Have Reports of Single-Player Games' Death Been Greatly Exaggerated?

Have Reports of Single-Player Games' Death Been Greatly Exaggerated?

38
Richard Walker

In recent years multiplayer games have been increasingly on the rise at the expense of the traditional single-player campaign. Yesterday, EA's Patrick Söderlund announced that the now defunct Visceral's linear narrative-focused Star Wars action-adventure game is being re-tooled as a "broader experience" with "greater depth and breadth to explore." With BioWare's Anthem following a similar model (arguably to the detriment of Mass Effect Andromeda), you'd be forgiven for thinking that single-player stories are bordering on extinction.

You need only look to games like The Witcher 3, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Persona 5, NiER Automata, Watch Dogs 2 and others to see how well a primarily single-player focused game can still perform in the current market. Linearity is becoming almost something of a dirty word, however, bringing with it certain negative connotations. The Evil Within 2 recently managed to sandwich in some open areas alongside its more linear sequences to some degree of success, while the likes of Uncharted 4 and spin-off The Lost Legacy chucked in large, open environments too.

Brilliant single-player titles like Arkane's Dishonored and Prey haven't managed to do well commercially despite being critically well-received, adding to the notion that single-player games are on their way out. One could attribute blame to the game's marketing, or lack thereof.  With Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus' marketing seeming to be far more effective, tapping into current political unrest in the world, it'll be interesting to see how that fares as a resolutely single-player FPS game - something that's quite rare these days. Assassin's Creed has ditched its multiplayer over the past few years too, with Origins expanding its solo open-world to massive proportions. You can expect Red Dead Redemption 2 to be another huge single-player offering too, probably one with a significant multiplayer component like Grand Theft Auto V's ever-expanding GTA Online.

And while many games are pursuing the Destiny, The Division et al. model of loot-filled, multiplayer-based, always online offerings, there are multiplayer titles that still deliver a solo campaign, like Call of Duty and Battlefield, or in the case of Star Wars Battlefront II, even add one for the first time since the reboot. Clearly, there's an audience out there that still craves the single-player experience, and one of them is Xbox boss Phil Spencer.

In an interview with Giant Bomb during E3 2017, Spencer explained his own motivations for eagerly wanting the addition of original Xbox backward compatibility features for Xbox One. It comes down to the increasing prevalence of the "games as service" model and the ostensible decline of single-player, more story-focused experiences -  something that seem to be lacking on Xbox One, bar titles like Halo, Gears, ReCore that still include a solo campaign.

"One of the things I worry about - and I've talked about it a little bit - are the single-player story-driven games," Spencer stated at the time. "It's hard when so much of the gameplay that happens on a daily basis is on these games that are long and growing and service-based, and then you get a smaller single-player game and what… how does it find its audience when so many hours are taken up?"

Spencer goes on to mention the popularity of games like Destiny and The Division, which offer potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay, while smaller games with a narrative-driven campaign seem to be on a downward turn. "One of the reasons I like bringing the original Xbox compatibility, the 360 compatibility back, is because I want... some of those old games should also get played in this time," he explained. "Maybe I don't want to go spend $60 on a game that I think has a beginning, middle, and end that I can actually see. I hope it never gets to that but certain people might have that mentality."

Spencer is hopeful that backward compatibility on Xbox One will breathe new life into old, mainly single-player focused titles, which in turn will hopefully drive demand for similar experiences in the future. With the Destiny-type model becoming more and more popular, it's easy to see why Spencer longs for more story-led games. The Xbox boss acknowledges that the 'games as service' model is well-suited to doing business, but adds that he's right behind a market that can offer gaming experiences of all types.

"I want all kinds of games to be successful," he said. "I don't think we want to see the death of games that have a beginning, a middle, and an end." And that's really what's most important: that there's a future for games of all types, be they single-player focused or broader online multiplayer services like Destiny and its ilk.

Some people have been saying single-player games are dead and have been for some time, but clearly that's not the case. There's definitely still a place for solo, narrative-led games and an audience out there that wants them. Yes, there are instances where single-player titles have failed to deliver, a recent example being the story of Dead Space 2, which cost a colossal $60 million to make and sold 4 million copies. Normally, 4 million units would see a game deemed a roaring success, but with heightened expectations (Square Enix expected its 2013 Tomb Raider reboot to sell 10 million, but it took until April 2015 to reach 8.5 million units sold), Dead Space 2 simply didn't sell enough.

