Interview: How Titanfall could topple Call of Duty - and other big upcoming games for PS4 and Xbox One

The battle between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One isn’t going to be settled this week - or this year.

Both consoles have hit the ground running, but the real hit games won’t arrive till next year - with a dusting of upcoming exclusives that could be the crucial weapons in this console war.

For Xbox One, one of the biggest in its arsenal is Titanfall - a giant-robot shoot ‘em up from some of the key talents behind the early Call of Duty titles.

Yahoo! News caught up with developer Respawn this week. There are no prizes for guessing which big game series their new shooter has in its sights.

It’s an online-only multiplayer game built to sweep away cliches - and when it was unveiled at the E3 show in March, gamers were ecstatic.

“If you asked us the night before E3 if we thought everything would explode like it did, I don't know what the answer would be,” says developer Respawn’s Abbie Heppe. “The response to Titanfall has blown us away.   The shooter audience is definitely hungry for something new.”

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Titanfall is a breath of fresh air after decades of duck-and-cover shooters - featuring lumbering giant robots, pilots on jetpacks, and a sense of scale nothing on the previous generation of consoles could match.

For gamers, Titanfall is going to bring a new dimension - up. With huge robots battling pilots on the ground, and pilots on jetpacks racing along walls to leap into the “driving seat”, there’s a real sense of ‘up there’ and ‘down here’.

Death lasts a long time - and it takes a long time to die, breaking what Titanfall’s developers describe as the "boom-die-boom-die" cycle of Call of Duty.

The robots can really soak up gunfire - but can’t duck, or jump. The Titans are trampling two decades of gaming cliché beneath their feet.

 “When you work on a long-running game series there are only so many changes you can make before you've strayed away from the core of what identifies the game,” says Heppe “When you work on a new one you have a lot of freedom to do what you want.”

Titanfall only played online, against other people - and involves so much number-crunching, a lot of it is done by Microsoft’s banks of servers, not your Xbox. The destruction will unfold on a scale unimaginable on previous consoles.

Crucially, Heppe says, it passed the trickiest test of all - a Japanese audience. Could a Western developer really make the genre’s Citizen Kane?

“We had a great response when we brought Titanfall to Japan, and many compliments on the design of the Titans. It's amazing to get that response in the country of 'mecha',” says Heppe.

“But the giant robot thing seems to be having a resurgence in popular culture, which is really cool. I guess we're going to find out come March if we nailed it.”

Now check out some of the most hotly anticipated titles that should see the next generation of consoles fulfil their potential:

Destiny

Xbox One/PS4
Expectations are high for this online shoot ‘em up - it’s built by the team behind the $3 billion hit shooter Halo. Set in a ruined version of the solar system hundreds of years in the future, it’s one of the most ambitious titles for Xbox 360 and PS4, with players cooperating, battling one another, and growing characters, rather than just scoring kills.

Many of its writers come from a TV background - and the game’s story will unfold like an epic sci fi serial. "Public events" are huge battles where dozens of gamers take part, battling together against seemingly unbeatable foes such as giant spacecraft which drop six-legged, pig-like monsters into their midst. "If you succeed, you will become a legend. If you fail, the last light of civilisation will go out," says one of the game's characters.

Elder Scrolls Online

PS4/Xbox One
On previous generations of consoles, “massively multiplayer” gamers were largely a treat for PC gamers - now the life-sucking power of such World of Warcraft-style titles will be unleashed on console. Elder Scrolls Online takes the basics of the console fantasy hit - and adds a world with thousands of players. Airships soar over fantasy cities, dragons and demons battle in underground caves, and siege engines hurled huge bolts at fortifications, with dozens of characters fighting on screen at once. The makers promise 150 hours of gameplay - and a world that made previous hit Skyrim look “small”. Gulp.

Driveclub

PS4 March
This gorgeous-looking driving title was the notable absence on PS4’s launch day - it had been trumpeted as one of the console’s crown jewels, with online play where gamers band together to form a “drive club”, winning points for stylish play such as outrageous cornering. You’re constantly connected to friends - and a freebie version for PlayStation Plus subscribers should ensure the game is busy.

Quantum Break

Xbox One
The makers of the spooky, literary adventure Alan Wake wanted to make sure this time-travel-gone-wrong adventure was convincing - so they spoke to a CERN scientist to ensure scientific accuracy. Expect mind-bending thrills - and a TV show that plays alongside the game, with developer remedy dropping strange hints that how players perform will affect the show...

Halo 5

Xbox One
Little is known about the latest incarnation in Microsoft’s hit series - but with Halo 4 having garnered ecstatic reviews for its reinvention of the shooter recipe, the return of Master Chief is certain to be an event. Stephen Spielberg is also to produce a live-action Halo series, Microsoft promised at the Xbox One's launch - will the two be tied together?