Titanfall’s Capture the Flag playlists return on PC

Back again for an encore.

Capture the Flag playlists in the PC version of Titanfall have performed an amazing resurrection. Previously, Respawn had removed both Capture the Flag and Pilot Hunter modes from cycling playlists, citing low player numbers as a reason for doing so.

In today’s announcement about Capture the Flag’s return (no word on Pilot Hunter,) Respawn re-iterated this stance and claimed that fewer than 1% of total players were looking for Capture the Flag games. Fair enough, but even 1% of a modest 100,000 people is still 1,000. That’s quite a few hypothetical people wanting to play Titanfall’s Capture the Flag in that pretend example I just made up.

Anyway, Respawn has relented after sustained player complaints, and the mode is now reinstated. Matchmaking has been altered to widen the search for players after five minutes sat waiting for a game. This will probably mean somewhat laggier matches, but also means you’ll actually find somebody to play against.

Future matchmaking changes like an indication that a player is “connecting” are also planned. Tweaks to rebalancing lobbies will be applied, to avoid games starting with a lopsided 6v4 or players of mismatched skill.

Couldn’t all of this be avoided with some kind of Titanfall server browser system? Well, yes, but in the announcement post above Respawn talk at length about why they don’t want to do that. I don’t find it terribly convincing myself, but maybe it’s just because I was raised on PC server browsers with decent filtering options.

In terms of Titanfall’s multiplayer future, Respawn says “We’re working on new game modes, riffs on existing game modes, Hashtag matchmaking, and more. We plan to keep the playlist selection of Titanfall fresh and fun, with engaging new ways to play and switch-ups to old favorites.”