Production values for top tier games continue to balloon, and with inflation, the purchase cost of games hasn't gone up by a significant enough margin to reflect this. Yet $60/£50 for a full-priced game still seems like a substantial outlay for consumers, and it can be, especially if it only delivers something that lasts up to 10 hours or so with little to no replay value. Unfortunately, publishers haven't realigned their expectations where sales numbers are confirmed, so a big budget triple-A title that fails to net millions in shifted units, is deemed a failure and inevitably, it's the studio and its employees that ultimately end up paying the price.

Perhaps indie games will eventually end up stepping in to fill the void, with some of the best single-player experiences in recent memory coming from titles like What Remains of Edith Finch, Tacoma, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Journey, Oxenfree, Telltale Games' output and a whole host others. So have reports of single-player games' death been greatly exaggerated? To some extent, yes. There have certainly been a number of successes and failures in recent years, but overall, we're optimistic that there's a bright future for single-player games. In the end, however, it all rides on what the consumer wants and how much you're willing to pay.

Comments
38
  • What's absolutely laughable to me regarding this new Star Wars title is that EA genuinely believes "greater depths" equates to some shitty, tacked-on mode. Single player games wouldn't be on the decline if developers sunk proper time and care into them. I don't know how many titles I've seen this year alone that look like they were rushed out and could've easily utilized another year or two of work and polish. It's a combination of laziness mixed with greed.
  • If single player games was a thing of the past we wouldn't get a game like god of war 4 which i bet will cost more than 60 million dollars to make and which i'm also sure will gain all that money back again.
  • Single player games arent in decline, pubs/devs deliberately abandon/half ass them in order to push DRM and season passes which ultimately drip feed the content we should get at a higher €£$. Coupled with sony and M$ holding games hostage behind always online paywalls and you can clearly see that this is a fully intended way forward. The only thing i find rather disturbing is how its all being given a free pass to happen
  • I don't even get why article like this is needed. Maybe Xbox is struggling with SP games (not only that..). But we've had Nioh, Nier: Automata, REVIII, Horizon, Bloodborne, Uncharted, etc just in the past year or two. And we still have yet to see Detroit, Spider Man, God of War and many others (what I assume will be) SP only or mostly games. Sony is nice like that to us gamers, even if they fail in other depts...
  • The day gaming becomes strictly MP is the day I quit. Hopefully that's still a ways away.
  • Games I played in 2017: Watch_Dogs 2 Horizon: Zero Dawn Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands Dishonored 2 RiME Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry Agents of Mayhem Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Hob Dishonored Watch Dogs 2 had tacked-on multiplayer components I only touched for trophies and I played the entirety of Wildlands in co-op. Everything else was single player, and that's the driver or a great game I.
  • Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice is one of the best games of this year and was a single player game. It cost £25 for a really immersive story.
  • MP is killing gaming for me. It seems like the focus is shifting that way, and all this "community" shit seems to be getting pushed more and more. The gaming community is the worst part of gaming.
  • @7 I'm gonna buy it soon just to promote SP exclusive games (Bonus that it's got great reviews)
  • Single player components of games haven't been what they were for a LONG time. Don't get me wrong, there are still a few stellar single player experiences out there, but they're vastly outweighed by the number of games that seem to focus on generic multi-player instead, to the detriment of the single player campaign. Hell, even Rockstar ditched what I bet would've been some great single player DLC for GTA V to focus on selling shark cards in multi-player instead.
  • Who is saying that single player games are dying beyond a few gaming journalists looking for some pub? This is like the old "JRPGs are dead or dying!!!" debate post PS2 era. They didn't die and they were never dying. Atlus alone has published probably close to 100 over the last generation and a half. The genre actually has never been stronger and more diverse. This is the same crap story line made up not by gamers but people who own websites who report on games. This year alone we have RE7, Hellblade, Persona 5, Gravity Rush 2, Uncharted:LL, Horizon, Tom Clancy: Wildlands, Evil Within 2, South Park, Mario Odyssey, Zelda, Crash Bandicoot, Bubsy, Xenoblade 2, Fire Emblem, Outcast, Rime, Prey, The Surge, Ys VIII, Pillars o Eternity, AC Origins etc etc etc. and that's just AAA level titles and doesn't include at least 50 others from other systems as well as indie digital only titles. This whole rhetoric is absolute nonsense.
  • Bravo, #11. Spot on!
  • Cannot wait for the "competitive"/"esports" scene to finally die off. Whenever I ask my coworkers something like, "Hey, have you played XCOM?" their response is always something along the lines of, "No, I'm working on gold tier in League of Legends/Rocket League/DOTA 2/Overwatch/Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Get good, noob." Almost as bad as Trump supporters.
