YMMV / Titanfall 2

• Adorkable: BT-7274's occasional quirky behaviors provide an endearing contrast to his seriousness regarding the mission. If his attempts to free himself from a manipulator arm don't count, then the awkward thumbs-up he gives to Cooper sure does.
• Best Level Ever: Titanfall 2 is full of creative level designs, especially for the then-stagnant singleplayer FPS design trends, but of them all "Effect and Cause" is often the most cited as the best and most inventive level. It centers around a unique gimmick where the player can phase between two different points in time: a squeaky clean research facility in the past, and its dilapidated ruins in the present. This mechanic challenges and adds depth to basically every part of the gameplay; players can phase to get past unbroken glass walls and burning ruins, jump between points in time to access walls that aren't normally there, and challenges players to juggle two combat encounters simultaneously, battling IMC security in the past while fending off discarded Stalkers and Prowlers in the present. And then it climactically ends with the player jumping into BT-7274 and bringing the timewarp shenanigans to Titan combat, before charging the overloading Fold Weapon to get a scan of it.
• Breather Level: The above-mentioned "Effect and Cause" definitely counts, especially after the hard slog of "Into the Abyss". Due to the level being centred around fun interactions with the time-shifting mechanic, most combat can be avoided by blinking the enemies out of existence (or simply materialising right in front of them with a shotgun). There's no Boss Battle either, and to top it off there are only 2 (easily noticeable) Pilot Helmets to be found if you're going for 100% Completion.
• Broken Base:
  • Some Titanfall veterans note there's less verticality in Titanfall 2 map designs, allowing more grounds for Titans to freely move to cover, limiting Pilots' effectiveness against them. Meanwhile, other players cite Anti-Titan weaponry aren't as viable when dealing against opposing Titans in the sequel and certain Boosts are more potent than others ("Map Hack" being a primary contender). Even though Respawn continues to fine-tune multiplayer alongside every Downloadable Content update, it remains to be seen whether these changes are helpful or not.
  • Despite the seven Titans in multiplayer being balanced with each having its own share of Weaksauce Weakness, there's concern with some players on whether the Tone-class Titan had a greater advantage due to its well-roundedness compared to the other classes (its primary "40mm Tracker Cannon" and "Tracker Missiles" ordinance are damaging at any range against opposing Titans, the Tracker Cannon can One-Hit Kill Pilots with a direct shot, its "Particle Wall" barrier absorbs all damage outside of a "Nuclear Ejection" and can launch the Titan equivalent of the "Pulse Blade" Tactical Ability for Pilots repeatedly to zone in on enemy Pilots). Even with Nerfs following the content updates specifically targeting Tone, this Titan still receives the most criticism from players.
  • Titans being more fragile, thus easier to destroy, in the second game than they were in the first: some believe this makes Titans less viable as the game-changing juggernauts they are supposed to be, but others state this gives dismounted Pilots more of a fighting chance against them in the sequel.
  • The fact that Titans in this game are set classes, with no customization available for weapons or shield abilities and limited kit options, has upset some players who liked the varied customization choices available in the first Titanfall. Of note is this class system was intended by Respawn Entertainment to ensure designated loadouts can handle certain situations well - that players will instantly know what to expect when facing them.
• Cliché Storm: A common complaint about the campaign from players and viewers was the story is cliche and predictable - practically everyone saw BT's Heroic Sacrifice (and subsequent Disney Death) coming a mile away.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Expect Pilots in Competitive Multiplayer to rock either the "Cloak" or Pulse Blade Tactical Ability, with Map Hack the most commonly used Boost.
  • Tone is the go-to Titan of choice for players, given her Jack of All Stats nature, making it easy to deal enough damage against enemy Titans with her Tracker Cannon and Tracker Missiles combination, alongside the Particle Wall defensive ability negating all forward damage.
