Just like its predecessor, Titanfall 2 will undergo a multiplayer tech test to see what happens when the game is turned loose in a more-or-less 'live' environment. Unlike the original, however, testing won't happen on the PC. Respawn boss Vince Zampella said on the Titanfall 2 blog that it's too early in the development process to deal with the inherent headaches of a non-standardized platform, and he's also worried that PC players rooting around in the beta files might dig up something that will spoil the single-player campaign.
“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,” Zampella wrote.
“Also, because the single player story has some wonderful secrets that we really want to preserve for launch, we also have to worry about leaks,” he continued. “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.”
Zampella acknowledged that PC gamers are bound to be disappointed by the decision, but keeping the beta exclusive to fixed-spec consoles “allows us to concentrate on the real purpose of the tech test and focus on the server stability and scalability,” he said. “Rest assured we’re confident in our ability to deliver a great PC experience for launch.”
Titanfall 2 is set to come out on October 28.
