The early part of 2014 was a turbulent time for Xbox to say the least. The Xbox One had just released to a disappointing reception (mainly due to everything that happened pre-launch), which led to Don Mattrick leaving his role as Head of Xbox and current boss Phil Spencer taking his place. The original lineup of Xbox One launch titles was pretty good on the whole, but Xbox still needed something big to kick off the new year in 2014.

That game ended up being the original Titanfall, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in just a couple of weeks on March 11th, 2024. It's also remained an Xbox console exclusive throughout the entirety of the past decade, with EA and Respawn Entertainment choosing instead to launch the sequel, Titanfall 2, as a multiplatform game.

As a result, a lot of people don't actually remember the first Titanfall all that well, but wow - what a game. In this writer's opinion, it was the first must-have exclusive of the Xbox One era, exquisitely blending a mix of fluid, parkour-style gameplay with the sheer force and destructive power of its Titans. The balance between Pilots and Titans always felt so well realised in the original Titanfall, while its gunplay felt endlessly fun and expertly crafted.

Here's an except from Pure Xbox's original review of the game - in which we gave it an "Excellent 9/10:

"Without the Titans, Titanfall is a solid FPS that is easily right up there with the best of them. Throw the Titans into the mix though, and you’ve got a game that will eat up hour after hour of your life. We’ve demoed the game to a couple of gamers who aren’t traditionally interested in multiplayer FPS titles, and they’ve all been hooked within a round or two. There’s absolutely no better advertisement for a game than that."

Titanfall is missing a few features compared to its sequel, such as a single-player campaign and gameplay mechanics like the grapple hook, but we'd argue that Titanfall 2's map design is slightly inferior. We'd much rather be darting across the rooftops of TF1's "Angel City" than navigating the restrictive caves of TF2's "Crash Site", for example, although it should be noted that plenty of Titanfall's maps did make their way over to the second game as well.

Of course, Titanfall 2's arrival in 2016 meant that the original game slowly started to dwindle in popularity in the years that followed, and issues with hackers (across both games) didn't help the situation. 10 years later, the OG Titanfall is still playable on Xbox One, but it's unlikely that you'll find many people playing it on a day-to-day basis.

That part doesn't really matter now though. In terms of the history books, Titanfall was an extremely important part of the Xbox One's lifespan, providing Xbox fans with a highly-rated exclusive that ended up winning a ton of awards and restoring some positivity in Microsoft's brand during one of the toughest periods in its history. The series has left a major imprint on Xbox over the years, and we're keeping our fingers crossed for a third game in the future...

What did you think of the original Titanfall? Let us know down in the comments section below.