According to McCoy, “The world thinks we’re making Titanfall 3 and we’re not – this is what we’re making,” he said. “To try and convince a skeptical audience for months with trailers and hands-on articles, we’re just like, ‘Let the game speak for itself’ – it’s the most powerful antidote to potential problems. We’re doing a free to play game, with essentially loot boxes, after we were bought by EA, and it’s not Titanfall 3. It’s the perfect recipe for a marketing plan to go awry, so why have that – let’s just ship the game and let players play.”
There were reports that Titanfall 3 was in the works dating back to 2017 following EA’s acquisition of Respawn. In fact Kotaku had also heard more recently that the company was working on a third Titanfall game, which we suppose is true of Apex Legends as it is a spinoff of the franchise.
It is unclear why Respawn decided not to pursue a full-fledged Titanfall game, but presumably EA’s acquisition of the studio might have played a role in it. We’re not sure if Titanfall 3 will ever be released, but for now fans of the franchise probably shouldn’t hold their breath.