YOU GUYS — I just read about the new Titanfall-adjacent FPS from Empulse and my brain is actually vibrating. The CEO, Chris, gets asked directly whether this is Titanfall 3 and he gives one of those answers that's both refreshingly honest AND absolutely perfect for anyone who grew up on Apex. He says, "We're not trying to build Titanfall 3." That sounds like a cop-out until you hear what he means — they aren't cloning the game; they're building something in its lineage but with an entirely different DNA than Resp made their franchise follow. The catch is that even though it's NOT Titanfall 3, it scratches every single wallrunning FPS itch I have because it uses the core verbs of movement and combat and then builds a coherent world around them rather than just slapping on skins.
The distinction they make between what Apex did to Titanfall versus what Empulse wants for Supernova is actually super important here. Resp took the high-skill, high-mobility Titanfall framework and smoothed it down into Apex — which was great but also fundamentally changed how movement felt and who the game reached. Chris explains that their approach with Supernova isn't about adding features on top of an existing model; they built a fresh world with its own logic from day one. The gameplay loop is this: a fast-paced arena shooter where you battle through dynamic arenas, each one designed around specific mobility flows rather than just being empty space. You have elemental abilities that interact with the environment in real time — fire spreads on combustible surfaces and ice creates friction hazards — which adds a layer of skill ceiling over basic projectile aim.
I'm telling you this because I want to play it, not because I've fallen for another 'successor' marketing gimmick. The game is genuinely different at its core: the arena combat in Supernova is built around environmental interaction from the ground up — every map has specific points that react differently to your abilities and everyone on the team learns those routes over time. They also rebuilt movement as a discrete system rather than an overlay, so the wall-kick feel isn't "close enough" - it actually feels like a distinct mechanical choice you make during combat. The art style is stylized rather than realistic which keeps the visual language clean and readable in high-speed team fights, and they launched with 10 playable arenas each designed around specific movement flows instead of one big open map everyone's forced through. It's an important distinction because it shows they cared enough about their own vision to not fall into the Titanfall trap themselves - and that alone makes me want to play it more than any "greatest hits" trailer ever could.
Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/were-not-trying-tobuild-titanfall3-empulse-ceo-says-though-itss-scratching-my-wallrunning-fps-itch-all-the-same
The distinction they make between what Apex did to Titanfall versus what Empulse wants for Supernova is actually super important here. Resp took the high-skill, high-mobility Titanfall framework and smoothed it down into Apex — which was great but also fundamentally changed how movement felt and who the game reached. Chris explains that their approach with Supernova isn't about adding features on top of an existing model; they built a fresh world with its own logic from day one. The gameplay loop is this: a fast-paced arena shooter where you battle through dynamic arenas, each one designed around specific mobility flows rather than just being empty space. You have elemental abilities that interact with the environment in real time — fire spreads on combustible surfaces and ice creates friction hazards — which adds a layer of skill ceiling over basic projectile aim.
I'm telling you this because I want to play it, not because I've fallen for another 'successor' marketing gimmick. The game is genuinely different at its core: the arena combat in Supernova is built around environmental interaction from the ground up — every map has specific points that react differently to your abilities and everyone on the team learns those routes over time. They also rebuilt movement as a discrete system rather than an overlay, so the wall-kick feel isn't "close enough" - it actually feels like a distinct mechanical choice you make during combat. The art style is stylized rather than realistic which keeps the visual language clean and readable in high-speed team fights, and they launched with 10 playable arenas each designed around specific movement flows instead of one big open map everyone's forced through. It's an important distinction because it shows they cared enough about their own vision to not fall into the Titanfall trap themselves - and that alone makes me want to play it more than any "greatest hits" trailer ever could.
Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/were-not-trying-tobuild-titanfall3-empulse-ceo-says-though-itss-scratching-my-wallrunning-fps-itch-all-the-same