  • For Pilots who use the Ronin-class Titan (and they’re about as numerous as Tone users), the "Nuclear Explosion" Titan kit seems to be particularly prevalent. Ronin players also like to use the "Battery Back-up" Boost so they can enter their Titans with free shielding, thereby boosting the starting durability of their relatively flimsy Titans.
  • Upon bringing back "Frontier Defense" mode in the Sequel, it seems every team worth their salt will have at least one Monarch-class Titan with them, as they are the only model capable of regularly providing shields to allied Titans, especially at higher difficulties.
  • The Grapple is extremely common among players at all skill levels. For beginners, the ability to instantly reach higher levels and easily grab onto Titans is an obvious bonus, while veteran players have learned to exploit the game's physics to slingshot themselves high into the air and halfway across the map at a moment's notice. The ability to play Scorpion with your opponents is also a plus. For many players, the use of it has become so basic that they're calling for any sequels to make the Grapple standard for all pilots.
  • Among players who use Sniper Rifles, the vast majority of them will take the Kraber. Despite the slow rate of fire and physical projectile, the fact that it’s a One-Hit Kill against Pilots no matter where it hits (and can even One-Hit Polykill through penetration and/or the Ricochet mod) more than makes up for that. Not helping are the numerous “Kraber God” videos of player making deadly use of it even when going full bore with Parkour or the Grapple and Stim abilities.
  • The CAR is widely agreed to be the best automatic weapon in the game, and as a consequence is frequently used. Great spread makes it easy to catch mobile players, high damage at close range and surprisingly lenient bullet drop make it much stronger than even most assault rifles. While the magazine size is small, Titanfall 2 has infinite ammo anyways, making ammo conservation a nonissue. Everyone, both new and old players, can get far by using it.
• Complete Monster: General Marder leads the IMC's ARES Division to uncover alien weapons to combat the Frontier Militia. Forcibly taking over the planet Typhon and experimenting on the native life, Marder also led the attack on Colony G21, massacring numerous colonists while using the survivors as disposable test subjects for the Ark. Marder would use the Ark to activate the Fold Weapon, which he plans to use to destroy any highly populated planets loyal to the Militia, starting with the planet Harmony. Though claiming to be fighting for the betterment of humanity, Marder admits that he places no value on such life, viewing all the millions he has or intends to kill as expendable to bring about his twisted notions of progress.
• Cult Classic: Arguably one of the most notable examples in the history of first-person shooters, especially in the Triple-A sphere. While Titanfall 2 did review well at launch, boasting a strong complete package which combined great experiences for both multiplayer and single-player (which was already starting to become a rarity for the genre), it sold poorly due in part to being released between industry juggernauts Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1, causing it to be lost in the shuffle. Despite this, the game enjoyed a very dedicated fanbase which allowed it to thrive against the competition. The massive success of Apex Legends caused many of its players to pick up Titanfall 2 due to their commonalities, and a later Steam release in 2020 led to an even stronger resurgence.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • "Reapers": when players aren't using a Titan, Reapers are the deadliest of all non-Titan Mooks in the campaign, especially at higher difficulties, being the most durable, firing near-accurate "Reapers Rockets" and behaving like The Juggernaut as they zone-in on players for a melee swipe and Shockwave Stomp. Furthermore, not destroying a Reaper fast enough and they will produce a seemingly-infinite stream of Ticks (see Goddamned Bats below) until players put them down permanently. Thankfully, Reapers lose the ability to generate Ticks constantly in Competitive Multiplayer(but pick it right back up for Frontier Defense), but are otherwise no less deadly: encountering a lone Reaper without a Titan or other friendly support is a difficult fight as it is; plus, Reapers tend to drop in pairs and actively hunt targets down, thus it's not uncommon to have a Reaper or two suddenly destroy players unexpectedly if they're not careful late into a match. Fortunately in multiplayer, Reapers are either attacking everybody ("Bounty Hunt") or half of them are on your side ("Attrition").
