8 Awesome Titanfall References in Apex Legends
The Biggest Titanfall References, Crossovers and Easter Eggs in Apex Legends.
- Valkyrie, Ashe and even Pathfinder all share major connections with the original Titanfall games.
- Hammond Engineering and the IMC are direct references to factions in the Titanfall universe and several characters like Bangalore and Newcastle have connections to them.
- Kuben Blisk was a main antagonist in Titanfall 2 and founded the Apex Games.
Ever since Titanfall 2, which was released in 2016, got a recent update people have been speculating about a possible Titanfall 3 despite the fact there’s already a third game in the Titanfall world…Apex Legends. That’s right, Apex Legends takes place in the same universe as Titanfall, albeit a bit further into the future. Here are eight times that Titanfall has made it into Apex Legends as references, easter eggs or straight-up crossovers.
Valkyrie, Daughter of Viper
While Apex Legends is riddled with references to the Titanfall world since they share the same universe and timeline, the biggest crossover at the time was the introduction of Kairi Imahara. Using the callsign Valkyrie, Kairi is the daughter of one of the bosses players have to defeat in Titanfall 2.
As a supporting antagonist in Titanfall 2, Viper, one of the Apex Predators, was always destined to fall and it was his death that put his daughter on a path of vengeance. She blamed Kuben Blisk, leader of the Apex Predators mercenary corps and now commissioner of the Apex Games for her father's death.
When she confronted him and planned to take his life, he instead convinced her to join the Apex Legends to make her own name and to stop sulking in the shadow of her father.
Ash, Haven’t We Met?
While Valkyrie was the daughter of a character from Titanfall, in Season 11, Ash became the first Titanfall 2 character to crossover into the Apex Legends games. In Titanfall 2 she served as an antagonist, a simulacrum pilot who was once human.
Kuben Blisk had hired her on as a scientist to the Apex Predators, but after being mortally wounded while acting as a double agent her consciousness was transferred into a robot to save her mind.
Today, in Apex Legends, the personality of Ash is constantly at odds with her former personality as Dr. Ashleigh Reid. She was also the one who stranded Horizon in space.
Titanfall 2 Scientist in Season 14
This easter egg was a short-lived one as you could only see it in the lobby screen during Season 14 of Apex Legends when Vantage was released. Vantage grew up on an isolated planet with her mother, a prisoner on a prison ship. When that prison ship crashed, she was already pregnant and gave birth there.
Vantage grew up on that planet and eventually, the prison ship was found and her mother was sent back to incarceration. In Season 14 you can see the silhouette of a prisoner in the background of the lobby screen and a lot of people assumed it must be Vantage’s mother, but KralRindo, a notable dataminer and content creator for Apex Legends was quick to point out that the movements and mannerisms match the Scientist NPCs from Titanfall 2.
The IMC Lives On
There are a lot of names and terms that pop up in both Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends. One of the most common and important names to the lore of Titanfall 2 is the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation or the IMC.
Titanfall 2 players will recognize it immediately as it’s one of the main factions in the game and it was the IMC that was able to send humans en masse into space. The IMC was also the faction that fought to put down the Frontier Militia.
Apex Legends players will recognize the IMC for a few different reasons; firstly, it was founded by Doctor Hammond, the same Hammond who owns Hammond Engineering. There is a point of interest on the Olympus Map where you can visit Hammond Labs and they’re also the main rival to Octane’s Father’s company, Silva Pharmaceuticals.
Finally, both Bangalore and her brother Newcastle, fought for the IMC before finding themselves participating in the Apex Legends Games. You can also find on Storm Point, the IMC Armories that allow players to attain high tier loot.
Pathfinder: MRVN of Tomorrow
Everyone’s favorite robot Legend, Pathfinder, is actually an advanced version of the MRVN robots Titanfall players see around several locations doing odd-jobs and moving cargo.
What makes Pathfinder so special is that he was created by a special team of scientists to save the Outlands from an energy crisis. While all of those scientists died in an explosion in the lab, he survived. Each of those scientists when developing Pathfinder, but a little bit of themselves into him and one of those scientists included a grown Newton Peck, Horizon’s son.
Wraith: Power of the Titans
One of the original Legends included at the release of Apex Legends, Wraith’s abilities to phase in and out of the void, isn’t new to the Titanfall universe.
The ability to phase was available to certain mechs and their pilots in Titanfall. In fact, even Ash uses an ability that is very similar to Wraith when uses her ultimate, claiming to “Initiate Phase Tear.”
Renee Hope “Wraith” Blasey actually comes from a completely different dimension where she was unable to find volunteers for her research and experiments. After doing the experiments on herself, she lost her memory and developed her powers to enter the void and end up in different dimensions.
Wraith from Apex Legends.
Screenshot from Apex Legends\Respawn Entertainment
A Future Armory
Perhaps the easiest references to spot for fans of both Titanfall and Apex Legends, is the weaponry. A lot of the guns you’ll find in Apex Legend are just future, improved versions of the weapons you use in the Titanfall games.
Some of the weapons that appear in both games include the Flatline, Alternator, CAR, Volt, L-Star, Spitfire, Longbow, EVA-8 Shotgun and the Mastiff. There are also a few that are named differently, which suggests they’re revised or updated versions such as the R-101 Carbine and R-201 Carbine in Titanfall and the R-301 Carbine in Apex Legends.
There’s also the R-97 Compact SMG which eventually would become the R-99 SMG, and the D-2 Double Take which is now the Triple Take in Apex Legends. Some of the guns yet to appear in Apex Legends include the EM-4 Cold War, the EPG-1 and the Sidewinder SMR -- most likely because all three are ordinance-based weapons and fire grenades and missiles.
A side-by-side comparison to the R-99 SMG (Apex Legends) and the R-97 Compact SMG (Titanfall).
Titanfall and Apex Legends Video Games
Blisk: Boss the Apex Games
One of the biggest crossover characters in the Titanfall and Apex Legends universe is the big boss himself, Kuben Blisk. Though he has never appeared in Apex Legends proper, he’s been very prominent in several cinematics, most notably for Rampart and Valkyrie.
Blisk is one of the two main antagonists in Titanfall 2, as he leads the mercenary group known as the Apex Predators. He’s also the founder and commissioner of the Apex Games. No one gets to play in the Apex Games and become a Legend without the approval of Kuben Blisk.
There was also a time when leaks and rumors suggested that Respawn Entertainment, the developers of Apex Legends, were working on adding Blisk into Apex Legends as a playable character. Leaks suggested that his ultimate ability would have called down a Titan to assist in the battlefield.
Kuben Blisk as seen in the Rampart "Stories from the Outlands - The Endorsement."
