With the rise of GaaS (Games as a Service) over the current generation, with games like Destiny and Anthem being developed with the explicit purpose of being supported for many years with their ongoing multiplayer, it’s brought much question about how much viability single player games have in the industry. Amy Hennig recently spoke about the state of AAA development and bluntly said single player experiences were a tough sell to publishers in today’s market.
Remedy’s next game, Control, is a fully single player experience, but the company has indicated in the past they want to focus more on multiplayer experiences, with a blog post in 2016 specifically talking about their desire to expand.
But Remedy wants to assure fans they aren’t pivoting away from single player games, and that Control won’t be their last single player-focused project, even if some of their next projects may have more multiplayer elements, as Communications Direction Thomas Puha discussed with VG247.
“No, we’re not pivoting away from single-player games,” said Puha. “The one assumption I do want to correct is that a lot of people at Remedy have been there for a long time. It’s not like we always want to be making the exact same thing either. A lot of us like multiplayer games a lot – and other types of games. So it’s like we look at it [and say], ‘It would be fun to try to do something and find our way in that world’, and Remedy tends to be pretty careful, for a good reason.”
Control will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on August 27th 2019, and you can learn more about the game and the developer’s influences and hopes for it here.