Please Stop Putting Multiplayer in My Single Player Games
I was pumped when they announced a new Fallout game. I loved the world through three games of exploring the Wasteland and was eager to jump back in again — until I heard two words.
Multiplayer only.
My excitement went from one hundred to zero. It was Star Wars Battlefront all over again. I am not exaggerating when I say that there is no faster way for me to lose all interest in a game title than hearing that it will be online and multiplayer only. Yet, this has been a trend from the larger game studios, turning traditionally single player RPG experiences into multiplayer affairs — and even if not committing to multiplayer only, was there a reason that anyone remembers for Bioshock 2 and the Last of Us to have multiplayer modes?
Like my fellow single player misanthropes, I’ve made jokes about it. “Hey developers, stop assuming I have friends,” etc, etc. Developers have come out and insisted that you can yes still totally play all these games and multiplayer modes by yourself, but one needn’t look further than recent Fallout 76 news to see harassment and griefing of potentially solo players that would not happen in an offline mode. It’s not hard to understand why big developers are doing this, and the answer is wrapped in dollar signs. Triple-A games are expensive to make. They are incredibly…
