PC players will have to sit out Titanfall 2’s technical test

Respawn is going with Xbox One and PS4 this time

Ahead of an incoming multiplayer technical test for Titanfall 2, Respawn Entertainment has clarified an important detail — why the preview build will be playable on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but not PC.

According to Respawn CEO Vince Zampella, there are “[t]wo big issues from a development standpoint: hardware variety and ‘min spec’ optimization. We’re still making a lot of tweaks and changes to the renderer, the game, and effects so we haven’t run the game through the hardware compatibility lab yet to detect and handle a large variety of hardware – video cards, CPUs etc. Quite frankly, we aren’t ready to deal with that yet, we are still making the game better. We also haven’t done enough work to fully support our ‘Min Spec’ on PC yet. So, currently the PC game isn’t as easy to throw out for testing as the console is, because of the additional variables and configurations that we need to support.”

That isn’t the news we’d like to hear, but at least the explanation is honest about where the team is at right now with Titanfall 2. The other reason for the tech test no-show on PC? “[B]ecause the single-player story has some wonderful secrets that we really want to preserve for launch, we also have to worry about leaks. Our wonderfully curious PC players have proven in the past that they will dig out anything they can, and there’s a risk that they could spoil some of our single-player.”

It’s unclear when this technical test will be publicly playable, but Zampella teased that we should “keep the next two weekends free,” and followed with a firm reminder that “It’s a tech test, not a beta!”

For me, Titanfall 2 is the type of title I want to get some hours into prior to release even if that means a less-than-ideal, unfinished experience. Sometimes, an alpha, beta, or “tech test” is all that’s needed to get your fill of a game’s core (though, by many accounts, this sequel is shaping up nicely).

A word about PC and the Titanfall 2 Open Multiplayer Tech Test [Titanfall]