Titanfall Team Decides Against Single-Player Campaign

[shrekfan246]

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...

It's not exclusive.

I don't know where that rumor keeps coming from.

It's releasing for PC as well (and Xbox 360, apparently, but that's beside the point).

OT: Guess I know which game I don't have to pay any more attention to. Funny thing, a single-player FPS with jetpacks, parkour, and mechs could've been something truly unique and innovative both for narrative and gameplay reasons in this current market. Nope. Throw it all away because "Waaaah waaaaah, single-player isn't popular!" By whose standa--Oh, right, these are the guys who were previously working on Call of Duty. I guess they're expecting this to sell twenty million copies in the first week as well.

 

[Ickorus]

I'm disappointed in the escapist community here.

You complain when a singleplayer centric games shoehorns in multiplayer but when a multiplayer centric game decides to forgo the shoehorned singleplayer you get up in arms about it, that's just not fair.

Way I see it, all developers should focus their resources in this way, make the main aspect of your game better rather than splitting your resources to add something else just 'cause.

I see a lot of people praising them for this decision and saying they respect it.

I would respect them far more if they also made sure to lower their price tag accordingly.

But no. They'll expect us to spend 60 dollars for a purely multiplayer game. Which means they don't get a lick of respect for this decision, at least not from me. They'll be overcharging for a game that can't possibly deliver 60 dollars of value in just its multiplayer mode alone.

Guess that's one less game to care about.

I spent £40 on Bioshock infinite and I played that a hell of a lot less time than I have most of my multiplayer only games, still think it was worth every penny.

 

[AwesomeDave]

I fully support this... if only more companies would reveal their stupid plans during development, I could pass on their games that only care about their multiplayer audience as well. No big loss, saves me 60 bucks

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm disappointed in the escapist community here.

You complain when a singleplayer centric games shoehorns in multiplayer but when a multiplayer centric game decides to forgo the shoehorned singleplayer you get up in arms about it, that's just not fair.

Way I see it, all developers should focus their resources in this way, make the main aspect of your game better rather than splitting your resources to add something else just 'cause.

A lot of people are saying "fair play" to them, actually.

Also, I like to generalize too, but much like with everything else it's not always the same people complaining about either side of the issue.

Personally, I'd rather the game weren't multi-player focused to begin with, though I know that's asking a lot from the people who made their fame off of Call of Duty. I don't care that the game will be multi-player focused, but the simple fact that it's not going to include single-player means I know I won't be purchasing it, because I don't buy games for multi-player (outside of World of Warcraft).

EDIT: Also, I'm more offended by the tone rather than the message. If they want to make a multi-player-only game, then fine, whatever. But the fact that they're trying to justify it by claiming that "only 5% of people finish the campaign" is just astoundingly arrogant.

 

[poiuppx]

And in one shot they killed any fledgling interest I had in the title. Maybe if they spent the money they wasted on that giant statue at E3 on single-player, we wouldn't be here. But here we are. No worries for me. Destiny looks much better anyway.

 

[Oskuro]

I don't mind multiplayer focused games... as long as they give the tools to enable players to keep playing the game in the future, once the online matchmaking services are inevitably turned off.


And single player or coop options are a good way to make the game playable when there's no one to play with (as will inevitably happen with any game), even if its just a bot arena mode.

Anyone who releases a multiplayer focused game that does not meet any of the above criteria is just telling me "We only want you to play this game for the specific period of time where we consider it profitable, and then will force you to buy something else even if you still like the game"


I don't buy games from developers/publishers that say that to me. Which pretty much sums up my feelings about Steam/Origin.

 

[Araksardet]

Meh. I wasn't super interested in this, but now it's off the table even if it ever goes on sale on Steam or whatnot.

Still, more power to the multiplayer folks, they'll benefit.

I hope that devs continue to acknowledge the potential of single-player-only games too, though. Every now and then big names start talking about how single-player is passé or not worth the effort, and I don't like that one bit.

 

[Frezzato]

This Titanfall announcement is good news as I was initially interested in the game, and the elimination of a single player campaign allows me to spend my money on something else.

I wonder what the game box will say though. Any gamer will understand what "online only" means, but I fear for ignorant parents this coming holiday season.

In retrospect, who am I kidding? These are the same types of people who buy Call of Duty for their 10 to 15-year olds.

 

[TheFriskySpatula]

When I saw the e3 trailer, I honestly thought that I was watching footage of a single player mission, given you start out in an airship then drop in to an NPC "directing" forces. It looks like they're going for a multiplayer/singleplayer fusion to give context to the firefights. Given that most multiplayer games have no such context, outside of vague references in team names, this could be a very cool game if they pull it off (dropping a tacked on, unnecessary, and most likely shit single player campaign allows more dev time on the multiplayer). Definitely on my radar for 2014.

 

[wooty]

GREAT NEWS! This is exactly what Battlefield 3 should of been like. Things like what Titanfall are trying to redo with the multiplayer only aspect are exactly what got me so drawn towards shooters in the past.

I'll be keeping an eye on this one for the future.

 

[Yuuki]

It's funny because MMO's and MOBA's are essentially multiplayer-only RPG's, but when you talk about an FPS being multiplayer-only then people...don't like it...? What kinda standards are those lol? Ever heard of Tribes Ascend or Planetside 2?

GREAT NEWS! This is exactly what Battlefield 3 should of been like. Things like what Titanfall are trying to redo with the multiplayer only aspect are exactly what got me so drawn towards shooters in the past.

