The state of Titanfall 3 is currently in limbo, and nobody knows if it’s even still being worked on as Respawn has gone completely silent on the matter. It’s safe to assume that the game’s very likely been canned, though, since they seem to be going all in on Apex Legends nowadays. Enter Diesel Knights, a mech-themed shooter set in a dieselpunk universe.
I’ve played around with the prototype for a bit, and the project’s looking pretty promising so far. Let’s talk about what it is first as I share my thoughts!
EDIT (4/6/25): Well well well, looks like there are rumors that Titanfall 3 is still being made. We’ll just have to wait and see if that actually ends up becoming a thing.
What Exactly is Diesel Knights?
As of writing this, Diesel Knights is still in very early development, but there have been some previews dating all the way back to mid-2023. From a glance, it looks like a spiritual successor of sorts to Titanfall due to its incredibly familiar movement mechanics and, well, the large mechs that you can pilot.
In a nutshell, the game is marketed as a 6v6 shooter that places heavy emphasis on advanced movement and mech combat. We haven’t really seen any of the latter yet, but the parkour stuff is looking kind of smooth already.
As far as I know, it’s mainly being worked on by a single developer (Xavier B. Johnson) who has also enlisted the help of a small team to help him. Everything is said to be handcrafted—the animations, character models, weapons, and more—all made from scratch, and so far, they’ve already gotten a decent amount of stuff done judging by the prototypes featured in their YouTube channel.
It’s really looking like a more grounded version of Titanfall due to the setting/theme that they chose, especially with its lineup of original guns heavily inspired by actual weapons used in the past. There’s also those little details like mech pilots using a periscope to see where they’re going, much like riding a tank.
Of course, you’ll still need to suspend your disbelief a bit as players are all wall-running, double-jumping, gravity-defying pilots who have seemingly inhuman levels of core strength. But hey, stuff like that is exactly what we love about shooters like this! Heck, you can even backflip too, apparently.
I Played the Demo
I signed up for the Diesel Knights playtest recently, and I got access to it as I woke up the next day. You can try your luck at the game’s Steam page too! This section’s actually an update, as I originally wrote this just the night before they released it.
The demo is, as you’d expect, still very barebones and is mainly there to showcase the movement and a bit of the shooting. It’s clear that the game is still far from being finished, but I’m already having fun chaining wall runs and trying to speed through the test maps. I made a couple of GIFs/WebPs below to show you snippets of gameplay. (Yes, there’s a third person camera too)
There’s also a playable multiplayer mode, but it’s exclusively split screen right now. Luckily, I have an 8bitdo controller always hooked up to my PC whenever I need it, so I got it running with no issues. We’ll just have to wait and see how an actual match will be like in a future update, but for now, you can play around with it locally.
A bunch of game modes have already implemented, including something called “Fox Hunt”, which is like an alternative version of Tag wherein one player is “it” and will passively gain points until they’re replaced by whoever kills them. I can only imagine how chaotic that’d be in a full lobby with parkouring speed demons.
As for mechs, they haven’t implemented it yet, unfortunately, so that’s another thing to look forward to later on. As small as it is, the one multiplayer map in the game at the moment, Sand Table, at least looks like it’s already primed to allow for some mech gameplay.
A Healthy Amount of Hype
There’s much to look forward to based on the previews, but since Diesel Knights is still in pre-alpha, I’m tempering my expectations a bit. With how small the team working on it is, I can’t even begin to guess when we’ll get a playable multiplayer demo, and honestly, I hope they take their time.
As much as I’d want a tangible title to fill that void that the lack of Titanfall 3 news left behind, I’d gladly wait a while longer if it means being able to test more than just the parkour. And nah, I’m already tired of TF2 and even Apex Legends (yeah, I’ll throw it in there too), so I’m willing to sit around until a fresh new experience rolls around.
For now, I can’t exactly say that I’ll be keeping a very close eye on it as there’s a lot of other stuff I’m interested in as well, but I’ll certainly be checking in every now and then to see how it’s progressing. Between this and FragPunk, I’ve got a lot to look forward to in this genre, and I sure as hell got the patience for it.