  • For the Co-Op Multiplayer mode Frontier Defense, enemy Arc Titans and Scorch Titans gained notoriety for being incredibly hard to take down while dishing out damage to both players and the "Harvester". In particular, Scorch becomes the biggest threat to allied Titans due to its Damage Over Time abilities. On top of that, late waves do spawn both types in droves, which forces players into spending their earned credits on more extreme tactics like "Nuke Rodeo"^note Upon a successful rodeo on an enemy Titan, instantly trigger its Self-Destruct Mechanism just to get rid of them before they overwhelm the Harvester.
  • On the other side of the coin are the Arc Titans; Ronins with an electrical field that saps shields, distorts its victims' vision, and fries anything within said field. Said electrical field's ability to quickly fry exposed pilots means attempting to take their battery or use Nuke Rodeo on them is next to impossible without dying. However, once they do become doomed, they're easy prey for a team.
  • And if you or your teammates aren’t paying attention, Mortar Spectres and Titans can be just as dangerous.
  • And did we mention Reapers can endlessly spawn Ticks again?
  • What can be worse than Ticks or Stalkers, you may ask? Two words: Nuke Titans. Unlike Scorch, Nuke Titans tend to come in droves from multiple directions, either forcing your team to split up to control the march of doom, or be willing to let a few slip by and self-destruct by the harvester. As a side effect of coming in said groups, Nuke Titans tend to cover each other against rodeoing pilots and, if weak enough, killing one Nuke Titan may set off a chain reaction that sets multiple units off at once.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Amongst the Apex Predators encountered during the campaign, Viper gained a lot of popularity thanks to his ruthless, emotionless and professional demeanor, in comparison to some of his more boisterous, sociopathic teammates. It also helps his Boss Battle ends on quite a high note, with Viper refusing to go down so easily even after being shot out of the sky, and managing to rip off BT's left arm before Cooper finally guns him down. So popular is he that his legacy continues in Apex Legends by way of his equally badass daughter, Valkyrie.
  • Ash is also rather popular thanks to being a Dark Action Girl with a haunting white mask and calm yet malevolent personality. To that end, Apex Legends almost feels like it reaches Fan Service-y catering towards Ash fans, with her greatly expanded relevance in the story, lore, gameplay, and presence as a playable character.
  • The 6-4 squadron, largely in part to being a unique, likable, close-knit unit who provide in-game support during the campaign mission, "The Ark"; case in point, two of its members return to provide Mission Control duties in Frontier Defense.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
  • Not only were both games released within a week of one another, the heads of Respawn Entertainment used to be part of Infinity Ward and were largely credited with the ascension of the Call of Duty franchise to mainstream success. Furthermore, fans of Titanfall argue the most recent Call of Duty installments followed the trend of the first Titanfall game by taking a future warfare setting and applying game mechanics such as Double Jump and Wall Running. Finally, whereas Infinite Warfare has been heavily criticized by critics and players for high-priced Downloadable Content and microtransactions placed to help mitigate Level Grinding in multiplayer, Titanfall 2 features free post-launch support for just about everything (executions, maps, multiplayer modes, Titans, weapons). Even though Titanfall 2 does have additional paid content available, it has non-randomized, one-off purchase cosmetic bundles rather than Random Number God-fuelled microtransactions where players don't know what they're paying for until they buy it.
  • It doesn't help the games have Surprisingly-Similar Stories: they concern The War of Earthly Aggression with outer colonies rebelling against a central authority, in which the Player Character is an everyman grunt with Le Parkour abilities and a signature vehicle they can climb into for additional fun and/or mayhem. The difference is that each title shows the war from opposing sides: in Titanfall 2, players are a member of the La Résistance against the MegaCorp, while Infinite Warfare pits players, members of The Federation, against a ruthless, uncivilized rebellion. (That said, Reyes' vehicle is a Space Fighter where Cooper's is a Humongous Mecha. Additionally, IW's campaign is significantly less linear, and the games have very different tones.)
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Ace", for when a player manages to single-handedly kill the entire enemy team in Live Fire.
