Ethan "Piggie" Vance's eyes fluttered open in the IndieVibe X2 cabin.
Steel gray filled his vision—bright yellow railings, a glossy metal floor, sparks from distant welding splashing orange and red across the cold surface.
Behind the railing loomed a battle-scarred humanoid mech, its steel frame and sleek bearings screaming heavy-duty sci-fi vibes.
A grizzled soldier with white hair and a scar across his left cheek leaned on the railing, staring him down—Captain James "Jim" Lastimosa.
"Holy…" Ethan muttered, floored.
That GameScope blog nailed it. He wasn't a Pilot. Just a regular rifleman, Cooper.
"Hey… uh, yo!" Ethan stammered, spotting the digital dog tag on Lastimosa's chest. "Captain Lastimosa, what's good?"
Real talk: the IndieVibe X2's full-sensory tech was insane. Ethan could feel the spaceship moving—subtle vibrations under his seat, faint engine rumbles in his ears.
Lastimosa's voice was smooth, his movements natural, none of that clunky NPC vibe. The guy oozed veteran swagger—calm, tough, but not a jerk. Like a cool uncle who'd seen some stuff. Ethan, usually a motormouth, was low-key intimidated.
Chat lost it:
"Piggie's shook!"
"Captain's got that dean-staring-through-the-window energy."
"Scarface Jim's intense."
"Bet that's Jim's Titan back there."
"Piggie's calling him 'Captain' like a nervous freshman."
"Yo, Jim's gear is chef's kiss compared to Cooper's basic kit."
"Captain, huh?" Lastimosa chuckled, strolling over. "First time I've been called that, kid."
Ethan was strapped into a cockpit—some kind of simulator, he guessed. Lastimosa gave it a once-over, smacked the shell, and frowned. "Damn, ship's simulators got rebooted."
He waved toward a lever above Ethan's head. "Pull that. We need a reset."
Ethan yanked it. Clang! The cockpit doors slammed shut, locking him in.
"Whoa, hold up!" Ethan yelped. "I'm in a sensory cabin… inside a sensory cabin?!"
Matryoshka madness. Wild but dope.
After some tweaks, a firefly-like flash lit up. Ethan blinked and found himself in a courtyard corridor, a faint floral scent in the air, an artificial stream trickling through.
Lastimosa sat on a low beam, rocking a slick X-shaped Pilot helmet with dragon graffiti, a yellow scarf, and a khaki combat suit loaded with high-tech gear. The guy was a straight-up war cheetah—still as stone, ready to pounce.
"Damn, Captain, that helmet's fire!" Ethan said. "Beats any cosplay I've seen."
The wear, the texture, the vibe—it was light-years beyond some generic shooter skins.
Lastimosa grinned. "Enough flattery, kid. I shouldn't be training you, but you've got potential. And with this war heating up, who's got time for protocol?"
He stood, clapped, and pointed down the corridor. "Let's move, Cooper. Run and gun!"
Tutorial time. No sweat for Ethan—he'd crushed Left 4 Dead and PUBG. Running, jumping, sliding? Cake.
"Solid!"
"Nailed it!"
"Smooth, kid!"
Lastimosa's encouragement lit a fire under Ethan. The game's controls were buttery—way slicker than WindyPeak's older titles. Just sprinting felt like a rush.
He slid through a rock crevice, but the path ahead vanished, replaced by a vertical wooden wall.
Lastimosa's voice crackled: "Real test, Cooper. Activate your jump pack. Use inertia to wall-run over it."
Ethan's eyes lit up. That wall-running Pilot move from the Titanfall trailer? He'd been itching to try it. Simple, stylish, badass.
He sprinted, jump pack flaring behind him. "Piggie's about to soar like a pro—"
Thud!
He face-planted into the wall like a runaway truck.
Silence.
Chat erupted:
"Wild boar meets tree!"
"LMAO, Piggie's a crash test dummy!"
"That scream's worse than his backwards vape hit."
"Who pushed fifth gear? Oh, me."
"Smile's gone from Piggie's face to mine."
Pain shot through Ethan's head, amped by the X2's max setting. He groaned, rubbing his virtual face, while chat roasted him.
Meanwhile, Daisy "Dizzy" Lane, streaming Titanfall on Twitch, cackled at Ethan's fail in her chat. "Piggie, step it up! You're embarrassing Captain Jim!"
She'd just nailed the wall-run, sliding back and forth like a pro. Lastimosa nodded. "Not bad, Cooper. You're getting the hang of it. I was right—you've got chops."
Dizzy grinned. "Bet I'm your star student, Captain. Quick learner, that's me!"
