Feels like I’ve been hearing back and forth forever about whether it’s going to happen. I never tried the multiplayer personally, but I know this is sad news for many
Is it really? I thought the entire point of this game series was delivering a tightly scripted singleplayer narrative. That’s what attracts people to it. I think the overlap with people looking for some kind of multiplayer shooter is fairly small.
Used to be our favorite single player games came with multiplayer modes attached to them. You didn't expect them to get years of content. You just enjoyed them for a little while with some friends and then moved on. Not only is that totally fine, I'd argue it's preferable.
Absolutely, but that’s not how this works anymore and today, the expectation with every multiplayer game and even multiplayer mode is that it’s live-service. The industry has replaced the “natural” skill progression of players with dangling the carrot of permanent (and in my opinion mostly pointless) unlockables in front of their faces at all times.
I think some of it is the audience’s fault. I have heard many friends complaining about multiplayer games being “dead” or “abandoned” because there’s no new content and I’m like “I’m pretty satisfied, it doesn’t need anything else”. If there’s enough people playing for matchmaking, I’m good.
Let's change that expectation. Baldur's Gate 3 won best multiplayer at the Game Awards, and it's not a live service. In a talk with some friends, I realized how antagonistic the relationship between players and developers always ended up as well when the developers make more money with more "engagement". Diablo IV will get fun builds nerfed into the ground; Baldur's Gate 3 will let them rock, but only in the pre-existing difficulty levels before they add in extra challenge modes for fun. That's the difference.
Meanwhile, Agent Under Fire multiplayer for the Gamecube is more fun than any live service FPS I've ever played. It certainly didn't require years of support to be that fun, and you only need one other person to play it with, but preferably 3. Very easily doable regardless of how many people are in matchmaking.
It's a really good, well done stealth game that rewards very deliberate action and awareness of your surroundings. The multiplayer in the original was unique and really fun.
It had some pretty good aspects to it, but their reasoning behind cancelling (would need to “shift to a live service model”) it is pretty unfortunate and telling of the industry.
The game solely exists as a multiplayer team death match with the gameplay mechanics of The Last of Us. It was like Max Payne 3 meets Gears of War.
It was fun for PS3, I could see it faring well enough today but if their plan was to monetize it then it’s better off dead. Especially considering the state of the PC release, it just wasn’t the type of game to feasibly monetize. What can you do, skins? So any fun free unlocks are now paid or locked behind a battle pass, nice. What else is there, game enhancements? There were consumables so, we could have been paying for packs of those! Truly, we’re missing out.
I’m reminded of AlphaDream, which died as a company shortly after releasing a remake of a game where the original was still playable on the same console.
It has also secured an age 18 rating, with mention of violence and in-game purchases.
Hopefully they don’t get too greedy.
Capcom has been slowing morphing in to becoming yet another EA, Ubisoft or Activision with the monetization in their recent games (e.g Street Fighter VI, Exoprimal). Battle passes, Fomo-traps, social pressure, skinners boxes, Denuvo etc. At least most of their games are still good if you can ingore all the bullshit.
At least in this you can probably just throw all the pawns with paid costemtics to the nearest ditch for being walking advertisements.
The first Dragon’s Dogma had a ton of small DLC too, so this isn’t exactly new. They even sold rift crystals. I guess a lot of players don’t realize how much DLC it was because the later editions and the ports came with most of it included.
I don’t know how old you are, but I feel like younger people say this more often than older people.
As someone who saw the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32/64-bit in their childhood, graphics were everything from the 80s until at least the 2000s. Each new generation was leaps and bounds better than the last; I remember the discussions in the playground being centered around nothing but graphics every time a new console was announced. Nobody talked about the games.
Nowadays we have incremental updates at best, so now people care less and less about graphics like they used to. Not me, though. I’m still a graphics slut and an absolute whore for path traced games. I’ll play a game I don’t enjoy if it has the latest in graphics tech.
I’m old and hold the opposite opinion. Those first few generational leaps were amazing. But I feel like we’ve long reached the point that almost any experience can be conveyed with impact.
I enjoy the new bells and whistles. But these incremental upgrades come coupled with skyrocketing costs, longer development times, and fewer risks. Indie gaming is still innovating of course, but I miss when AAA studios were churning out risky, unique titles.
Yeah but Rockstar won’t using that they were using just standard animations so it’s fine that they’ve come up with around animation system cuz they use their own engine.
I understand their reasoning… My point is why patent a locomotion style when no one gives a shit if the game is shit. I don’t think a great looking walking animation is going to move the needle as to a game’s sales.
To me, updates and DLC serve different purposes. Updates are for bugfixes, new features, feature enhancements, etc. DLC is new game stuff, like additional characters and levels and so on.
I agree with your interpretation, but I really wish publishers would go back to calling additional levels or story content an "expansion" instead of DLC. It's a lot more clear and differentiates from other types of content like a character costume or a soundtrack.
Gonna read this later, but already thanking you for posting this! Random super interesting gaming deep dives is one of my favorite things to stubble upon in my feeds. So thank you so much!!!
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