I'll be keeping an eye on this one for the future.

Sadly it seems they're shoe-horning a singleplayer campaign into Battlefield 4 despite the fact that fuck-all people played the BF3 campaign.

But I guess when you're DICE and backed by EA with a budget roomy enough to buy a small country, you can afford to have a team working on a campaign that almost nobody will finish. Oh well, I'm not going to complain as long as the multiplayer is top-notch.

 

[VonKlaw]

I would support them for being honest and upfront about this, but I cannot happily buy this game knowing it will be completely useless in a few years time when nobody / hardly anyone is playing it anymore.

 

[NiPah]

Single player isn't popular enough but I guess the Xbox 1 is (rimshot)

But in all honesty I can understand this move, while insulting single player fans is a pretty dick thing to do the reason is more that your game was already multiplayer focused and a few unthoughtout tacked on single player additions would only serve to annoy. Also there might have been some investors who were promised the original Xbox 1's planned DRM requirements, this would be the only way to appease those clauses.

Still whats with all the assholes working with Microsoft these days? Would it have been so hard to come up with a PR statement that didn't insult and belittle your audience? Instead of focusing on the positives they chose to say how much singleplayer was unneeded, as a fan of single player I guess it's more pertinent to insult me then actually tell me why I should play your little multiplayer game...

 

[Weaver]

I think its good to stick to their strengths, but how does A4 games (the metro team) make a single player campaign 3x longer than any COD with a team 1/10th the size and at a budget of a Final Fantasy cutscene?

Something is wrong in the AAA industry.

 

[ciasteczkowyp]

single player in a game focused solely on multi is pointless so their decision makes perfect sence.

 

[Genocidicles]

Nothing wrong with that, but they should adjust the price accordingly.

No purely multiplayer game is worth full price, especially when you have to pay for an XBL subscription to be able to play it in the first place.

 

[Yuuki]

I would support them for being honest and upfront about this, but I cannot happily buy this game knowing it will be completely useless in a few years time when nobody / hardly anyone is playing it anymore.

But that's not really doing justice to different business models. There's one scenario where you pay $60 for a game with a 10-20 hour singleplayer (you have the ability to replay it 5 years from now, but the odds of people doing that are fairly slim)...and there's another scenario where you pay a one-time $60 "subscription" to a multiplayer game that a lot of people are going to play anywhere from 50-500+ hours.
The importance of being able to play a game years down the road honestly shrivels in comparison to the sheer number of hours so many people are willing to sink into multiplayer right now.

I mean christ, I remember buying Crysis 2 for the singleplayer alone, and after playing the ~10-12 hour campaign I said "yay, story finished, that was nice! Oh what's this, there's a multiplayer? Might as well check it out...". Next thing I knew I had clocked a total of ~450 hours in that fucking game and became an established forum veteran making guides for newbies. Yes, that really did happen.
So after what happened above, can you really blame me if I didn't particularly give much value to the singleplayer campaign or hardly even remembered it in retrospect? It's something which Crytek blew most of their budget on! Seems a little unfair on them (or at least strange), doesn't it?

Alright I'll admit it definitely varies from person to person and game to game, there's a lot of preference involved. Someone might ditch the multiplayer 1 hour in after deciding it wasn't for them...but I did EXACTLY THAT with the Battlefield 3 campaign, ditched it 1 hour in because I decided it wasn't worth my time and I'd rather play the multiplayer that everyone was screaming about.

It can give a rather obvious (but at the same time disturbing) message to upcoming development studios, can it not?

Going full-on into multiplayer is no joke, I can respect them for that. As a developer they're literally setting themselves up to get DESTROYED by endless waves of criticism and feedback regarding balance issues and gameplay tweaks, the kind of shit which they would hardly see come back from a singleplayer game.
I've done my fair share of dumping entire essays of complaints/feedback on developers regarding delicate topics like balance and gameplay elements, watching forums fill-up with page after page of that stuff is enough to kill a developer if they don't know how to handle it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well then they've decided against me ever playing it. Not that they probably care.

 

[WashAran]

Respect.

Tak'd on SP is as bad as tak'd on MP

However considering they are saving costs on writers, voice actors, cinematic cutscenes shouldn't the game also be a bit cheaper?

From the trailer and bits of gameplay they do have voice acting and cinematics.

well I'm not that fussed about the lack of a single player campaign, wasn't really expecting one from this anyway, it did seem more like a multiplayer focused game.

Still got some concerns:

Firstly the price: hopefully they won't charge full price for it

Secondly: Hopefully for the PC version they'll allow gaming communities to host dedicated servers and not rent it like Battlefield 3 did.

Other than that, well lets see what you give us then Respawn.

Nothing wrong with that, but they should adjust the price accordingly.

No purely multiplayer game is worth full price, especially when you have to pay for an XBL subscription to be able to play it in the first place.

I see a lot of people praising them for this decision and saying they respect it.

I would respect them far more if they also made sure to lower their price tag accordingly.

But no. They'll expect us to spend 60 dollars for a purely multiplayer game. Which means they don't get a lick of respect for this decision, at least not from me. They'll be overcharging for a game that can't possibly deliver 60 dollars of value in just its multiplayer mode alone.

Guess that's one less game to care about.

You mean like games that are only singelplayer and are priced lower than normal?
How do you guys determin that they are not putting all the resources they save on sp in to the mp?

 

[Meatspinner]

Aww, but I wanted a tacked on feature that nobody else wanted.

PANDER TO ME GAHD DAMEET!