Empulse targets the gap Titanfall left for players who miss movement shooters

Titanfall 3 stopped being a normal sequel request years ago. It became a blank space in the FPS calendar: everyone knows where it should be, nobody can point to it. According to Kotaku’s report, 1047 Games, the studio behind Splitgate, may now be probing that gap with a new game called Empulse.

The temperature needs to stay low. Empulse has not been formally revealed with a trailer, platforms or a release date. The report frames it as an early project, with Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson reportedly having seen pre-alpha footage. In that version, the headline ingredients are clear: wallrunning, grappling hooks and large mech companions. That is enough for players to hear Titanfall and start filling in the blanks, but not enough to know what the final game will actually become.

1047 Games is still a logical studio for this experiment. Splitgate worked because it treated an arena shooter as a spatial problem, not just a reflex contest. Portals changed attack angles, map rhythm and velocity. If Empulse really does lean into wallrunning and grappling hooks, the design instinct is related: shooting only becomes interesting when movement is the main instrument.

That is why the comparison with Titanfall 2 is more than a convenient label. Respawn’s game endured because it connected pilot agility and Titan weight into the same combat language. A good Titanfall moment is not just a large robot entering the frame. It is a shift in scale, tempo and decision-making. One second you are escaping through vertical space; the next you are controlling a machine that changes the geometry of the fight.

Empulse therefore has an awkward job. If it leans too hard on nostalgia, it risks feeling like a substitute product for a series that never came back. If it runs too far away from that template, it may lose the audience that reacted to the rumor in the first place. Spiritual successors usually fail in exactly that gap between recognition and identity.

The surrounding context makes the report sharper. 1047 Games CEO Ian Proulx has previously said he would like to make Titanfall 3, and Kotaku now cites a statement that a small section of the team has started work on a new game in addition to Splitgate. That sounds more like an early direction test than a full production parade. Scope, visual identity, business model and even the core combat loop can still shift.

Respawn, meanwhile, moved the broader Titanfall universe toward Apex Legends, while a direct sequel never became the public product fans kept asking for. That makes Empulse interesting before any official reveal. Not because it is already Titanfall 3 under another name, but because it suggests a studio with fast-FPS credibility still sees value in the same fantasy: a pilot cutting through a map, a grapple line rewriting the vertical route, and a mech that acts as a second rhythm of combat rather than background decoration.