The multiplayer elements of games have never held that much interest for me. I’m not always the most social of creatures, so it’s nice to be able just to unwind without having the presence of other players foisted upon me. That’s not to say that I dislike games that feature multiplayer, but for me it’s more of a bonus than a core feature. Even games that are known for their multiplayer, like Call of Duty, appeal to me more on their single player merits.
Of course, things have swung somewhat now. Last generation there were frequent complaints about games having “tacked on” multiplayer, but we’ve now shifted almost entirely the other way, with a lot of people, myself included, missing games that focus on a tight single player experience alongside the multiplayer.
Perhaps a good example to focus in on is Star Wars Battlefront. Despite my desire for single player content in games, Battlefront still appeals to me a lot after spending some time with the beta. Jim takes a similar view, and managed to explain nicely why Battlefront in fact shouldn’t feature single player: It just wouldn’t fit.
“Unless DICE was to go away and completely remould Battlefront,” Jim pointed out, “we’d end up with a string of singleplayer missions that feel like bot matches.” He went on to state that when he looks back on earlier Battlefront games and how poorly their single player elements have aged, he’s actually “glad DICE opted for the standard survival and challenge options, which also allow for local co-op.”
However, the very fact that previous Battlefront games have featured single player elements has left many disappointed that the latest entry doesn’t. Ubisoft have a similar situation on their hands with Rainbow Six: Siege, but as Teflon pointed out, “Neither company has really communicated this well enough to their fans until backed into a corner, generally trying to dodge and avoid the topic rather than simply coming out and saying that this is multiplayer first and foremost.”
Another issue is, of course, the price. My view on this is actually that if a game has enough content, regardless of whether it’s single player or multiplayer, then it’s worth the price. It’s all about how much you’ll get out of it. Dave, however, feels that Battlefront’s price point of “£49.99 on PC via Origin and £54.99 on consoles” means that the game had “better be pretty spectacular in order to warrant this price, but even then it’s hard to justify when there is no single player.”
Interestingly, however, Dave also feels that going single player or multiplayer only is a perfectly valid option for games, as long as the price reflects this. In particular he highlighted Battlefield and Call of Duty as games that “might be better off going multiplayer only.”
Jim agreed on the Battlefield side of Dave’s argument, saying that “Multiplayer has always been the core focus of that series,” but actually feels that Call of Duty’s single player gets a bad rap. Instead he feels that “Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer clearly put a lot of time into these, drafting in Hollywood actors to help deliver some truly awesome set piece moments,” which I actually agree with him on.
Now it’s time for you to have your say. Do games need a single player component to appeal to you? Or should some games ditch a weak single player to further focus on their multiplayer elements?
cam_manutd
Some games are bought purely for their single or multiplayer elements. Battlefield for mp, Batman Arkham Origins for sp for example. Tacked on or not fully developed sp is a bit of a shame nowadays. The sp is the primary hub and focus of any game. Even if it should serve progression towards the mp, it should be more developed.
Rocket league for example has a simple, functional season mode in which you can play against bots on the hardest difficulty. That is recommended as its the only way to experience the game as it would be played in multiplayer. Is it tacked on however?
Battlefield aside from the Bad Company games have very tacky single player campaigns. BF4 mixed it up a bit more but its still underwhelming. Starhawk, spiritual successor to Warhawk had a simply dreadful single player that served as a tutorial of sorts for the unnecessarily complex multiplayer.
The problem is now more games than before are bought for their mp aspects. Despite a lot of focus going on sp in games such as the new Halo, it will be primarily played for the mp. The same with Battlefront which looks promising and a bit of a mess as the same time.
Should a game take time to include or focus on either the single or multiplayer aspect, it should be developed enough to compliment each other. Otherwise, you will get examples like Spec Ops: The Line where its multiplayer bore no familiarity with its delightfully dark single player. Or Starhawk for its redundant single player.
Forrest_01
The thing is about Batman Arkham Origins, from what I saw of the multiplayer it could have actually been quite good… If it only worked. I rarely got into a match & the couple I did get into I got kicked from after about 1-5 minutes of play.
Moral of the story; If you want to shoehorn a mp experience in, at least make sure it works, eh?
Starman
I think if a game is primarily about multiplayer then having no campaign is fine. I find the CoD & Battlefield campaigns tedious anyway.
I’m not even that fussed about the amount of content, as long as the network works well and it’s enjoyable. One of my favourite games is Warhawk, and that was multiplayer only and had just 5 maps + 3 via dlc. Imagine the uproar now if a multiplayer only game had just 5 maps!
However it’s full price then it needs lots of post release support like Warhawk & Titanfall had.
Kennykazey
I believe most AAA games are overpriced. And I think in terms of Battlefront, the price is too dear.
My main issue with it is the high price for the Premium (DLC) component coupled with the already full price for the main game. Like with Battlefield, if you want all of the content for the game you’ll have to pay twice as much as a normal game. That’s a lot of money for one game if you’re not certain you’ll spend enough time with it to be worth it.
MrJimmy
Yes well said, these 85 quid fancypants editions are not for me, I need to know if I like the main game, and don’t want to pay full price for half a game either. Sp or mp is fine, why hide what you are?
Forrest_01
Yeah, this sort of thing is beginning to be all too common in a lot of things these days – Both The Crew & Destiny were completely unplayable at Christmas last year (remember that?) & I understand it a little more from Destiny I suppose as you need to log in to your profile, choose your character & its all interconnected once in game (spawning into a completely empty tower last night was a bit of a headf*ck for example), but as far as The Crew was concerned, there really is/was no reason why you need a connection in order to play that game. Should have been entirely possible to enter the map, play that game in single player & continue working through the challenges.