She followed Lastimosa's light trail to a broken road, one end higher than the other. Before he could speak, she cut in: "Double jump, right? Saw it in the trailer—easy."
Chat gasped:
"Dizzy's cracked!"
"She's schooling Piggie."
"Captain Jim: 'This kid's Pilot material.'"
"PUBG skills paying off."
Dizzy, hyped by the praise, went for it. "Watch this, chat—natural Pilot vibes!"
She sprinted, slid, and triggered her jump pack, soaring high. Mid-air, she spun like a ballerina, one leg bent, the other stretched for a perfect landing.
Chat held its breath.
Crunch!
One leg hit the platform; the other snagged the curb. Dizzy face-planted, pain spiking through her maxed-out sensory setting.
"Owww!" she wailed. "I'm… tapping out… lower the pain, please!"
Chat cringed:
"Oof, that's a fifth-gear nightmare."
"Legs crossed in sympathy."
"Dizzy's down bad."
The IndieVibe X2's immersion was unreal. WindyPeak's polish, paired with the sensory tech, opened a new world. Titanfall was its pioneer.
One tutorial level had streamers hooked. The trailer's slick moves—sliding, wall-running, double-jumping—felt perfect. Nine out of ten streamers on Twitch, YouTube Live, and Kick were playing it, pushing Titanfall to viral heights.
Post-tutorial, the racing mode—a parkour map with a "smash 15 targets" goal—sucked players in. Some grinded for eight hours to top the global leaderboard. Jump boosts, grenade starts, surround dashes—players shaved Lastimosa's two-minute benchmark to 15 seconds. A U.S. player, Octane, hit 3.9 seconds with a double-grenade launch, untouchable for days.
Most players, like Muffin, pushed the story instead. She followed Lastimosa to an outer platform, surrounded by green hills and peach trees in bloom.
"This your hometown, Captain?" Muffin asked, taking in the scenery.
"Sort of," Lastimosa said. "Inspired by Harmony, my home planet. Peaceful, green, worth fighting for."
He took a deep breath. "After Ceres, we've reclaimed a chunk of the frontier. The Militia's growing, with fighters like you, Cooper, standing against IMC's tyranny."
He pointed to a massive mech. "Meet BT-7274, my partner. Militia-built, not IMC junk."
"'He'?" Muffin caught the pronoun in the subtitles.
"Yup," Lastimosa said, perched on the platform's edge. "Pilots don't see Titans as machines. You'll get it when you're one."
"Now, call your Titan."
Muffin's eyes lit up. She tapped her virtual Pilot watch, summoning an FS-1041 model.
Lastimosa's voice echoed: "Look up, Cooper! It's coming!"
A star flared in the sky, thunder rolling as a flaming, steel giant plummeted—low-orbit drop, straight from the trailer.
Chat exploded:
"Orbit drop's sick!"
"FS-1041's a beast!"
"Gotta be a Pilot for that, right?"
"It's just training, chill."
"BT's mine, back off!"
"Steal Jim's Titan, and he'll yank your cables."
Muffin screamed, "Hell yeah—"
But the screen glitched. The FS-1041 froze mid-air.
The sim chamber opened, and Lastimosa barked, "Something's up, Cooper. Gear up!"
Riflemen rushed past, tense and armed. Muffin groaned. "What?! War already? Where's my Titan?! I didn't even see it!"
She fake-pounded her cabin. "Who wrote this cliffhanger? It's like a novel cutting off mid-sentence!"
Captain Ryan Cole jogged up, tossing Muffin a rifle. "Move, Cooper, no spacing out!"
"Easy, Cole," Lastimosa said, clapping his shoulder. "Kid just finished sim training. Give him a sec. He's got potential."
Cole saluted. "Yes, sir!"
Muffin blinked. Both captains, but Cole deferred to Lastimosa. Pilots were clearly top dogs.
Lastimosa slotted a knife-like core into a shoebox-sized device, grinning at Muffin. "First to call me 'Captain,' huh? I'll train you to be a Pilot, but looks like we're out of time today."
Alarms blared. A soaring symphony kicked in as troops mobilized. Another Pilot, Alex Anderson, saluted Lastimosa.
Lastimosa plugged the core into BT-7274's head, the Titan whirring to life. Climbing into its cockpit, he turned to Muffin. "We're hitting a new planet today. Might not make it back. Stay sharp, Cooper. Good luck."
"Good luck, Captain!" Muffin threw a thumbs-up.
The screen dimmed. A somber symphony swelled, and the golden WindyPeak logo gleamed:
WindyPeak Games
Presents
The camera panned through a planet's clouds, the title blazing:
Titanfall
A lifeboat pierced the logo, trailing fire as it plummeted toward the planet below.