Examining Titanfall 2's Time Travel Masterpiece

introducing time travel to a game which is already centered on giant robots fighting each other might seem like a little bit much i mean it's giant robots fighting each other how much more excitement could you possibly need but respawn entertainment went ahead and did it anyway in titanfall 2 creating the mission effect and cause one of the most entertaining levels not just in the campaign it's featured in which by the by is absolutely fantastic but also in the genre as a whole and in this video i'm going to take a closer look at it to try and better explain why it's such an outstanding experience from beginning to end but first to make sure everyone's up to speed let's begin with a quick recap of the story up until this point you control jack cooper a rifleman for the frontier militia who were locked in conflict with the interstellar manufacturing corporation or imc for short cooper had been training to become a pilot the most decorated of soldiers who were each linked to a huge robot known as a titan after being sent to attack the imc controlled planet of typhon the man who was training cooper is mortally wounded and transfers over control of his titan bt 7274 to cooper cooper also inherits his mission special operation 217 which tasks him with finding major eli anderson and assisting in investigating the planet after killing scores of imc troops and their fair share of titans cooper and bt finally arrive at anderson's last known location an imc research facility and thus begins effect and cause as the mission begins and its title appears on screen a quick note on the name it's an obvious play on the phrase cause and effect and with very good reason i'm not going to talk about it anymore for now but i will say that it's a conceit worth keeping in the back of your mind as we progress a little further into the level i love a scary warning sign and respawn ensures it's impossible to miss theirs by using fire to illuminate a portion of it and draw your attention to what it says much like this first corpse covered in moss and seemingly very old suggesting the location has been abandoned for some time is placed slap bang in the middle of the path leading to the next area leaving almost zero possibility that you'll move forward without noticing it a little time spent exploring without much happening following these two clues would in my view have really helped build tension but effect and cause continues at a brisk pace with the environment in the next area almost immediately shifting to become a much tidier place and so begins the gradual expansion of an entirely new mechanic used during this mission and this mission only the ability to time travel this flashback and the second which follows swiftly after make a few things clear in the past this facility was a bustling place and somehow you were able to witness that although for now at least you can't control when these shifts will occur and you have no idea if you can actually influence past events you're then also able to radio bt to find out more about what's happening an option which is offered up fairly frequently these interactions have an obvious objective to continue building coopers and by extension your relationship with bt but bt is also used really well during this mission for a slightly less obvious reason during trips to the past it's far easier to provide exposition than in the present important events occur as you progress and there are plenty of human characters on hand to help frame events but in the future everything has already happened and there are a few signs of intelligent life and so using bt to keep the narrative pace high even when in the present is a fantastic idea if the past shows you what happens through events which unfold then the present uses bt as well as audio diaries which i'll touch on again in just a tick to tell you what happened which helps ensure the more vibrant past never becomes too dominant in narrative terms there's a really nice touch in the next area which i'm sure many will have missed during their first playthrough once the environment shifts again in the theater and if you're speedy it's possible to make it all the way to the stage before the area reverts back to its usual state at which point general mada will acknowledge your presence yes pilots may i help you which will then also be reflected in the audio log left on the stage in the present by decisively neutralizing the militia forces yes may i help you if you're inquisitive you're given only confirmation that what you do in the past will affect the present and if you're not you'll just have to wait a little bit longer except as much as i love the way everything unfolds during these opening moments and indeed the rest of the mission i do want to quickly point out a small tweak i think could have been made as you may have already noticed titanfall 2 stops you from using weapons during these opening few shifts i understand why in a game where the primary method of interacting with the world is through shooting things it gets rid of the temptation to shoot things which i'm sure made developing these earlier stages much easier for respawn as they were able to focus on building tension during these opening scenes without having to worry about players potentially shooting everything in sight there is also some logic for this built into effect and cause in that the first time you're able