In Hardpoint, you can take over control points for the team and stay out of dodge when necessary.
Concentrate mostly on taking over points and looking over entry points. Your Smart Pistol will indicate when enemies are moving in, making you the perfect defense post.
Alternatively, stay in your Titan and provide backup to your team to take over the point.
What’s What In Titanfall:
There’s a difference in enemies and vehicles during any round. Most of it can be found on the map, so be sure that you always keep an eye on it.
- Friendly: Any allied units are shown in blue on the map. Go where your friends are. They probably need your help.
- Control Points: Letters indicated on the map show you where the capture spots are located. A blue letter stands for an allied point, while orange letters need to be taken over.
- Grunts: It’s just a simple artificial intelligence (AI) unit. Appears as a small node on the map and can be taken out with just one Smart Pistol shot.
- Spectre: More advanced AI soldier, with more armor and technology on its outfit, but a smaller node than regular enemies. They can cloak and require three Smart Pistol shots to lock before an instant kill.
- Enemy pilot: A big red dot on the map shows a human opponent, which will most likely be visibly more mobile and isn’t easily taken down like grunts. An enemy also requires multiple locks from the Smart Pistol to be killed.
- Enemy Titan: Huge red arrows on your map are bad. These are the bad guys’ robots. They hurt, a lot. Take caution when engaging these deadly beasts.
- Drop Ship: A vehicle that appears as a bright node on the map at the end of the round. Jump on board before it leaves, if you lost. Victors should shoot the drop ship down, before it leaves with survivors.
Remember that as you gain experience from fights, it’s also important to move away from your comfort zone. After you’ve gotten the basics down, slowly experiment with new loadout elements. Don’t immediately go for a radical change; just alter one or two things and see if those work out. You’ll get there.
If you need any more tips, let us know in the comments!
