Titanfall 2 Review

Respawn built a six-hour campaign as an apology for the first game not having one and accidentally shipped the best first-person shooter level design of its decade. The Beacon time-travel level, where a wrist device flips between two states of the same facility mid-jump, would be a full game's central mechanic anywhere else; here it appears once, works perfectly, and is then discarded. Every mission does that. The smart pistol gauntlet, the factory assembly line that builds the room around you, the Gauntlet time trial that teaches movement by making you want to shave a second off.

Wall-running and slide-hopping give the pilot a movement language most shooters still cannot match, and BT's relationship with Cooper is written with restraint instead of sentiment. Multiplayer's titan classes and pilot loadouts are sharply balanced, and the boost economy keeps matches escalating rather than stalling. It was buried commercially by a release date wedged between two giants, which is the only thing wrong with it the developers actually controlled.