Titanfall 2

Developers Respawn are undoubtedly now more famous for both Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Apex Legends, two utterly vast hits. But it was with giant-robot-piloting FPS Titanfall that the studio (formed by Call of Duty legends Jason West and Vince Zampella) made its name. The original game, released in 2014, was an extremely strong multiplayer shooter, but it was the 2016 sequel that entered legendary territory. And, weirdly, not primarily for its multiplayer.

Titanfall 2’s single-player campaign was a massive surprise. (Too much of one, if anything, given the game’s lack of commercial success, squashed as it was between Battlefield 1 and CoD: Infinite Warfare.) Its linear story about Titan pilots fighting on the world of Typhon isn’t stunningly original, but it’s the setting and the level design that make this such a favorite.

A few traditional opening missions establish that this is a great shooter, set in enormous open levels, with multiple pathways to find. You’re wall-running, shooting, and sneaking, seeking out power to get your buddy Titan BT in working order, and generally having a good time. And then you find the neighborhood factory. A literal factory that produces entire prefabricated neighborhoods. The scale is extraordinary. And then the time travel begins

The game is bursting with creative ideas and missions containing features that could have been entire games to themselves. It makes it heartbreaking that Titanfall appears to be no more, evolved into Apex Legends with nary a sniff of single-player giganto-robo potential. But we’ll always have Titanfall 2.