In a new Gamasutra feature interview, War in the North lead designer Andre Maguire tells Gamasutra that "everything that we built is about teamwork... likely that you won’t get the most complete experience in single player" -- and muses on whether co-op is the future.
When asked if the game is intended to be played cooperatively, Maguire answered, simply, "Yes."
"Everything that we built is about teamwork," said Maguire. "It’s about working together as a team, and by doing that, you really get the best experience. If you were playing single player, we certainly support that, and that’s cool."
How does Snowblind Studios, the developer of the game, support single player? With AI bots. "They’ll use those skills, they’ll upgrade their gear. You can direct them to attack your targets, or defend, or whatever you want, but you’ll miss out on a lot of the loot, you’ll miss out on the side areas. It’s likely that you won’t get the most complete experience in single-player," Maguire said.
So is single-player dead? "I don’t think it’s over, but I think [co-op is] certainly becoming more compelling for consumers, and for gamers. I certainly think its cooler but it’s, it’s just a different thing."
With War in the North he said, "there’s an incentive to playing online with your friends. It’s easy to connect up online; it’s not a big thing. Making it accessible and making it worthwhile for players, I think that’s the key, and if you can tie that in with your core pillars, then that’s great. I’d say it’s a challenge, but it’s worth it."
The full interview, which covers more about the development process of Warner Bros. Interactive's latest Lord of the Rings Game -- which releases this week -- is live now on Gamasutra.
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Shame because I was excited with the game. Now it's a no.
However, with Kane and Lynch 2, the single player had design issues mainly from shoehorning elements into the single player mode from the multiplayer. What happened was that the AI was only programmed to attack human players, meaning in single player, you were always the focus of the AI and not your AI friend. Rendering tactics like covering fire and suppression meaningless. Playing KL2 multiplayer was an entirely different experience which I'm sure most people didn't try after being let down by the single player mode.
When a game is not designed to handle the requirements of single-player play, then it will falter on the co-op/MP experiences.
Single player is not dead, so long as developers will put the effort into making the experience happen.