It’s no secret that Single Player driven games have taken the backseat this console generation. More and more publishers are pushing multiplayer modes into games which were earlier only reserved for single player campaigns. The single player campaigns found in most releases these days feel more or less like an after thought, with first person shooters getting a special mention. However, games do come along now and then that are solely single player experiences and manage to blaze the sales charts as well as review scores, proving that there’s still plenty of breathing room.
Dishonored co-director Harvey Smith feels that the demise of single player gamer is overstated and that there’s room for every type of game.
“What people say each cycle is, ‘Fill-in-the-blank is the new thing,’” Smith told GamesIndustry.
“If you’re old enough, you remember when it was live-action video games. At another point it was MMOs. At another it was social games. At another it was multiplayer shooters.”
“None of those things are bad; they’re all great. But what the reality seems to be is we keep adding types of games and finding new player groups for those. The market seems to be expanding.”
Smith states that most gamers do not restrict themselves to only single player or multiplayer, and that there’s still a wide audience who are willing to purchase a compelling story driven single player game.
“It seems like our attention focuses on the new thing, but in reality, there are still plenty of people that like a particular kind of game,” he further added.
“It’s not like DOTA fans are buying DOTA and not playing Skyrim, or buying Dishonored and therefore not buying Madden. I think there’s a bunch of different audience types and we haven’t even hit the limit yet.”
Dishonored was a breath of fresh air from the modern day military shooter when it hit store shelves last year. It seamlessly blended First Person stealth and RPG mechanics with a mesmerizing Steam Punk setting. There was no tacked on multiplayer, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.