  • "Charging Star": The tactic of advancing and using a Scorch-class Titan's "Flame Shield" offensively is often called this as a reference to the same-named "Hyper Combo" used by the character in his Capcom vs. appearances.
  • "Spicy Boys" or "Spicy Bois": A moniker for "Ticks" from some players who have taken a liking to them in Competitive Multiplayer for the game.
  • "Papa Scorch", a reference to the Titan class and its specialty; likely based on the "Papa Johns" American pizza chain.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Attack on Titan once again, especially with the introduction of the "Grappling Hook" that can latch onto enemy Titans like the series' "3D Maneuver Gear".
  • With the Zaibatsu as well, thanks to Woolie being a massive fan of the game and pushing for its success. The subreddit was overjoyed when the game was made part of PS+ in December 2019 and saw the playercount reach seventy thousand, with several people even apologizing for not getting the game sooner.
  • Also with the other TF2, as fans have noticed similarities beyond the games' acronymized names: they're fast-paced shooters with heavy emphasis on movement techniques, played in teams with mostly-optional teamwork, and their official games are plagued by script kiddies who have the express desire to ruin everyone else's fun, forcing players to pursue community-hosted servers. Youtuber FUNKe, a fan of both games, highlights the eerie similarities in both titles' decline.
• Fridge Horror: What's it say about the state of synthetics when players, as a possible sentient "Specter" Pilot, can hack other enemy Specters and reprogram them to fight on their side?
  • Debunked - the robotic pilots in the game are Simulacra, not Specters. The difference is that Simulacra are, in fact, human minds copied into a robotic body, typically for varying reasons.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • "Ticks" in the campaign: fast, come in packs and have a fairly sizable blast radius, pressuring players to rely on Le Parkour to avoid and destroy them from a distance. Worse, if players are facing against a Reaper, they will start spawning Ticks, provided they aren't destroyed in time.
  • "Stalkers": compared to Specters, Stalkers can take more damage before they go down and cannot be hacked to turn against enemies. At higher difficulties in the campaign, Stalkers are far more accurate with their shots compared to Specters.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Upon release, using "Double XP" tokens in multiplayer can also double a player's in-game score, meaning one can easily win a match in Attrition multiplayer mode simply by killing AI-controlled enemies.
  • Sometimes during cutscenes, a Pilot will be floating in an invisible seat about 6 feet in front of their Titan. It really takes the wind out of Commander Sarah Briggs' sails when she's trying to inspire the Marauder Corps in the final missions when she's looking so silly.
  • If Ticks are deployed at the end of a Coliseum match, they'll stay there during the ending cutscene. Cue Pilots getting blown up whilst interacting with opponents...
  • The "Moon boots" glitch, a trick that involves getting out of a Titan while it's still playing its hover animation, which reduces the Pilot's gravity.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The end of the battle with Viper, where you get to personally put a bullet in his head when BT rips off his Northstar's cockpit. For years it was a satisfying conclusion to a difficult Boss Battle. Then Apex Legends introduced us to his daughter who was a little girl when Viper left for Typhon, and is still heartbroken years after his death.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • On the infantry side, X55 Devotion light machine gun is hated by some players due to how it ramps up rate of fire over time encourages hip-firing and spraying much like P90 submachine-gun of Counter-Strike infamy. Even though how accuracy works means that hip-firing is already encouraged with SMG weapon type, it became a problem because Devotion's recoil starts slow and it has a lot more ammo to waste, mitigating punishment for bad aim.
  • The G2 is considered over-used due to its utility at nearly every range, and the fact that it tends to encourage camping.
  • Among Pilot Boosts, the Pilot Sentry is often both top-tier and disliked because of its strong firepower and impressive range. Catching the attention of one gets deadly real fast, especially if you can’t find cover. Map Hack is also disliked for being a Sonar Pulse that covers the entire map and works for one’s teammates as well.
