Dataminers Are Why Titanfall 2 Won’t Get Technical Test on PC

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It’s the first weekend of the Titanfall 2 Technical Test on Xbox One and Playstation 4.

Gamers on console can find the game in the Xbox Marketplace or the Playstation Store (playable at 9 a.m. PST on August 19th). Meanwhile, those on PC will have to watch from the sidelines. It’s not a common occurrence.

Many pre-release builds of games are released on PC for the purpose of helping developers iron-out some issues. But Titanfall 2 won’t be among them. Why?

Respawn Entertainment, the developers behind Titanfall 2, recently said in a blog entry that players who look through the game’s files are presenting a unique problem. These “dataminers” often disclose the secrets they find on popular websites like Reddit.

The founder and CEO of Respawn, Vince Zampella, says “because the [Titanfall 2] single player story has some wonderful secrets that we really want to preserve for launch, we also have to worry about leaks.” Other major video games have suffered similar leaks, including Battlefield 1. Though Zampella calls Titanfall’s PC player base “wonderfully curious,” he doesn’t want to see the single-player spoiled for anyone.

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Robots piloting robots?

Zampella also notes there are other reasons for shying away from a Titanfall 2 Tech Test on PC – computer hardware variety and minimum specification optimization. He says “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.”

Respawn’s CEO recognizes “this is a big disappointment for our PC fans, but we feel this allows us to concentrate on the real purpose of the tech test and focus on the server stability and scalability.” Zampella says he’s confident the team at Respawn will deliver a great PC experience at launch.

Titanfall 2‘s first Technical Test runs until August 21st. The second Technical Test runs from August 26th to the 28th. Additional pilot abilities, weapons, and maps will be available during the second test. For full details on the Titanfall 2 Technical Tests, visit the game’s official website. 

Titanfall 2 launches on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC on October 28th, 2016.