to use your weapon in the past is when security robots appear and cooper is actively in danger but he already has his gun out before they enter the scene which doesn't make sense if we were deering to the logic laid out at the start of the mission adding an animation of him pulling out his gun and some dialogue along the lines of no point staying quiet now would in my view have really helped tie everything together providing a much clearer and more obvious reason for why player choice in the past had been restricted prior to this moment after a couple more shifts including this one which is frankly beautiful in terms of framing effect and cause briefly opens up although there's not a whole lot to discover beyond a couple of collectibles and more notably the mission's first audio log audio logs only appear in the present and only in this mission and i'd guess they may have been included to further remedy the issue of the past being more story intensive than the present but i'm not sure they're really necessary sure the story of dr jefferson boils plight as the last man left in the facility after whatever catastrophic event occurred is a relatively interesting one however it's not that interesting and so i'm not sure breaking titanfall 2's established storytelling conventions to include them was really required especially since they stand in direct comparison to the other ways the game's backstory unfolds throughout the mission which i'd argue were far more engaging speaking of story there's a nice line from bt at the start of this area which alludes to the fact he will eventually also have a presence in the past strange i'm picking up traces of my own data signature within this area the distortions must be affecting my scans and the bodies of imc troops robots and titans litter the area although their significance won't become clearer until much later on moving into the reception area a short battle with a single prowler follows before major anderson's grizzly fate is revealed with the top half of his body stuck in the ceiling analyzing the data in his helmet reveals that whatever happened to the facility somehow occurred only two weeks prior to the frontier militia arriving on typhon with anderson sent in to investigate two weeks ago we intercepted imc comms they found something on tyson a massive blast of energy was discharged at this location creating time distortions i want srs on the ground to infiltrate the facility roger then which doesn't at all make sense considering how rundown the facility is and how much the corpses littering the area have decayed cooper's next objective is to find the wrist mounted device mentioned in anderson's log and there's a nice interaction with bt here which opens a new path and introduces the idea of cooper being thrown to his destinations in the future nice maybe next time you can throw me no dude something which definitely comes up again once or twice my scans detect a functioning uplink targeting module 428 meters northeast my analysis indicates a throw is our only option here i can throw you across the gap as discussed previously the next shift is the first to make it truly obvious that you're far more than simply a bystander in the past and it's also where titanfall uses these shifts to begin subtly teaching you a few things you'll need to remember and without the use of long drawn out tutorial messages that so many other games take advantage of this guard notices cooper and unleashes a horde of robots robots which can briefly be shot at before the environment shifts back to the present which teaches you that your presence in the past will be noticed will have an effect and that you are able to have a direct involvement in events which unfold shifting back to the present these robots must still be dispatched and this encounter is fine it feels a little like resident evil in the way a horde of enemies lumbers or indeed crawls towards you through the darkness but there's so many of them to destroy that it does begin to somewhat outstay its welcome by the time it concludes however a number of excellent additions follow this radio message during the next shift demonstrates just how confused everyone in the facility quickly became by your presence which helps really tie together both past and present and you may also catch a brief glimpse of a pair of doorways blocked by lasers doorways which are no longer blocked in the present at this point you'll most likely connect the dots and learn your next lesson realising that parts blocked by lasers in the past may not be in the present but this is also taught again in a more obvious manner later on for those who may not have noticed this audio log on the floor nearby in the present also alludes to a battle against two squads at an elevator bank dr alexander darren log 14.6 the intruder has some kind of advanced tech and is slaughtering our response teams tyler and wildlife research said two teams were taken out of the elevator banks in a matter of seconds by one guy while i'm not sold on the rest of the audio logs i do love this one as it refers to a battle which you won't even take part in until you've progressed a little further into the level i'm sure plenty will have forgotten this morning by the time they make their way down the stairs towards the elevators but it also makes for a great aha moment for those paying attention as they realise they already have an idea of what's about to happen the next