The next generation of single player, according to Crytek’s CEO, will move toward experiences that are played alone but affected by being connected to the internet and therefore other players. In an interview with IGN he said:
“I think the notion of a single-player experience has to go away, however, I’m not saying that there will be no single-player experiences … it could be it’s called Connected Single-Player or Online Single-Player instead.”
He goes on to add:
“Online and social can reignite single-player in a new type of context and provide benefits that will make you want to be a part of a connected story-mode rather than a disconnected story-mode. Sure, if the technology forces you to play a traditional single-player game online, that doesn’t make sense but if it’s offering actual benefits to be online then you want to be part of it.”
It’s a sentiment that’s being shared often lately, also having been backed by Sony’s Mark Cerny who’d recently shared he believes Singleplayer will be gone in three years and replaced with systems that don’t differ too much from what’s already taking place in the Souls franchise, found in ZombiU and soon emerging in Watch Dogs.
The promise is an interconnectivity in games that are played alone but can optionally be affected by the actions of others.
This enthusiasm isn’t shared by all of the games industry, ex-People Can Fly dev Adrian Chmielarz has raised concerns that the implimentation is worrying even if the concept is sound. He considers this the next step in games feeling that they have to include multiplayer without thinking whether it improves the experience.
Perhaps this is true, yet every “Connected Single-Player” game released thus far has arguably benefited from the change. We’ll see how this continues as more titles adopt a similar aproach.
