By Sam Coles:
With the recent closure of Visceral Games by EA, a lot of
people seem to think that singleplayer experiences are in jeopardy. Are they?
No I don’t think so, yes multiplayer games are talked about more, but that has
always been the case as they can evolve and have more longevity compared to a
solo experience.
The current generation of gaming has been given a label of
being a multiplayer environment; yes there have been a lot of games that are
purely multiplayer with varying degrees of success, such as Overwatch and
Rainbow Six Siege.
Where did all of this start? Well if we look further back to
the 7th generation of consoles with the launch of the Xbox 360 we
saw a shift with multiplayer in general with couch co-op and competitive being
push to the way side for online. Games like Halo 3, Gears of War and the big
one Call of Duty 4 showed that consoles could do online multiplayer, after Call
of Duty 4 we saw a lot of companies shoving cookies cutter online modes in
games that were singleplayer experiences first and foremost. Games like
Uncharted, GTA IV and the Tomb Raider (2013) had these forgettable modes that
were overshadowed by the solo experience. Call of Duty started to stray away
from their campaigns and started to focus their efforts on the multiplayer as
it was aspect that was marketed the most as the singleplayer generally got
brief trailers.
When the Xbox One and PS4 launched it was clear that the
online environment was the future even for games that were solo, but most
people pushed back at this notion because reasonably why should you be
connected to the net even with a solo experience. Sony and Microsoft have backpedalled
to a certain extent with the online constant connection for solo games with a
few exceptions. However what shifted the focus on multiplayer was due to the controversial
business practise of micro transaction loot boxes/micro DLCs. These can be
shortcuts for weapons, gear and power ups for those who are too lazy to you
know play the game like you had to back in the day, but sometimes they can be
harmless like cosmetic stuff for your character. This isn’t the problem, the
other issue is that they are bleeding into singleplayer games, a recent example
is Shadow of War, which lots of gamers and critics have pointed out that the
game grinds to a halt in the later stages in the game unless you spend real
money on the game.
However there have been a lot of good singleplayer games the
past two years that I have been reviewing on the Xbox One and PS4. We have had
games like The Witcher 3 one of the best games of the generation with a superb
story and beautiful world to explore, plus I am a huge fan of the series books
and games. 2017 alone has been a great year for solo experiences with games
such as, Horizon Zero Dawn, Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, The Evil Within 2, Nioh and
the list goes on.
The statement of “Singleplayer games are dying” is absolute
cobblers because there will always be an audience for both it has been like
that for over a decade. Think about the games that are still widely discussed
today, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4(campaign), Halo 3, Oblivion and Resident Evil
4. Those games came out over a decade ago and people are still talking about
them, singleplayer games have more staying power because they can have
replayablity, beautiful and immersive worlds to explore and characters that you
have genuinely got to know throughout a series and grow to love them as if they
are your real friends.
We all need to calm down and look at the future with the
solo experiences that publishers are giving us such as Yakuza 6, Death Stranding,
Detroit: Becoming Human and hell even Far Cry 5. So no singleplayer games are
not going anywhere that is an absolute absurd statement, there is always room
for both audiences who are competitive and those who want to get lost in a
world and go at their own pace.
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