  • If there's one Boost that takes the king of being reviled though, it's the Smart Pistol. Using it is more than likely to get someone in the server to complain about it being a no-skill aimbot pistol.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A Fan Animation called "Attack on Titanfall" featured similarly-looking characters from Attack On Titan fighting the game's Titans with grappling hooks and swords. Titanfall 2 introduces Grappling Hooks used by Pilots, and while they don't have access to swords, the new Ronin-class Titans can use a BFS. A later update added a variation to the standard Attrition mode, where every Pilot gets the Grappling Hook for their ability. What's it called? Attack On Titanfall.
  • The scene after defeating Sloane and breaking open the Fold weapon. Blisk climbs on top of BT, gloating that neither of you will get to kill each other, says he's leaving, and leaves behind a calling card reading "Apex". Fast forward a few years to Apex Legends. It's several years after the war with the IMC, and Blisk is still alive — and the Apex Predators' calling card is one of the primary means of participating in the Apex Games. If you take the scene out of context, it's predicting that the player will never get a final confrontation against him. Further taking it out of context, it almost feels like Blisk is inviting you to play Apex.
  • With the advent of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the entirety of Effect and Cause is this, as the latter game not only features the ability to travel across levels near-instantaneously thanks to the PlayStation 5's hardware, but it also features two levels that change radically at the press of a button not unlike Effect and Cause (or in Rift Apart's case, crystals.)
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Or, rather, it sucks that it's short. The primary flaw mentioned by critics and fans alike is the campaign's short length, clocking at around five to six hours on normal difficulty.
• Memetic Mutation: The Respawn Janitor comes through! ^Explanation In the wake of the server DDOS attacks, many fans of the franchise felt that had been all-but abandoned by even its publisher EA. However, sporadic updates still happened, leading many to joke that a janitor at Rampage studios was sneaking in during his break time in the evenings to do coding on the game (a nod to Good Will Hunting). This went on for more than five years, which then culminated in what seemed like a miracle, where in September 2023 all public servers for both consoles and PC were now accessible and free from the DDOS attack that had crippled the game.
• Narm: During the fight against Sloane, the Final Boss, she will call Cooper a "berk", which can be somewhat amusing. Given that this is rather mild and archaic British slang for "idiot", which wouldn't feel out of place in an Enid Blyton story, it's somewhat out-of-place amidst a fight to the death, given that the game is happy with characters saying "shit".
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The drop to Typhon during the campaign's introduction is quite terrifying.
    • After the game's title card, we're greeted with Jack falling to the planet in a drop pod. By the look on Cooper's face, it looks like he's praying that his pod doesn't break apart in the atmosphere. The worst part is the screaming over the radio as the MCS James MacAllan falls from orbit.
    • Soon after landing on Typhon, Jack is greeted with a warzone as he tries to move up with the rest of his comrades. Militia Grunts are scrambling to fight against attacking Spectres as they die left and right while the burning wreck of the MacAllen is in the foreground.
    • When Cooper reaches a clearing, a Tone Titan falls right in front of him, knocking him to the ground and injuring him. The Tone effortlessly swats a Grunt away and squishes another like a bug before setting her sights on Cooper and would have killed him if Lastimosa and BT didn't show up in time.
    • After Lastimosa saves Cooper, he tries to fight the incoming Apex Predators. He manages to defeat an Ion and tries to block the gunfire from Blisk's Legion, but he's taken out by Ash in her Ronin from behind. Cooper can only watch as he passes out, unable to do anything.
    • Cooper manages to wake up for a moment, and he's greeted with a grizzly sight: Richter shooting a Militia soldier dead, kneeling down, and cutting the dead soldier's ear off as a trophy. The scary part is that if Blisk didn't stop him from messing with the surrounding dead bodies, Richter would have found Cooper and killed him too.
    • Then in the morning, Cooper woke up with a Prowler pulling him up in horror and it's about to bite him. If not for BT who somehow survived and saved him, he would've gotten eaten worse than getting killed in action.
