Mohammad Alavi, a former developer at Respawn Entertainment, has revealed that the third Titanfall entry was in development for almost a year before it was canned.

The details:

In a recent interview, when discussing canceled projects with THE BURNETTWORK, Alavi mentioned that some significant work was done for Titanfall 3 before it was canceled. "Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about ten months, right? In earnest, right?" Alavi said. "We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better; it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right? And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2, where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?"
As for what happened, Alavi explained that the multiplayer team began "dying" due to issues with trying to "fix" the mode so that it didn't burn out players too quickly, as well as the increasing popularity of the battle royale genre, specifically PUBG, which led to its developers becoming more interested in creating a battle royale map with Titanfall 3's classes rather than a traditional multiplayer mode. This eventually led to the team abandoning Titanfall 3 entirely in favor of developing Apex Legends, a battle royale title set in the same universe.
Alavi, who had recently been appointed as the game's narrative lead designer, and writer Manny Hagopian pitched the entire Titanfall 3 story, but after a break, the two decided they needed to focus on the battle royale instead, with Alavi referring to Titanfall 3 as "Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better." The game's development is unlikely to resume anytime soon, as despite Respawn's CEO Vince Zampella expressing personal interest in a sequel, he confirmed that it was not currently in the company's plans.

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Titanfall 3 was 10 months into development before its cancellation, former developer claims