Titanfall Team Decides Against Single-Player Campaign

[Genocidicles]

Which is a good point. Anyone complaining about this game need only look at Team Fortress 2. That game is widely successful and does not have a lick of single player.

But TF2 was first released in the Orange Box, along with 4 other singleplayer games. Then when it was released stand alone it was a good deal cheaper than a full priced game. And then it was made F2P.

Whereas Titanfall will be released like a regular game at full price.

 

[00slash00]

that was the impression i got from e3, but glad to have confirmation. glad as in, glad i know not to buy it. no single player = no interest

 

[SecondPrize]

So, I find this news to actually be kind of hilarious.

Here, Titanfall was looking to be the one and only Xbox One exclusive title that was actually good, that actually had the potential to move units and sell Xbones all by itself... And it just pissed that all down the drain. I don't know, maybe something will change between now and when the Xbone launches in a few months, but my personal experience working at a game store is that online-multiplayer-only console games do not sell. At least, not for very long. We have massive piles of copies of Socom Confrontation, MAG, Shadowrun and Warhawk that we can not get rid of for longer than a day. People come in, want to buy them, and then return them, frequently mere hours later, after realizing that the game has no offline mode for them. We could not move these games if we were giving them away. Because we HAVE. We've given out copies of some of these games away for free, and people still don't want it.

Mind you, I'm certain Titanfall will sell better than all those games. For starters, it'll likely be higher quality than all of them, so that'll help, but the number of people who don't have a good enough internet connection to be able to play, or just aren't interested in multiplayer (which, for FPS games especially, has a bad reputation for attracting obnoxious 12 year olds) is not to be underestimated. Combined with the still lackluster enthusiasm for the Xbone in general as well as its higher price tag, and I suddenly see a lot of anticipation and desire for this game dropping off.

And what makes this so ironic to me is that it's being done by Respawn, aka, the guys who made the two GOOD Call of Duty games. I don't actually have any friends who like playing CoD multiplayer. Hell, as a whole, most of my friends detest the entire CoD franchise, BUT, they all make exceptions for Modern Warfare 1 and 2's single player campaign.

Titanfall will release on the 360 and PC as well as the Uno.

 

[Ken Sapp]

I can respect them for making the decision to focus on a multiplayer title instead of trying to be all things to all people. However, this saddens me because a game that had piqued my interest has now lost any chance at being purchased by me. I abhor multiplayer only titles, mainly because I don't have the time to invest in becoming good at playing against other people who spend all their time in FPS multiplayer. Honestly speaking, I am an eclectic gamer and tend to bounce from one title to the next and single player or co-op with the occasional foray into optional multiplayer is where it is at for me.

 

[P.Tsunami]

Great. I wish Yager were given the freedom to do the same and axe the multiplayer on Spec Ops: The Line.

 

[WashAran]

snip

You should read the artical again, both for that matter, because in none of them is anyone saying anything about cuting cost.

 

[hooksashands]

Hell yea.

One of the things I've been hating about Defiance is that while it's primarily multiplayer co-op, near the end of every chapter there is a solo mission that you can't bring your friends into; the instance is closed off until you complete it, then. That's not good game design. Why make an open world where I can group with friends and even form my own clan and have multiple in-game chat channels, but throw me in a phase all by myself to fight a boss?! GRRRRRR!!!

*deep breath*

Anyway, this looks cool. I still want to play it even if there's no comprehensive single player story. Sometimes multiplayer can be better, because it strips away all serious tone for the sake of fun. I had a way better time hitting people with sledgehammers in Red Faction's multiplayer. It's interesting to see how players react to each other in the same environment. I remember there being a game mode where the object was simply destroy the other's base, so everyone on the enemy team wouldn't bother attacking you, they'd just go to your tower, you'd go to theirs and whoever whacked down enough wall and supports first won. I also remember all the times I became a Big Daddy in Bioshock 2's multiplayer and went on a frenzied murder-drill rampage.

 

[Azure Knight-Zeo]

On one hand I appreciate them not wasting time on a crappy single-player campaign, but at the same time I do wish a game like this would have a decent story campaign to explain a few things (they can still do that with a MP only game, just look at TF2, but I doubt they will). Also 60 bucks is a bit steep for just a multiplayer game, TF2 was only $12 at launch and these days most are free to play with micro-trasactions.