room is a narrow one with a singular door on the other side of it the focus which draws your attention towards it and makes sure that you're unlikely to miss its opening during the next shift and if you're quick to shoot one or both of the guards their bodies will appear exactly where they died in the present this is something that happens throughout effect and cause and really helps further the feeling that even smaller actions in the past have consequences in the present the time shifts continue to increase in frequency as cooper nears the other half of major anderson's body with a loading screen signifying the end of what i would call the mission's opening phase given effect and causes technical complexity i don't mind that there's a loading screen here but i'm not sold on the image used you're just about to discover the bottom half of major anderson anyway and while most will have seen it coming i think the image does take away from the impact of the reveal immediately after the discovery will have been expected but nonetheless i'm not convinced teasing it mere seconds before it's revealed was needed at all cooper then takes the wrist mounted device a quick shift demonstrates exactly what it has the power to do and then the wonderful button prompt press lb or whatever button you're using to time travel appears on screen and this is where the fun really begins similar to how most of effect and calls up to this point was spent easing you into the idea of past and present essentially existing simultaneously so to speak from here on out it's about easing you into the idea of using the time travel mechanic to move between them during gameplay the first challenge directly ahead encourages you to begin thinking with time travel straight away presenting a problem which i'd guess few struggle to solve the floor is on fire and the path above it is blocked by electrical wires get past it easy peasy all you need to do is shift to the past and walk safely down the corridor next bt announces that he can now contact you in both the past and the present a nice nod to the earlier dialogue where he mentions he can detect his own data signature pilot cooper i have transferred some of my ai functions into your helmet in order to permit communication across time shifts and the mission then introduces another doorway blocked by lasers some will have missed the previous hint during the uncontrolled shift earlier on and so here titanfall 2 makes sure that before you can progress you understand that these blockages can be bypassed using the time travel mechanic a similar challenge also awaits on the other side of the laser grid but this time in reverse to really hammer that idea home with a doorway blocked in the present needing to be opened in the past with two soldiers waiting on the other side you'll most likely instantly react and gun both down without thinking about using the time travel mechanic but the next area also features something of a buffer zone between them and the next set of enemies this is sensible design as it means once the first two have been taken out there's time for a quick breather to readjust so you can then think about taking on the guards at the other end of the room while also taking advantage of the new mechanic and once the enemies have been cleared another layer is also added to exploration effect and cores previously taught you that laser grids and doors could be bypassed by moving between time zones and now that that's clear titanfall 2 expands on that idea by demonstrating that sometimes that won't be enough and at times you'll also need to use the mechanic a little more creatively to move past obstacles effect and cause continues to make you feel like the mission's apex predator through enemies anxious radio transmissions but its movement is erratic and this is swiftly followed by a rather clever piece of level design in order to progress you need to access a control panel to open a gate the path to which is blocked by more lasers so you move past the lasers in the present shift back to the past to kill the nearby guards and then lower the gate at which point it's revealed that a number of turrets and enemies await at the other end of the corridor although thankfully they can't hit you through the glass the lasers are the clever parts here as they force you to move back to the present to exit the area which again subtly nudges you towards the solution to the problem i'm sure many will have figured out that getting behind the turrets in the present is key but it's great design that the lasers you use to ensure you're already in the correct time zone as you begin to come up with a strategy that strategy of course most likely being to wall run across the flaming gap in the present to get behind them in the past there is also an added twist in the form of a single prowler to deal with in the present along with the more robust enemy forces at the end of the corridor in the past a small taster of the encounter which soon follows and speaking of small tasters even the robots which appear moments later serve a purpose in the encounter which follows the human enemies who appear in the past are predictable in that they all appear from places you'd expect like the elevators whereas the prowlers tend to come from vents and can often appear behind you and so the robots here act as a brief reminder ahead of that encounter that enemies in the present won't always appear directly