Respawn Entertainment: How We Created The Stryder, Ogre And Atlas Titans For Titanfall

Jessica Chobot talks to the Respawn team about the design of the Titans within their upcoming shooter Titanfall to discover where the inspiration came from and how they will influence the final game.

Titan artist Joel Emslie designed the Titans to be all-in-one weaponry, whilst retaining their own distinct personalities. As beta players will know, the Atlas is a strong all-round Titan with decent armour and manoeuvrability; a mixture of the two other classes. The Stryder is visually lighter and therefore more vulnerable than the others, but it also has the greatest agility. Finally there is the Ogre, a slow moving Titan which can take a huge amount of damage.

To demonstrate these personalities while also keeping movement fluent, it takes a great deal of time and patience in motion capture studios. Each Titan shows its own distinct types of movement, melee attacks and a trademark Titanfall. Getting to this stage was not done through concept art, but 3D models which were built and altered time and again until each design was perfect.

Each design aspect has to be looked at to keep balancing perfect. Having huge Titans running about is thrilling but Pilots also need to feel like they can hold their own against these giants. This is achieved by giving the pilots their own arsenal to take down a Titan if used well and the means to quickly enter and exit a Titan depending on the situation.