  • I prefer my games to had a beginning, middle and end. I gravitate toward single player games, but am thankful for ubisoft having my back for some fun coop games to play with a buddy. I couldnt stand playing a single game for years on end like some mmos, CoD or Rainbow Six Siege like half my gaming friends do.
  • As others have already stated AAA Single-Player games are still around but have been declining in Quality to an extent... I kinda understand why one day out of the blue (toward the end of the PS3 Era , so let's say 2011) I all of a sudden started playing Japanese RPGs/Hack & Slashers/Fighters/Visual Novels and Rhythm Games ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY. I know most gamers tend to not want to go near Japanese games (at least nearly EVERYONE I know at least, and they are ALL huge "Hadcore" gamers) but Japan has literally been churning out nothing but PERFECT Single-Player Experiences for years now (and of course for years going waaaay back as well)
  • I play mostly SP/COOP (with a friend I have played COOP with for years) games mostly now. So not sure where they decided that it was "dead". I prefer peace and quiet or a friendly person in my ear.. not some twelve year old or worse.
  • @13 I agree. I have a friend who only plays DOTA2 even though he actually hates the game now but he argues that he's really good at it, attracts a decent streaming audience and is likely to break into the competitive scene soon. Gaming should be fun first and foremost! @15 I don't know if perfect would be the correct term, don't get me wrong I love Japanese games but they do tend to lean heavily on tropes and melodrama. SP>MP
  • I cant speak for anyone else, but the only time I touch mp is to go for a related trophy or help someone in coop. Some mp is fun, but the fun factor only lasts for so long once you start going up against people that only play that game. Time is precious, i'd rather experience other games/stories than run the same mindless mp over and over with no real goal.
  • if you ask me the whole model of "social" is really getting me bothered.. not only are we steering our whole global interaction into things that tap into this "social" aspect, it seems like its forced down our throats.. from facetroll, to twitter and other things. Its actually making us pretty self centered and narcissistic. The toxicity that's happening during multiplayer stuff now a days is ridiculous.. and after a while, if you dive deep into a game, you are just a part of a big herd of a glob of humans, all trying to do the same thing.. Don't get me wrong there is a place for it, but now its getting ridiculous.. This is why I really don't jump into fads or the new mp that comes out, its trolling gaming in general. a good single player game will trump mp every single time..gamers that just do mp are really short sighted people, you have to have a balance, and I never see that on the whole
  • This is worse than when people said console gaming is dying during the last generation. SP gaming isn't dying just because EA closed down Visceral and wanted to make more money. EA does not lead the industry.
  • If single player games die out I'll stop gaming completely. While I do like battlefield and the first battlefront. I much prefer the single player experience. Getting called a homo by a kid that sounds like he's from the chipmunks is only fun in short doses.
  • The past generation, iirc GTAV and Skyrim were the best selling games with tens of millions of units sold. While you could say that GTAV has a nice online, both games are way more known for their single player campaigns. I'm sure SP games have still a long life ahead, and coop should feel like an extra option, never a forced one.
  • Has anyone thought about maybe dropping the price of single player games? I love single player games and rarely play online but are publishers honestly surprised when they release a game that will provide a single play through to most people interested in buying it at the same price of a game that can offer infinite replay value. The pricing of Gaming, console gaming mostly, is getting out of control. Gran turismo sport just launched, pretty much a demo of GT7, with almost no options to play the game in any depth without an internet connection at the price of a full game!!! How does even work?! Create a more varied price structure and get rid of this huge rise in online only games!
  • @22 I'd say the opposite is true for GTA V considering all the money they've made from GTA Online.
  • Most of my friends say the same thing. Single Player campaigns are what drives them to the games. They don't care about Multiplayer. Other friends say that the Multiplayer is a second thought to them. It's good to have a friend or two to play with, maybe even a few randoms, but overall, it's the story of a Single Player game that draws them in. That's why I'm glad to see that Assassin's Creed is going back to it's roots with no Multiplayer. Also to note is that games like Ghost Recon Wildlands, Far Cry 4 and 5, and a few other games, can be completed in a Single Player manner.
  • Single-player focused and story-driven are not the same thing. You bring up Watchdogs 2,but it's far from narrative-driven, like most Ubisoft games are. @23 Ninja Theory is trying that. They made a smaller
  • This is all arse-backwards. Get rid of (online) multiplayer I say! I seriously look at games as they came out and if they contain only or onerous multiplayer content then I avoid them. Attempting to play with a horde of idiot online multiplayer users is not fun. If you have to go down that path then put in LAN multiplayer (like the Borderlands) series then when inevitably the servers go down (sometimes it seems like they're barely up for a year) you can still get some enjoyment out of the game with your friends. Playing any FIFA title after the latest yearly iteration has arrived is pointless if you're trying for online trophies. Couch multiplayer like, say, Party Golf or PixelJunk Shooter where you can have your mates play with you in the same room - that's different and fun because you actually know and like the other players already and no online connection necessary.
