Titanfall VR isn't happening: Respawn's VR game is Medal of Honor FPS

Respawn today announced Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, its new VR shooter originally teased way back in 2017.

Titanfall VR isn't happening after all. Respawn's AAA VR shooter is a Medal of Honor adaptation centered in World War II, and promises to deliver authenticity and immersion via the Oculus platform. Above and Beyond takes players to various battles and theaters of war across Europe, and even tosses in some unique physics systems to enable realistic carnage.

Players can catch grenades mid-air and throw them back at enemies, toss knives, interact with the environment like climbing chains, ladders, walls, and even pulling a grenade pin with your teeth, operate tanks, and of course shoot a wide array of guns straight out of the brutal world conflict. You can even swim. The spatial head and body tracking will allow more freedom in VR, and Respawn wants to capture all the possibilities that Oculus VR has to offer.

"There's no moment in this game where you're relaxed. You're in a war zone," said lead animator Rrahul Dabholkar.

The content should be pretty beefy, too. We could see a fully-fledged 3-5 hour campaign that takes us across war-torn Europe. It'll likely have multiple perspectives similar to Battlefield 1, blending dramatic historical events with a kind of whimsy experimentation that only VR can offer.

"Whether you're driving a Sherman tank or at an airfield, or sneaking into a Nazi sub base, the level of immersion is unprecedented. Through the power of VR, you're climbing a wall, you're pulling out your gun, you're catching a grenade in mid-air and throwing it back. Those are all things you end up doing yourself," said lead game engineer Terrance Louden.

Respawn's Medal of Honor VR shooter will be out sometime in 2020 exclusively on the Oculus Rift.

Well the Rift isn't technically an exclusive platform now that Oculus Quest headsets can hook up directly to a PC and play Rift games.

Here's what Respawn director Peter Hirschmann had to say about Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond:

Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond is an action-packed and incredibly immersive VR experience set in World War II, where you step into the boots of an agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in war torn Europe. A deep single-player campaign takes you through historic events on land, air, and sea, sabotaging Nazi bases, subverting enemy plans, aiding the French Resistance, and much, much more. With the Oculus Rift, we're bringing players into the Medal of Honor series in an entirely new way, with an experience that transports you back to Europe in the 1940s. It's the closest thing to a time machine you'll ever see.

Medal of Honor has always been about celebrating the everyday people who did extraordinary things in the face of overwhelming odds, and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond continues that tradition in new and unique ways. Using interviews and 360 footage, we've had the privilege of capturing powerful first-hand stories from combat veterans of the war, using state-of-the-art technology to preserve their stories for future generations.

It's an incredible feeling for us to be back working with this series again, telling unforgettable stories of the men and women who stood up and fought against evil. We can't wait to share more with you over the next few months.