A lot of people seem to be freaking out over the Titanfall player count revealed by Vince Zampella the other day. However, I found a really cool article by Polygon that should make people feel a lot better if they have any doubts on the player count. A 12-player headcount in matches of Titanfall is the sweet spot for the game, the title's lead designer tells Polygon. Any less and things threaten to get boring. Any more and the game becomes so intense it's off-putting. But that doesn't mean matches will be limited to teams of six running around trying to take one another out. Each map also supports up to 12 AI-controlled characters per side and each of a match's six player-controlled characters can, in theory, have a Titan following them like over-protective, weaponized pets. So counting AI, counting players and counting Titans in guard or follow mode, a match can feature nearly 50 characters trying to kill one another. But the decision to keep the player count to six per side wasn't based as much on worries about a crowded battlefield as it was the reaction play testers had to the intensity of the experience, said Justin Hendry, lead designer at Respawn. "The higher the player count, the more uncomfortable the game gets," he said. "Unlike in most games where you can sit there and guard the two ways in, in Titanfall the guy can come in through the window right behind you, he can come from the window to your left, he can come from straight ahead, he can come in from the stairway and he can come in from the doorway, or whatever. Essentially there are five directions you can get killed from and the higher that player count, the more likely you are to get killed from behind and the more difficult it is to kind of manage your surroundings." There's more information in the article here: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/9/529...packed-with-nearly-50-combatants-including-ai