this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Feels like I've been hearing back and forth forever about whether it's going to happen. I never tried the multiplayer personally, but I know this is sad news for many
It had some pretty good aspects to it, but their reasoning behind cancelling (would need to "shift to a live service model") it is pretty unfortunate and telling of the industry.
The game solely exists as a multiplayer team death match with the gameplay mechanics of The Last of Us. It was like Max Payne 3 meets Gears of War.
It was fun for PS3, I could see it faring well enough today but if their plan was to monetize it then it's better off dead. Especially considering the state of the PC release, it just wasn't the type of game to feasibly monetize. What can you do, skins? So any fun free unlocks are now paid or locked behind a battle pass, nice. What else is there, game enhancements? There were consumables so, we could have been paying for packs of those! Truly, we're missing out.
Is it really? I thought the entire point of this game series was delivering a tightly scripted singleplayer narrative. That's what attracts people to it. I think the overlap with people looking for some kind of multiplayer shooter is fairly small.
Used to be our favorite single player games came with multiplayer modes attached to them. You didn't expect them to get years of content. You just enjoyed them for a little while with some friends and then moved on. Not only is that totally fine, I'd argue it's preferable.
Absolutely, but that's not how this works anymore and today, the expectation with every multiplayer game and even multiplayer mode is that it's live-service. The industry has replaced the "natural" skill progression of players with dangling the carrot of permanent (and in my opinion mostly pointless) unlockables in front of their faces at all times.
I think some of it is the audience's fault. I have heard many friends complaining about multiplayer games being "dead" or "abandoned" because there's no new content and I'm like "I'm pretty satisfied, it doesn't need anything else". If there's enough people playing for matchmaking, I'm good.
Let's change that expectation. Baldur's Gate 3 won best multiplayer at the Game Awards, and it's not a live service. In a talk with some friends, I realized how antagonistic the relationship between players and developers always ended up as well when the developers make more money with more "engagement". Diablo IV will get fun builds nerfed into the ground; Baldur's Gate 3 will let them rock, but only in the pre-existing difficulty levels before they add in extra challenge modes for fun. That's the difference.
Meanwhile, Agent Under Fire multiplayer for the Gamecube is more fun than any live service FPS I've ever played. It certainly didn't require years of support to be that fun, and you only need one other person to play it with, but preferably 3. Very easily doable regardless of how many people are in matchmaking.
It's a really good, well done stealth game that rewards very deliberate action and awareness of your surroundings. The multiplayer in the original was unique and really fun.