Several years ago, prior to Respawn Entertainment moving on to its most recent ventures inApex LegendsandStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, it was innovating the first-person shooter. At the time of release, many believed thatTitanfallandTitanfall 2were genuinely a next-step for modern first-person shooters, emphasizing skill-based movement and futuristic/unconventional equipment.Titanfalldid have a tangible impact onCall of Duty, among other shooters, andTitanfall 2helped solidfy its legacy with an acclaimed campaign alongside its excellent multiplayer. However, that legacy is unfortunately marred with what’s been happening toTitanfall/Titanfall 2this year.
According to several fan communities ofTitanfall, both the original game and its sequel were victims of several DDOS attacks as early as 2018. Multiplayer services were constantly being taken offline, prompting groups ofTitanfallfans to petition EA and Respawn Entertainment for more proactive countermeasures. Groups of fans, including those who formed SaveTitanfall.com, were allegedly attempting to “save” the game until an investigation discovered that wasn’t entirely true. From there, fans found out that once-respected members of the community were not who they same, while any desires to actually stop the DDOS attacks toTitanfallandTitanfall 2were evidently fraudulent.
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The Titanfall Online Hacker Conspiracy
Starting from the beginning, the controversy began whenTitanfallandTitanfall 2’s multiplayer servers were quickly becoming more unstable, to the point of entire servers shutting down. Hackers were apparently initiating DDOS/ransomware attacks, overloading the servers to the point where multiplayer would become unplayable or “playable” at severely high ping. It didn’t help that comments from Respawn Entertainments community coordinator mentioned thatonly “one or two people” were working onTitanfall/Titanfall 2at this point, citing the ongoing support ofApex Legendsrequiring most of Respawn Entertainment’s resources and manpower.
This led to a subsect of frustratedTitanfallfans organizing another separate hack againstApex Legends, all in an attempt to get public attention on the issues withTitanfall’s servers. Or so most thought, until a far more disturbing story unfolded. As it turned out, pivotal members of the SaveTitanfall.com community (identified as usernames P0358 and Redshield) weresolely responsible for theTitanfallhack, not the majority of the community behind that website. SaveTitanfall.com published a 40-pages-long document detailing a community investigation into the hacking incident, evidently absolving the community at large, whilst also highlighting a strange scheme.
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Titanfall 2’s Supposed Security Flaw
Apparently, according to the report, this was alla ploy in an attempt to actually breakTitanfallandTitanfall 2. Evidently the plan was for the hackers to gain access toTitanfall’s source code via breaking the game, and offering ways to repair the game to Respawn Entertainment, all in service to getting a connection with the developer. The ultimate goal of P0358, Redshield, and any other hackers associated with them, was to ultimately port the Asian exclusiveTitanfall Onlineworldwide. These hackers went to great lengths attempting to getTitanfallandTitanfall 2ultimately shut down, with the hopes of either accessingTitanfallsource code, or reverse engineering it.
More recently, a month after the details of this community investigation were brought to light,Titanfall 2’s community began reporting an even greater potential threat from hackers. Members of the community started circulating a Discord message sent by DirectXeon that noted a potentially major security flaw, related to a temporary file that manages player invites. Long story short: the temporary file manages a size cap of a player name, and if a name exceeds that cap, this temporary file is read as an executable.Respawn conducted its own investigation of theTitanfall 2security flaw, and determined players did not need to ultimately uninstall the game.
While the situation is still ongoing, Respawn Entertainment has since concluded that the only vulnerability inTitanfall 2currently is hackers could potentially cause the game to crash. Other than that, this widespread security flaw seems to be less severe thanTitanfall’s community members expected. However, it’s just another example of the rollercoaster of issuesTitanfallandTitanfall 2have had to go through, with limited assistance from the developer available to help fans. Unfortunately forTitanfallfans, it’s unclear what the long-term solution will be at this time. HopefullyTitanfallfans can catch a break at some point this year, especially after all that’s happened.
Titanfall 2is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
