So according to the developers at Respawn Entertainment, the Mecha from Titanfall aren't actually Mecha at all.
In a magazine article, Joel Emslie was quoted as saying, "These Titans don't feel like your granddaddy's mech","Mech is kind of a dirty word with us; we don't like it. These things aren't mechs. They are something totally new or different."
Vince Zampella, GM, chimes in: "The Titans are really an extension of the player. They are bigger, they're heavily armored, and they give you a kind of a second life, but they are agile, fun, and fast. They can dodge. It's not a feeling of something slow and lumbering. It really is an extension of you. You lose a little bit of agility because you can't jump, but on the ground these things are super-agile tanks."
Now, Cacophanus already tackles the fundamental identity crisis we're looking at with Titanfall's Mecha in the article linked above. It's a great article and I'd suggest anyone interested in Titanfall or Mecha give it a read.
What amuses me to no end, however, is the magazine article's claim that "Titans are armed with powerful weapons that make most Mecha look like toys."
Really? Well, let's take a look:
Armored Core:
Battle Tech:
Front Mission:
Titanfall (Image from the previously mentioned magazine article):
Yes Respawn. Like toys. Absolutely. Now it was the magazine article that said it, and not Respawn, but it does describe their sentiment very well.
Here's what Respawn doesn't understand, though. Likely because they haven't bothered to actually do any research into the 'Mech genre due to their apparent disdain for it:
The ACs from Armored Core are incredibly agile and insanely destructive war machines whose top speeds can be clocked in Armored Core 4/For Answer at over 2000 kph. In fact they are now so agile in Armored Core V that they can climb up walls a-la Mega Man X.
The Battlemechs from Battle Tech are implacable walking arsenals capable of laying waste to an entire army of conventionally armed and armored units, and leveling entire cities almost without breaking stride.
The Wanzers of front Mission are every big as agile and maneuverable as the Titans, with the bonus of being able to carry, at once, at least two heavy weapons in both hands, and shoulder mounted artillery pieces, missile launchers, or rocket launchers.
And amusingly, in every game franchise described above, Mecha such as the Titans appear in vast numbers. They appear as cannon fodder for your incredibly agile and heavily armored Mecha.
I could go on about how Big O from the show of the same name could crush a Titan in the palm of a single Megadeus sized fist, or how Megas XLR would rip a Titan a new exhaust pipe, but the point I'm trying to get across is: Yes Respawn Entertainment, the Titans are in fact Mecha. They're just incredibly generic ones with little to no point to them.
And honestly, if you're that afraid of calling 'Mechs what they obviously are, and the gameplay is effectively unchanged from the gameplay of a ground soldier aside from a few limitations, what was the point of wasting valuable development time and funding on such a feature?
The only conclusion I can come up with is that we do indeed dig giant robots, but some of us are pretty deep in denial about it. So much so that the developers of Titanfall want a Mecha which walks like a 'Mech, sounds like a 'Mech, fights like a 'Mech, and looks like a 'Mech, so long as they don't have to cave in to the nerdiness within and admit what it actually is.
So stay classy, Respawn. Let me know when the Titans come out of the closet, I might still have money to spend on your game.