The beta began February 14th as Respawn wanted to stress-test, and so opened it to all players February 16th. They can’t guarantee a flawless launch, but did ‘boost confidence’.
In truth the beta test was as much a trust exercise with the community and naysayers as it was to physically test their network limitations and capacity.
Why would they need to buoy such confidence in Titanfall’s launch? EA is publishing the sci-fi shooter and their launches of online heavy games SimCity and Battlefield 4 have left a stain that is yet to wash clean. Only now is Battlefield 4 considered stable enough for some worthwhile play, and SimCity continues to experience server hiccups now and then.
Respawn did hit a snafu during the stress-test as they tried to scale up the game.
”It’s really addicting,” said Heppe, who was in constant contact between the community and the team. ”You almost don’t want to sleep, because you want to constantly monitor and know what’s going on. My adrenaline levels, while it was going on, were so high that even if I wanted to sleep, I just couldn’t.”
She said they ”had around 2 million unique users playing during the beta.”
”You never want to say that everything is going to be perfect,” said Heppe. ”Obviously there are things that can change. But you don’t want to say, ‘oh, no, there will still be problems,’ because you don’t want to give people a lack of confidence in what you’re doing. I think that this beta was really about giving people confidence that not only will we be communicative with them, but we’re actively trying to work out any bugs now.”
Titanfall releases on PC and Xbox One March 11th, and on Xbox 360 March 25th.