Insomniac, makers of Ratchet & Clank, my favorite platformer since Mario, are currently working on Fuse, which you may remember being announced as Overstrike. Fuse is a 4-player co-op 3rd person shooter, set to be released on PS3 and Xbox 360 at some point before our sun burns out. That’s not the news part of this post.
Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac, said in an interview with GameSpot:
I can’t imagine that any game we’d do from here on out will be single-player-only. The [game industry] has changed. As gamers, we have always been social, but thanks to the way technology has evolved, it’s much easier for us to play together.
Price went on to say that this doesn’t mean games will be multiplayer only, just that there will be a multiplayer component to games that would normally just be single-player. While I can’t be upset at that part, this paradigm shift that seems to be permeating throughout the industry, notably with EA, is a little bit frustrating. Some of the most popular games have been single-player only experiences and the constant denial of this by the publishers is staggering.
Am I shouting into the wind here or do you guys feel the same? I love multiplayer games, but shoehorning them into every release seems counterproductive to me. What say you?
Source: GameSpot
Another crazy partnership has just been announced, this time with EA Games snagging a new studio. While the last deal of this kind saw Bungie (an X-Box centric developer) joining Activison, this event sees a PS3 exclusive studio hooking up with EA, which gives the whole thing a nice symmetry.