  • Overall, the campaign's introduction also shows how different a Rifleman's life is compared to a Pilot's; regular soldiers against giant mechs that, as the Tone Titan from above had shown, can squish you like a bug.
  • The research complex in "Effect and Cause" is pretty horrific when you take the time to look around you. Things like Flyers strapped in tubes and being biopsied while still conscious. Towards the end, you reach a cryogenic storage unit, with hundreds people wrapped up in pods and — in the present day — all killed by rapid aging. According to the lore, these people are all captured from the Colony G21 raid, whom ARES Division decided to do some For Science! on.
  • When playing on PC version with Ragdoll settings on Low, their entire bodies disintegrates completely upon getting killed, leaving with only weapons remains.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The *ding* heard upon killing an enemy Pilot in multiplayer.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Ledge mantling tends to cause players to screech to a halt just to climb up ledges. Annoying and momentum-breaking when merely moving from A to B; potentially lethal for anyone trying to escape an enemy.
• Scrappy Weapon
  • Of the shotguns available, the "Mastiff" is the least-liked by the community due to its unusual spread pattern, low fire rate, low damage compared to the other weapons in its category, and overall inferiority to the "EVA-8" shotgun.
  • That said, it still performs better than its pistol version, the Mozambique. Thought it sucked in Apex? Well...it did, but it's no better here. Low pellet count, low damage, low projectile speed, even if you manage to hit a pilot it will still do little damage. At least the fellow Primary Pistol, the Wingman Elite, is accurate enough for consistent shots.
  • Sniper-class weapons tend to get the short end of the stick. Because every Pilot is so mobile, accounting for lead to make a headshot is much more difficult than almost any other FPS. If you see a Pilot running a sniper, chances are it'll be the Difficult, but Awesome Bragging Rights Option Kraber over the Double Take or Longbow DMR.
• Signature Scene: Effect and Cause, the mission which sees Cooper use the Time Gauntlet and travel between two different points in time to get through a facility. It's usually said to be the best level in the game thanks to the time travel gimmick, with the programming that went into making it possible getting critical acclaim. This level is usually cited as when reviewers began to love the game's campaign.
• Special Effect Failure: The game generally looks pretty good and the aesthetic helps contribute to its strong cinematic feel, but it seems that Respawn failed to consider high field of view for some scenes:
  • It's in the corner of a blurry screen where action is happening near its center, so it's hard to notice, but during the cutscene at the start of the final level, the blurry blob that's supposed to be Blisk can be seen in a reference pose before noclipping through the floor.
  • After the Final Boss, when Blisk approaches a downed BT and Cooper, his Legion Titan pops in from the bottom of the screen.
  • The camera noticably clips through Lastimosa's helmet while panning away from Harmony during the pre-credits scene.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Titanfall 2 is closest we'll get to a video game adaptation of Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. Notably, Respawn has openly stated how the series played a big part in helping the team figure out the tone of Cooper and BT's relationship.
  • Titanfall 2's singleplayer has a platforming focus, themed levels that iterate on one gimmick or concept per map, segments where you get an opportunity to pilot a hardier but less-agile Mini-Mecha, BT-7274 acquiring Titan loadouts from fallen enemies, the Quirky Miniboss Squad of the Apex Predators, and the ability to jump off of walls and get bursts of forwards momentum while on the ground; it's the best version of the cancelled Mega Man X first-person shooter spinoff. One IGN critic even notes the similarities.
  • The lightning-fast movement, verticality, and A Space Marine Is You Featureless Protagonist when combined with the gritty artstyle, setpiece-oriented level design, and story told in cutscenes make it feel like a revision of classic shooters like Doom or Quake, but with modernized shooter tropes.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Titanfall received So Okay, It's Average reviews, with a quick, dwindling player-base due to a lack of content. People weren't expecting Titanfall 2 to be one of the best titles in 2016, scoring higher marks than its predecessor. Even critics of the first game such as "Angry Joe" and Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw gave it positive reviews, with a lot of praise being directed towards its campaign and the varied level design.
