Respawn Developing ‘Brand-New Single-Player Adventure’ In a ‘Unique Universe’

We’ve known that Respawn has had a few projects simmering for a while now, including a new IP not based on Titanfall or Jedi: Fallen Order, but thanks to a new job opening announcement, we’ve got some new details. According to creative director Mohammad Alavi, Respawn is working on a “brand new single-player adventure” set in a “unique universe.”

Respawn’s new job listings include spots for technical game designers, a senior combat designer, and a senior level designer. As you can imagine, the listings don’t give away too much, but do give a few vague ideas as for what to expect.

“This new single-player title is a designer’s dream playground with a freedom to innovate made possible by the unique universe it inhabits,” each job posting reads.

The combat designer role tells applicants they’ll work on aspects like “AI creation, weapons, abilities, player motion model, combat encounters and progression.” Player progression is probably the most interesting bullet point there, and may point towards some sort of role-playing element, or at least the opportunity to improve your character’s combat or character abilities as you go along.

The combat designer will also work on creating mechanics that “create thoughtful combat encounters that reward moment-to-moment strategic decision making, creative improvisation and player behaviors that are a joy to execute.”

Combat is also described as extending “beyond the discrete ‘fight’ to include how you approach it, initiate it and how you recover, regroup and grow through progression afterwards.” This suggests Respawn’s new game will have peaks and valleys in its action where players can take a moment to breathe and further strategize.

The senior technical designer position is drier, but does say applicants will “bring weapons, progression, abilities, mechanics, toys and global systems to life.” It’s unclear if “toys” is a reference to real-world accessories or in-game mechanics.

A lead systems designer position for the same “single-player incubation” project also describes one responsibility as “develop gameplay systems with a focus on longer-term loops and player motivation,” suggesting the pace of Respawn’s new game won’t be as focused on time-to-kill as a first-person shooter may be.

It’s similarly worth noting that creative director Mohammad Alavi was previously a designer behind Call of Duty’s critically acclaimed Crew Expendable, All Ghillied Up, and No Russian missions. That doesn’t necessarily point to any aspect of his current project, but it does show Alavi has extensive experience in the first-person action/shooter game realm.

IGN interviewed EA’s latest chief studios officer Laura Miele earlier this year. The industry veteran got her start with Command & Conquer creator Westwood Studios before joining EA, where she now says that she hopes to further incorporate the voices of players in deciding what games the publisher pursues.

Meanwhile, Apex Legends continues to roll along with the newly announced season “Emergence,” which kicks off on August 3.

Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/intelleckshual property for IGN.