Titanfall 2 review: fast-paced robot shooter blasts its rivals

The first-person shooter returns with a bunch of new multiplayer modes and a lone campaign that seeks to add emotional weight to the thundering action

It's always worth remembering where Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment came from. The studio was founded by the creators of Call of Duty and staffed by some of the most skilful stalwarts in the first-person shooter genre; from the best entries in Activision's behemoth franchise all the way back to 2002's Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Respawn's collective has made great cinematic shooters, and this team knows how to reinvent, rethink and reignite the genre. Titanfall 2 expands the multiplayer concept established by the original sci-fi shooter two years ago, adds an incredible single-player campaign and acts as a bold reminder of how brilliant this band of veteran gunslingers really is.

As with the original game, Titanfall 2's core ideas exist on two parallel playing fields. Firstly, there's the Pilot, a superhuman soldier capable of hyper athletic wall-running and double-jumping, with split-second reflexes that make for unrivalled marksmanship. They are the masters of any gun, the ultimate commander of any squad, and they treat the battlefield more like a jungle gym than a place of warfare. Obstacles and debris are not safe cover in the eyes of a Pilot. Instead they are opportunities for movement in order to turn impossible odds into a cakewalk.