 

[WashAran]

You should read the artical again, both for that matter, because in none of them is anyone saying anything about cuting cost.

You should read my post again.

Maybe because they explicitly state in the article that they're doing this to cut production costs (namely in terms of development time "lost")?

They make it very clear in the article that they don't want to pour "hundreds of hours" and "millions of dollars" (ha!) into a single player that "no one will play". Development time is a form of cost, ergo cutting development time is a cost-cutting measure.

Thanks for playing.

1.This is the actual quote.

For Respawn's crew of 60-something heads, those numbers just don't add up. "You split the team," Zampella says. "They're two different games ... but people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus as little time as possible rushing to the end [of the single-player]."

2.The "millions of dollars" is nowhere to be found in the artical.

3.From the original artical, where they say they are going to put all thair rescources in to the multiplayer.

"We make these single-player missions that take up all the focus of the studio, that take a huge team six months to make, and players run through it in 8 minutes," Zampella said. "And how many people finish the single-player game? It's a small percentage. It's like, everyone plays through the first level, but 5 percent of people finish the game. Really, you split the team. They're two different games. They're balanced differently, they're scoped differently. But people spend hundreds of hours in the multiplayer experience versus 'as little time as possible rushing to the end' [in single-player]. So why do all the resources go there? To us it made sense to put it here. Now everybody sees all those resources, and multiplayer is better. For us it made sense."

 

[ghostrider9876]

Well now here's an interesting bit of hypocrisy...

When a studio tries to release a game with no multiplayer elements publishers throw a shit fit and demand some sort of online experience. Mostly for monetization purposes.

But when the reverse happens, in this particular case, people are calling it a good move.

I understand their sentiment with this. If the single player is going to be tacked on, then they shouldn't include it. But the opposite should be upheld as well. If a game doesn't need multiplayer, then it shouldn't be forced to include it.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Where are the devs publicly decrying having to tack on multiplayer to a game that's primarily SP-focused? Oh yeah, there aren't any. >_<

As awesome as Titanfall looks, I won't be buying it. As someone else said, I'll just stick with TF2.

Also, this really does make Zampella sound like an insufferable jerk.

 

[N7Caboose]

Oh what's that you don't want my money? OK then.

Also you only doing half the work? then i better see it for half the average price and then you'll have my attention. But for some reason i doubt that.

 

[Ayay]

One release date i dont care about then , but now its a wait and see if servers work and if there is a player base. And i thought they love people pre ordering games ? That will go right out of the window wont it ?

 

[RJ 17]

While I disagree with his underlying notion that "Single Player is Dead", I have to say that I'd much rather see a game that clearly wants to be multiplayer-only actually BE multiplayer-only. As I recall, Respawn was formed by former Infinity Ward guys, right? You can't blame them for having this opinion considering the Call of Duty franchise really is a multiplayer series that has a half-hearted story stuffed into it.

As a matter of fact, I'll go ahead and say it: I think all FPS's might as well be Multiplayer Only...seems like that's what the majority of FPS players get them for anyways. And by focusing all their resources on developing a quality multiplayer experience, we might just see some truly memorable multiplayer games. That still leaves plenty of genres to which single player is more applicable (puzzle, action/adventure, RPG just to name a few).

 

[Magmarock]

I have one word for you.

BOTS!

Use bots, Unreal Tournament got away with it why can't you?

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Well, there goes the one Xbox 180 game I was even relatively interested in

 

[BloodSquirrel]

As a matter of fact, I'll go ahead and say it: I think all FPS's might as well be Multiplayer Only...seems like that's what the majority of FPS players get them for anyways. And by focusing all their resources on developing a quality multiplayer experience, we might just see some truly memorable multiplayer games. That still leaves plenty of genres to which single player is more applicable (puzzle, action/adventure, RPG just to name a few).

Refusing to serve the single-player FPS market is a great way to leave money on the table while throwing away money trying to grab a piece of an already oversaturated market at the same time.

The problem with trying to sell to the multiplayer FPS market is that people who player multiplayer FPS tend to dump all of their time into one game. They also tend to play games that are popular, concentrating on the winners rather than splitting their sales across the market. That means that you're either going to make it big or crash and burn.

If the multiplayer FPS market was something that was starved for attention right now this might be a smart move. As it is, I hope they aren't spending much to make this game, because if they are it's going to be another "We sold two million copies, but lost our shirt because we were stupid enough to think we were going to sell 10 million".