• Tear Jerker: BT's death at the end of the game, especially as it was so soon after we saw him executed by Slone when he was defenseless.
• That One Achievement: "Becomes The Master" (reach the top three of the leaderboard for the Gauntlet in the Forced Tutorial) is the one in Titanfall 2 most players have trouble against, requiring well-timed jumps and Wall Runs, destroying all targets and reaching the goal within a specific time limit on the dot, all while maintaining a consistent running speed.
• That One Boss: The fight against Viper in the Northstar-class Titan - aside from being accompanied by two Scorch-class Titans, Viper's Northstar stays in the air for a majority of the fight, while accurately sniping away at players and occasionally unleashing a Macross Missile Massacre. Compared to previous boss fights, there's little room to evade since the fight takes place on top of a moving battleship; a single mis-step off the ship and it's instant death, pitting players back to the start of the fight against Viper's flunkies.
• That One Level:
  • "Into The Abyss", the fourth campaign level - due to BT getting itself captured, Cooper is forced to traverse alone through a maze-like factory filled with annoying platforming, a lack of properly-telegraphed navigational instructions, a much higher density of opposition and wide-open areas making it impossible to avoid incoming infantry fire. This is topped off with a Multi-Mook Melee against Specters and Stalkers in an enclosed arena, then introducing Reapers, serving as the Mini-Boss. Finally, due to Checkpoint Starvation, getting killed at any point during the arena fight (and afterwards when a path opens up to the level's exit) brings players back to the start of the arena fight. It's the hardest level in the game by a significant margin, overstaying its welcome so much that the inevitable "Short Cuts Make Long Delays" punchline invokes controller-throwing ire.
  • For the Multiplayer, "Complex" is typically loathed by the playerbase for its overwhelmingly Titan-centric design. Pilots are forced to traverse long stretches of Titan-accessible ground in order to get from one spot to another, and taking shelter in the rooms that are actually safe from Titans can lead to being easily pinned down, due to none of the rooms having more than two exits. It also lacks verticality, with very few second floor spaces to safely initiate a rodeo from. Complex's overall favor of Titans makes it frustratingly bad, especially ironic when the Singleplayer map it's based on is often regarded as the best map of the campaign.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The singleplayer campaign is varied and interesting, but surprisingly lacking a Pilot vs Titan fight, despite this being one of the more common events in multiplayer: the player is never forced to fight enemy Titans without BT's help. The closest the campaign gets is the Mini-Boss fight against Reapers near the end of Into the Abyss, where the player is placed in a simulation dome arena with indoor spaces hiding caches of heavy weapons. The lack of on-foot Titan battles also means the dedicated Anti-Titan weapons the campaign has, like the Archer and MGL, are far less useful.
• Useless Useful Stealth: The only Tactical Ability you have access to in the campaign is the Personal Cloak... Which you will completely forget to use most of the time, as the game's fast movement, Le Parkour abilities and relatively squishy enemies lend themselves to fast-paced combat which the Cloak breaks up the flow of. However, on Master difficulty, the Cloak becomes a godsend given that remaining outside cover for a couple of seconds is enough to get you killed. The brief moments of invisibility it provides are crucial for you to reposition, line up headshots, or close distances to pick off isolated enemies using shotguns or melee attacks.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Jack Cooper doesn't have any real personality despite speaking enough to be his own character. The focus on character in the Titanfall 2 campaign is squarely on BT and the Apex Predators.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: For a game that's made using the Source engine as a base, it has absolutely shockingly good visual effects. Locations like the misty mountains of The Beacon or the sprawling complex of the IMC Dynamic Testing Facility are jaw-droppingly impressive, but special shoutouts goes to the post-climax setpiece where Cooper parkours onto flying chunks of terrain and scrap metal above a collapsing Fold Weapon.

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