Are We About to See an Evolution of Multiplayer?
Multiplayer has always been a part of gaming; Pong had support for two players and most consoles released since then have had at least two inputs. The idea of playing together is something that has been around longer video games have. From Minecraft to Just Cause 2, mods to turn PC games from a singular experience into something more are forever being released. The march of technology drives more and more people to play together with MMOs hosting thousands of players on a single server. These multiplayer modes have always been separate from the single player experience and have always needed load screens or lobbies for you to enter. Over this generation, there was the growth of drop in/ drop out multiplayer, but this still involves an active decision to participate in this. However, other games begin to point at new way to approach multiplayer.
Dark souls was one of the first games that approached multiplayer in a different way. Predominantly a single player game, players could interact with each other by leaving messages for each other. When a player died in their own game, a blood stain would appear in other game worlds warning players of impending doom. Need for speed: Hot Pursuit took a similar idea with the introduction of autolog, where your times on races and events were uploaded and could be seen by your friends. This didn’t break down the walls of multiplayer, but it did give the player an awareness of being in a larger game experience even when playing alone.
Watchdogs, releasing in November, appears to be taking this a stage further. Set in Chicago of the future where everything from phones to utilities are digitally connected, you play through the game hacking these things in order to evade the police. On top of a traditional multiplayer mode (not yet shown to the public), the developers have chosen to incorporate this idea of hacking to bring players together. While playing the game, your session can be ‘hacked’ by another player. If detected, you have the ability to hunt them down and kill them. If successful, you can then enter their game. This is not a separate mode, but can happen any time while roaming the city.
Jonathan Morin Creative Director told Xbox Wire:
“We want to make sure players can play our game in different ways. We want them to consider the fact that other people are playing Watch Dogs elsewhere, in different modes, some in single player and some in multiplayer. We really want to make sure that for the very first time, players will be able to blur the line between any kind of modes a game can offer and create one single experience where connectivity is omnipresent.”
This blurring of game modes appears to be happening in Bungie’s new Destiny as well. An ambitious project, Destiny is a persistent word that plans to be here for ten years. It will evolve over time and players will have the opportunity to experience it solo or with others, in both co-op and competitive play. Rather than having lobbies or loading screens, it appears the idea is simply to have areas of the map that are public.
Eric Osborne Community Manager talking on the second video documentary explained:
“We [want the player to] meet different people or invite their friends into the experience, we want them to have a great public event that kicks off in this cross road space where some players are moving towards a strike or other players are on a story journey. There’s something really magical about running into another player, especially when you don’t expect it…There was no match making he just popped in.”
It’s the seamless nature of the multiplayer that Bungie and Ubisoft are trying to attain that could really evolve the idea. This hiding of lobbies and load screens will change the way we see multiplayer. Personally I’m not a huge fan of multiplayer, and part of it has always been the fact that I have to actively choose to enter into a lobby, wait, find a match, and only then could I play. If this technology is working in the background with people simply invading my game, then I would be far more willing to participate.
Innovation has always helped multiplayer; as matchmaking has got better over the years so too has multiplayer. It’s far more fun to jump into a match and find people on a similar level then jumping in and getting killed by people 50 levels higher than you. Another innovation that will change multiplayer is the second screen. Everyone today has a smartphone or a tablet of some sort, and with the introduction of smartglass, last year games companies are beginning to wake up to the implications that these devices have to offer.
If we look at the two examples already used, both will have a smart app that will work with them. In the case of Watchdogs, the app will allow players in game to send out a message for help. Friends can then load up the app and get a top down live view of your game and help you escape. Once you have evaded the police, you can go back to your single player experience. Bungie chose to feature their accompanying app prominently in their debut trailer for Destiny (a telling sign of the importance of this feature). The video shows a simple message app that appears to be for matchmaking. EA is also introducing a second screen experience to Battlefield 4 with the commander mode, allowing one player to take control of their team commander launching missiles, calling in gunships, and ordering squad mates to critical locations, all from a tablet.
Another Ubisoft game that will take advantage of second screen is The Division, a futuristic third person cover shooter set in New York. Here, the second screen will allow players to pilot a drone to help their teammates. It seems that every triple A game coming out in the next year will have some form of second screen experience. As the technology in tablets and phones increases, these apps will be able to do far more, expanding the game experience way beyond the console or PC in ways we haven’t even thought of yet.
The second screen is another way in which multiplayer will change over the coming years. The console game will no longer be the whole experience; it will becomes a central hub for the game with other people able to add to your experience. It makes sense from a business standpoint; the larger the experience, the more retention that games will have, the more invested players will become, and the more DLC they will end up buying. It seems that even within a single player campaign, the connection that consoles and smart devices allow means that we will never be away from other players in the future.
Multiplayer has always been evolving from its inception, but now with these new devices and their connectivity, the game could grow out of the console to become a far deeper and wide spread experience. The worlds that are created in the future will exist in the cloud with the user choosing the method of interaction. At the moment, it seems that second screens are adding to the game world in small ways, but how long until someone halfway across the world sitting at a coffee shop can affect your console game in an impactful way? When this happens, we may have to redefine the very definition of multiplayer.