  • I'm sorry but this article needs a bit of reality thrown into it. There were enough games this year alone that have proven to be great single player games. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn both did great for their console platforms. There's a whole slew of single player games from 2015 - 2017 that are worth your time playing. Saying they are dying couldn't be farther from the truth. Phil Spencer is the wrong guy to be in charge of the Xbox One. He is basically throwing out single player experiences that Horizon Zero Dawn and upcoming titles like Spider Man and God of War will have, and throwing in random multiplayer that not a whole lot of people will probably play. The Xbox needs good exclusives. Right now the Scorpio has nothing going for it. Even if they have good exclusives they will just get ported over to the PC, because Microsoft also owns Windows. Idiot.
  • I almost play only SP games, I hate the MP environment which makes the game eitehr shit if you join late of you kinda have to "cheat" or get boosted to enjoy the game with your friends or the community as a whole. Destiny 2 per example.. my friends got it at release, which was way to expensive, but now we can't really play togheter as I would be lvl 1 and they would be in end game content and max lvl.. a MP game that didn't have this problem and I enjoyed very much = For Honor where the items do get better but it's not a huge difference which keeps the game in balance.
  • https://kotaku.com/the-collapse-of-viscerals-ambitious-star-wars-game-1819916152 This article kills this topic for good. It even features a quote from EA about how this truly had nothing to do with the state of single player games in the market. This is EA being the terrible company they are to work for if you're a game developer as we all saw way back with the whole "EA Wives" fiasco. They're a publisher who shouldn't be in charge of how a game is made in any way, shape, or form.
  • You have South Park and The Evil Within next to this, so no, they are not dying.
  • I have Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, I want to platinum it but the glitches stopping me from getting it, the side-ops Bridge and Loose Ends 4-5, I've finished the Act 1-4, Loose ends 1-3 and burning bridges 1-2, I don't know if what i'm saying here is related to this topic, but how am I suppose to play this kind of game again, if there's no assurance that this kind of game has no glitch in the future. FYI: I started playing it last Oct. 3 2017, i got the latest 1.07 patch, but the guide said the 1.04 fixed everything, if the developer reading this, please fix it, just unlock those side-ops put it in the map, so i can get the last weapon for those side ops and trophies. PSN: raffyboy81
  • Dead Space is one of my favorite Sci-fi games. I've played it on PC, Xbox 360 AND PS3, collecting all the trophies over multiple playthroughs because--I just liked the game that much. I wanted to believe that multiplayer was a good direction once I heard the announcement for Dead Space 2 but it became apparent that the single player aspects of the game lacked the depth I sought from the sequel to Dead Space. In place of that I found really crumby multiplayer. Dead Space 3 felt a little closer to home but also lacked for a genuinely great experience by gating content behind "multiplayer doors." I couldn't see 100% of the game WITHOUT a second player. I enjoyed aspects that refined zero gravity moments from DS2, but hated my inability to see the entirety of the game without a cohort. Multiplayer shouldn't be forced, nor should it be tacked on as a marketing bullet point. Some games are genuinely better when played alone, and I will always support those games. I'm certain there are more than enough single player advocates out there to compromise an entire community of "me time is important in gaming too," and "don't sell me shit I am not trying to buy." For what it's worth, when I feel the need for multiplayer games I invest in multiplayer games. As an unrelated note, I feel that some multiplayer achievements can be cruel.
  • Single Player games are obviously not dying. The issue is that it's more difficult for AAA publishers to wring extra cash out of games that have no multiplayer component (although they're certainly trying, with the recent wave of lootboxes in singleplayer games). So I think we'll be seeing less and less AAA games with a complete lack of multiplayer aspects. However, AAA games are only a part of the industry.
  • I love SP Games ! Only some games, Dead Island i play Coop...Only i play coop in Games. i Play not many time for MP !
  • 33 is totally correct. Dead Space 3 had somereally cool MP moments in it, but that was at the expense of the game / series. The seeing 2 different things in the same room was really freaky, but it also changed the whole Dead Space vibe. The games cost 60 and DLC's 20 to 40, they can still be profittable if the game is good.
  • i played a ton of great single player games this past year and had a good time. When I played Ghost Recon Wildlands with friends it was frustrating to do missions where they'd miss their shots whereas the AI in solo would kill what I pointed them to. I do enjoy MP games but sometimes you just need a good single player experience.
  • In SP games when failing a mission or dying in dark souls you blame the The Character In MP game when losing match you blame others for choosing what you think is the wrong character for the match
  • You need to register before being able to post comments

Game navigation