As for selectable game types (i.e. sp/mp), some things suffer from having them (see my Batman comment above), whereas some things suffer a little for not having them. Take a FPS for example: It’s all well & good to have it be mp only, but if they aren’t going to give any kind of sp experience, then they need to at least provide a training ground so that you can practice, or just spend time d*cking about. That sort of thing doesn’t tend to go down too well in actual mp matches. Fortunately, things like battlefield cater for this scenario, but would all online only shooters?
Goes for other things as well I suppose – Would LBP be as revered as it is without its single player offering? Would people want to have that just be creations & multiplayer only? I don’t know, they might. I know people generally got into the Uncharted mp (some in quite a big way), but would it be any less of a game without it? Would that have been better off with a split where they release the single player (as they did with Drakes Fortune) & then pop the multiplayer onto the store (or whatever) for folks to dip their toe in & see how they like it?
Did Neverdead need multiplayer at all?
Overall, I think if something does something well then concentrate on that & make it the best it can be. If a mode ultimately has the feeling of being shoehorned in for the sake of it, probably don’t bother? But in my opinion, you shouldn’t be without an option to play a game by yourself should you want to (or need to, like when networks go down) & a few games are unnecessarily falling foul of that atm.
Andrewww
As much as I enjoy some multiplayers, my personal preference so far have been games with a decent single player campaign. Games without that I’m just less interested in.
And there are clever ways to integrate MP into the SP side, e.g. as it was done in Demon’s Souls with the traces of other players. That can add a lot without having to offer a full MP mode.
However, this is just my preference, and I think it’s totally ok for games to offer just one side of this coin, as long as it delivers quality, and is clearly communicated.
A bad example of trying to do both was one of the earlier CoDs (was it 4?), the only one I’ve ever played. The campaign was just plain rubbish and ridiculously short.
A good example for me was Uncharted 2, of which the priority was the SP, but the MP was a nice addition.
The amount of content and pricing is a difficult one, as I think in the end it’s entirely subjective, whether you like a game enough that it was worth its price.
Generally, there’s a lot of content in many games, even too much content, as most players only ever see a fraction of it. That’s just wasted resources, which a developer should rather spend creating something a higher percentage of people will actually experience.
Compared to other entertainment offerings, e.g. films, you usually get an awful lot more from a game, which allows, in my view, for the higher pricing.
JustTaylorNow
I hate online, if I can avoid it, I will avoid it. Multiplayer is the most unfriendly place to be as a gamer, it ruins your gaming experience, you always no matter what have that one d*ckhead who doesn’t play for the team but for himself. I truly despise online & will never buy a game that heavily relies online.
Single story games wil always be important, I love a story driven game cause it makes you remember the game or gives you an idea of what a game is about.
Carrot381
I’m with you there, although for me it’s not so much the dickhead who doesn’t play for the team so much as the prevalent expressing of racist, sexist, homophobic (in fact generally bigoted) language and ideas which seem to go totally unchallenged.
My one multi-player ownly guilty pleasure though is PvZ Garden Warfare. I always turn the chat off though.
Lieutenant Fatman
I think many of us would like the option to purchase either online only or single player only in some games at a reduced cost. Because often only one part really appeals. This would probably net more sales but does risk profit, especially for games like Call of Duty so I guess we won’t see any publishers testing the waters with that idea any time soon.
The Lone Steven
As someone that plays single player only, i would be very pissed off if i spent £40 for a game only to find out that the entire game for me is crap because the single player was shoved in. Games like COD and Battlefield don’t do single player well as Activision and EA know that the MP is the strongest part of those games.
But i do believe that if it’s not worth putting in a short, rubbish campagin, don’t put it in and just release as a MP only title with a reduced price. I fully believe that MP only games should not get a full price as that’s limited by the publisher and when they decide to kill off the game. Just look at Battlefront wanting a full £40 for what is just a weaker version of Battlefront. Sure, the SP in the originals was kind weak as it just consisted of match with bots but it was fun! And Conquest was a breath of fresh air. But it could have gotten away with not having a main story. Sadly, Dice has decided to not try to deliever an engaging story with 3.
For me, gaming is about strong single player and is usually worth the £40 but i hate the fact that microtransactions could end up being forced into it as it ruins the game. “I could heal you but for a few pound, i can make you invincible.” Hell, it’s already happened with Tomb Raider 2(sequel to the rebooted TR) with it’s cards and it sounds like it will break the game due to INFINITE AMMO being available from the start. Just what the hell?
What really pisses me off the most is forcing single player games to have an internet connection! Just **** ***! That is inconvient, annoying and a pain in the arse if your net goes down.
Starman
You’ll be relieved to know cards in tomb raider are just for the time & score modes, not useable in the campaign.
Eldave0
I’m all for some games choosing to be a single player only or multiplayer only experience, but the devs certainly need to go the extra mile if they are going to ask for the full price.
For example: Fallout 4 is completely single player, but is probably going to be worth the £50 it is asking for, because of how much content there will be.
The Order 1886 on the other hand (a game which also has no single player mode but is also only 5 hours long and has 0% replay value) should have released at £25 in my opinion, not the £49.99 Sony were asking for.
The same goes for multiplayer only games. By all means skip the single player campaign (the ones in COD and Battlefield are shite anyway), but if your game only has a handful of maps and modes, it should be sold at a reduced price – especially if you are then planning on charging extra for a Season Pass a month or so later.
stefhutch20
No matter how good a game is, having no singleplayer campaign basically guarantees that I won’t be getting it. If I’m honest, I didn’t actually realise Battlefront doesn’t have one, so thanks for saving me £50, TSA! :D