Spoiler warning: This post will discuss specific plot details regarding Titanfall 2’s campaign.

Shooter campaigns don’t matter. That’s been the common wisdom for some time now as droves of Call of Duty and Battlefield fans tab over to multiplayer with each new iteration, leaving the likes of Kevin Spacey and Keith David to emote for progressively smaller audiences. Sure, we occasionally get a great single player mode, like Wolfenstein: The New Order or DOOM, but when it comes to modern shooters with multiplayer appeal, campaigns are usually a generic afterthought. Even Respawn, made up of developers who created one of the last great modern shooter campaigns in Call of Duty 4, chose to jettison a proper single player mode in their 2014 debut, Titanfall. With its sublime blend of parkour inspired movement, hulking walking tanks, and a mix of inventive gametypes, it was easy to think that Titanfall didn’t need a single player campaign. Thankfully, Respawn thought better for their sequel, and the result is something that absolutely matters.

Titanfall 2’s story places you in the boots of Jack Cooper, a militia grunt who wishes to become a double-jumping, wall-running, titan-riding pilot. Lucky for him, he’s been taken under the wing of a veteran pilot, Captain Tai Lastimosa, who shows him the ropes in a VR simulation that doubles as the game’s tutorial. Shortly thereafter, Cooper and Lastimosa are dropped into combat against the evil IMC, at which point the pilot promptly croaks and transfers control of his titan, BT-7274, over to Cooper. The remainder of the narrative follows BT and Cooper as they attempt to complete Lastimosa’s mission and, in the process, discover a device that the IMC could use to brutally suppress the militia’s rebellion.

If it sounds like I glazed over the story, that's because I did. The narrative beats are pretty conventional all told, up to and including a macguffin that threatens to literally blow up a planet. But that’s ok, because the broad strokes of the story facilitate something more interesting; the bond between myself and BT.

While Cooper himself is a cypher of a protagonist, BT comes with personality to spare. Glenn Steinbaum injects the war machine with an unerring loyalty to Cooper (and, by extension, me) but tempers it with a bone-dry sense of humor. While BT is very much a product of his programming, you get the sense that there’s more going on under that alloy shell. BT displays tremendous creativity in solving problems, leading to sequences where I get chucked half a mile to a remote platform. The one downside is that BT sometimes falls into the trap of companions in shooter games by becoming too useful. There were several times in the campaign that I actively questioned Cooper’s role in the proceedings, and it didn’t help that many NPC’s would choose to engage BT in dialog instead of me. Admittedly, this issue feels small when compared to all the things Titanfall 2 gets right, of which there are plenty.

Witty robot companion aside, the campaign truly shines in its moment-to-moment gameplay and set pieces. Thanks to the movement options afforded to the player, levels are frequently large with long platforming segments throughout. In fact, there’s so much parkour-style platforming in the game that to simply call it a shooter would be a disservice. Further, the traversal segments are so creatively implemented that wallrunning through a gauntlet never got old. One standout segment had me going through a massive factory’s assembly line. While at first it seems like the facility is producing large sheets of metal, I soon realized that the machines I was dodging were in fact fabricating buildings. With the platforms being turned every which way to position new structural pieces, I had to keep reorienting myself with what felt like shifting gravity and an environment that was constantly being altered. As soon as I got my bearings with that craziness, I realized that the various buildings were being assembled into a training ground for pilots not unlike the game’s multiplayer maps. Cue pitched battle on said training ground to cap off the level. The absolute scale and intricacy of this level was absolutely mind-boggling, and that was only a prelude of what was to come.

It seems that the Respawn team had a backlog of insane ideas for set pieces since their days at Infinity Ward, and the sci-fi setting of Titanfall gave them plenty of narrative space to experiment. Nowhere is this most apparent than in the mission titled “Effect and Cause”. The level, which takes place in an abandoned IMC research facility, had me in search of a fellow militia pilot for a rendezvous. As I explored the facility I was beset with unexplained visions, ostensibly from the past. Soon enough, I found the pilot, dead and somehow stuck inside the ceiling. Needing a device located on the lower half of his body, I went upstairs to retrieve it. What happened next turned my understanding of Titanfall on its head. The game prompted me to "Press LB to Time Travel".

As advertised on the tin, pressing LB did in fact make me time travel, 3 years in the past in fact. Pressing LB again instantly brought me back to the present, and with that the point of the level quickly became apparent. I barreled through the facility, changing time periods on the fly when some wreckage or a security door got in the way. I engaged with enemies in the past, quickly switched over to the present, moved to where they were, time traveled yet again, and snapped their necks. Panicked shouts filled the air as IMC troops could not understand how I was able to slaughter them with ruthless abandon.

They could not comprehend me. They could not fight me. They feared me.

The rest of the campaign follows the example set by “Effect and Cause” by becoming the ultimate manifestation of power fantasy. While the game conveniently destroys the time travel device by the mission’s end, Respawn has a few more tricks up its sleeve. First was the Ronin titan loadout, which turns BT in a giant samurai capable of slicing up foes with its massive blade. Then came the arc tool that allowed me to move platforms and other equipment on the fly for some of the most challenging platforming in the game. Finally, the endgame began with an all-out assault on an IMC base with dozens of titans duking it out on an enormous battlefield.

After the militia assault of the IMC base followed by an airborne pursuit, the story’s macguffin was in reach. Unfortunately, Cooper and BT are taken captive before their mission could be completed. But thanks to some quick thinking, BT is able to provide a sufficient distraction and Cooper’s life is saved. Unfortunately, BT’s chassis was severely damaged, and it seemed like I would have to say goodbye to my companion. BT, ever the mission steward, asked that I finish the mission, and gave me a final gift; BT’s AI core and a SERE kit containing a knife and Smart Pistol.

What follows is a fantastic callback to the first Titanfall as I went on a rampage with a while escaping my captors. Though the Smart Pistol was a tad powerful in the previous game’s multiplayer only context, here it was intoxicating. It was a seamless blend of Titanfall’s responsive parkour and its satisfying gunplay, and felt especially cathartic as I was mowing down the faction that destroyed my closest companion. As my bullets homed in on the squishy noggins of my enemies, I got in contact with militia personnel who informed me that an extra titan was available should I need it. As I stepped outside of my captors’ facility, the arc words were finally said:

“Stand by for titanfall.”

As the hulking frame touched down, I felt pumped. Ready to take on the world. But first, I placed BT’s core into the titan. And for a moment, all that adrenaline and machismo fell away. BT was back, and I was elated. It wouldn’t have felt right to finish the mission without my big buddy, and besides, the new frame came with a pretty badass chaingun. Sure, the emotional impact was lessened somewhat as it hadn’t been 5 minutes since BT was destroyed, but given the pacing of a typical shooter campaign, it showed admirable restraint. Emotional beat achieved.

Titanfall 2’s campaign succeeds by alternatively embracing the tropes of a modern shooter campaign and subverting them. While it gives the player plenty of faceless enemies to shoot, it also provides extended sections of platforming with no combat. While it serves up a generic and predictable story, it surprises the player with innovative sequences and mechanics. And while it serves as an extended tutorial for the multiplayer, it also has fun with multiplayer conventions. Above all, the campaign is masterclass demonstration of incredibly well executed shooter gameplay that pushes the genre forward significantly. Titanfall 2 does not disprove the notion that modern shooter campaigns are big, dumb, and bombastic, but it does prove is that they can at least be memorable.