Titanfall's 'Zone 18' map offers little safety on the rooftops

Respawn Entertainment has offered a preview of Zone 18, the second of three maps in Titanfall's upcoming DLC pack, IMC Rising. Zone 18, says the game's creator, was developed from a map used to test the game's "Last Titan Standing" mode.

"It was a basic mirrored layout that was almost a paintball field for Titans," writes developer Geoff Smith on the game's official blog. He revisited the layout to see if it could be balanced for play in all of the game's modes. Smith says he made the rooftops roughly equivalent height, recognizing that pilots often free run to the highest elevation to avoid ground combat and take advantage of long sightlines. Providing multiple perches of the same elevation forces players, friend and foe, to meet up more.

Down below, he added underground hallways connecting three hardpoints, to make sure players would encounter one another down there. Then there's the basic surface, where the Titans slug it out.

Zone 18 is an old hidden base for Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation, where it continues research after the destruction of the old Hammond Robotics' headquarters in the game's final campaign mission. Backwater is another map that will accompany Zone 18 with "IMC Rising" launches later this fall. A third, Sandtrap, has been named but yet to be revealed.

Titanfall's latest title update introduces an 8-on-8 deathmatch among human pilots only and adds new additions to the library of Burn Card boosts.