ahead of you or emerge from obvious places approaching the elevators it's finally time for the first combat encounter which really pushes you to shift between timelines mid-fight in order to be most successful and it is absolutely brilliant and given this is the point at which the mechanic truly comes into its own i think now is the perfect time for a quick explanation of how it actually works essentially the past and present are two maps lined up precisely on top of one another with each containing art and assets reflecting the state of that particular time zone when you hit the button to time travel you're instantly teleported to the exact same position on the other map which means switching between the two is instantaneous it works so well because it means there's no time needed for the game to load either area which means everything feels smooth and responsive perfectly matching the pace of the action on screen with everything moving so quickly during many of the encounters and rapid switches between past and present required so often any delay would have been incredibly jarring something which respawn manages to avoid entirely the enemies from the time zone you're in also leave a blue mist when you shift away from them and remain where they were standing when you use the time travel mechanic again allowing you to much better track where they'll be and i've got to be honest i wasn't a huge fan of this at first i was of the view that it made things too easy it wasn't realistic and it took away some of the sense of accomplishment for successfully managing to fight off any immediate threats while also being aware of what was happening in the background having played effect and cause a good number of times now i do still think those criticisms apply to an extent but i think the gameplay style the blue mist is designed to encourage means the pros do ultimately outweigh the cons because the miss disappears relatively quickly it does so much to encourage you to constantly shift between time zones effectively rewarding you for using the mechanic to its fullest and helping push you away from killing all the enemies in the present before doing the same in the past or vice versa and it does still reward situational awareness as well there will be times when you forget to shift while the mist is still present and at that point you'll fare much better if you were paying attention to enemy placement and weren't simply relying on the mist to help guide you combined with titanfall 2's fast-paced combat and possibly the best movement mechanics in any first person shooter battles quickly become incredible spectacles as you shift between fighting humans who are slower but can attack from long range in the past to fast-moving but melee-based prowlers in the present every single second of almost every single fight in effect and cause from here on out is a constant balancing act a perpetual risk reward scenario during which you not only have to manage two separate encounters but also decide when it's the right time to shift from one to the other it can be tricky to adjust to at first but once you acclimatise to it it feels amazing to play as you shift to the past to take down a couple of guards head to the present to stave off the prowlers before finally moving back to the past to kill a few more guards once they've lost track of your position it works fantastically well and it's testament to how brilliant a job respawn did that i think they could have built an entire game around this mechanic alone in my view this battle also marks the end of what i'd call the second phase of effect and cause the first got you acclimatised to the idea of two separate time zones existing but without you having any control over when the shifts occurred the second let you move between present and past at will but continued to subtly teach you and from this point onwards you enter the third and final part of the mission the experimentation phase equipped with all the knowledge you'll need in terms of how the time travel mechanic can be used from here on out it's more about taking on scenarios you've already encountered but which now feature a twist or an increase in difficulty this next section for example requires you to drop into an area in the past which is on fire in the present before switching back to the past prior to landing building on the idea of avoiding hazards from one timeline earlier on and even helping you prepare for the more sustained and frankly awesome vent drop a little later on this scenario looks awfully similar to the turret hallway featured earlier except it requires quicker thinking and much faster use of the time travel mechanic and in this area perhaps my favorite in the mission you're required to constantly shift time zones to jump across it while also dealing with the threat of enemies in the distance as opposed to only shifting once to reach your destination and the pace is then ramped up with the threat of enemies removed and the speed at which you're required to shift becoming even quicker as you do it multiple times while running along walls with a nifty design choice thrown in here in that the last wall you run across is in the past the same time zone you need to be in to access the control panel on the other side which helps save a little time oh and as you reach this area you might also notice that the further you progress the harsher the punishment is for failure with less flaws or