Titanfall multiplayer is going to suck in SA

Titanfall’s multiplayer battles won’t be a good an experience in South Africa compared to other regions of the world, due to the use of Microsoft Windows Azure to host dedicated servers for the game.

Titanfall has just announced its open beta period, which will run from this Friday (14 February) for PC and Xbox One. There’s no word on the number of spots available, so head on over to the site to register: titanfall.com/beta

Upcoming man-to-mech FPS, Titanfall, developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by EA, will be a 6v6 multiplayer-only affair that makes use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing network to host dedicated server instances for the game.

Azure is the foundation for Microsoft’s Xbox Live marketing pitch that accompanied the reveal of the Xbox One – the boasted claim is 300,000 Xbox Live servers around the globe, although it is likely these are virtual server numbers and not a physical hardware count.

On paper, Titanfall using Azure is a good idea because the server provision is scalable based on demand, and it takes the hosting load off the end-user, removing annoyances such as host migration mid-match, host latency advantage, and unstable host connections.

However, if you are nowhere near an Azure server node all of these advantages are moot. Microsoft South Africa has confirmed that there are no physical server deployments for the Azure network in South Africa. A spokesperson told MyGaming:

Microsoft is currently providing Azure services for South African customers through a vast worldwide network of Microsoft Datacentres. This allows us to provide world class service levels and deliver on financially backed Service Level Agreements. This worldwide network of Datacentres currently does not include a South African deployment due to the high Service Levels currently being experienced by our South African customers.

We reached out to EA South Africa and Respawn Entertainment to find out if there are any plans to get local servers hosted in some way, but received no response by the time of publication. We were going to hold on for their answer, but with the announcement of the open beta, it seemed pertinent to get this info out to our readers.

With the open beta opportunity, some South African gamers may get in, and we’d like to hear feedback on their gameplay experience.

Titanfall is scheduled to deploy on Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC in March 2014.

Set in the near future on a distant frontier torn apart by war, Titanfall drops players in the middle of a conflict between the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) and the Militia. The action is rapid and varied – featuring parkour-style wall running, massive double jumps and the ability to hijack titans. The freedom to shift back and forth between pilot and titan allows players to change tactics on the fly, attacking or escaping depending on the situation and extending the action vertically to new heights.