other objects on offer to save you should you fail it's not groundbreaking game design by any means but it's great to see a design philosophy so often used to ramp up the difficulty in platformers also make an appearance in titanfall 2. it'll also no doubt come to your attention that just as the gameplay begins to ramp up in this final third so too does the story with the cause of major anderson's fate seemingly revealed to be the wrist-mounted device malfunctioning anderson's inclusion in effect and cause is a wise choice as much like bt helps explain what's going on so too does anderson mirroring your journey through the facility while providing exposition beyond what many would pick up through simply progressing through each area in the meantime the imc prepared to launch what they call their fold weapon powered by a device of non-human origin known as the ark a test which has been rushed to completion due to cooper's presence in the facility as an aside i really like the visual representation of how the fold weapon works shown here i'm someone who can sometimes struggle to visualize how devices like these in games work when they're simply spoken about so it's really nice that they've catered to less imaginative people such as myself as well the last section of effect and cause brings bt back into the fray and you'll soon come to the wonderful realization that you can use the time travel mechanic to bring him to the past as well this is the most frantic encounter in the entire mission and adding bt to the mix is a brilliant final flourish coming into this encounter i assumed he would be forced to remain in the present and it adds one last layer to what is an already staggeringly varied 45 minutes or so it also explains exactly why there are so many corpses destroyed robots and bits of titan littering the area towards the start of this mission because of you there's little time to sit and think about that however as the ark begins to overload as you draw close everything freezes and the reason respawn chose the name effect and cause becomes clear your presence pushed the imc to fire the fold weapon earlier than they'd have liked and something has clearly gone wrong bt and everyone else in the surrounding area are frozen in place with cooper's wrist mounted device which is now broken seemingly preventing similar from happening to him you caused the weapon to be fired early which led to this malfunction which caused time fluctuations which then enabled you to travel back in time in order to cause the malfunction or to put it in simpler terms you use the effect of the malfunction to become the cause of it two more things to note here first this is an absolutely gorgeous scene visually and is probably the most enduring image i have when i think of titanfall 2. and second there's even an opportunity to alter events slightly here as well since you have to move towards the arc in the past and that's where the most heated battle takes place i'd imagine bt will have also been in that time zone for most when the freeze occurs hence him appearing in that scene but if for some reason you leave him in the present he doesn't make an appearance another lovely touch to conclude a level pack to the brim with lovely touches and after one more quick platforming section to reach the arkhan scan it the mission concludes with cooper casting off the wrist mounted device forever so what more is there to say about effect and cause well first and foremost hats off to respawn for spending the time developing such an amazing one-off mechanic a feature like time travel can't have been easy to develop and would have been very time consuming so i'd wager any other developer would have wanted to base an entire game around it but respawn showed incredible restraint and used it for just one mission in the process creating one of the best levels seen in a first person shooter for quite some time the mechanic itself is fantastic enough but the way everything is also designed so well around it pushes it to even greater heights often when i cover a single mission like i have in this video with effect and cause i'll conclude by saying something along the lines of you should at least play this one level even if you don't play the rest of the game but while i may have singled out effect and calls in this video the way it's constructed is symptomatic of how many brilliant ideas and design considerations are packed into titanfall 2 as a whole its campaign is an amazing experience from start to finish and effecting causes in my mind the cherry on top thanks so much for taking the time to watch the video i know it's a long one so i really appreciate it if you enjoyed it do consider letting me know your thoughts hitting like and perhaps even subscribing as it all really helps the channel grow and hopefully i'll see you all again soon

Channel: Ben Plays Games

Views: 628,022

Keywords: titanfall 2, titanfall 2 gameplay, titanfall 2 review, time travel, titanfall 2 effect and cause, effect and cause, titanfall 2 analysis, analysis, titanfall analysis, titanfall 2 critique, retrospective, titantfall 2 retrospective, titanfall, respawn, ben plays games, titanfall time travel, time travelling, game design, game analysis, videogame design, videogame analysis, bt 7274, titanfall effect and cause, titanfall 2 campaign, titanfall 2 good, effect and cause analysis

Id: CnnknQkEkis

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021