Spec Ops: The Line lead says 2K “forced” multiplayer onto the title like “a cancerous growth”
By Tim Colwill on August 30, 2012 at 9:14 am
Many people including us here at games.on.net have praised Spec Ops: The Line for a gripping, morally grey single-player campaign, but the game’s lead designer has come out swinging against publisher 2K for what he calls a “relentless” approach in forcing them to have “tacked-on multiplayer” that was “basically a low-quality Call of Duty clone in third-person”.
“There’s no doubt that it’s an overall failure,” said lead designer Cory Davis. “It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience. I don’t even feel like it’s part of the overall package – it’s another game rammed onto the disk like a cancerous growth, threatening to destroy the best things about the experience that the team at Yager put their heart and souls into creating.”
“It was literally a check box that the financial predictions said we needed, and 2K was relentless in making sure that it happened – even at the detriment of the overall project and the perception of the game”, he said. The multiplayer side of the game was developer externally by Darkside Studios for inclusion into the title, not by Yager themselves. Still, Davis praised 2K for taking a gamble on their game: “They took a hell of a lot of risk with the project that other publishers would not have had the balls to take,” Davis concluded.
Source: Polygon
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Hardly a new thing. Publishers have been trying to shove multiplayer into any game possible for 10 years or so now.
‘Tacked-on’ worked for Goldeneye. Can’t blame the publisher for wanting the ultimate package.
Still! Really interesting to see a developer come out so publicly about it all.
Don’t really blame 2K – multiplayer is everything in a game these days. I rarely play any games without multiplayer.
God forbid the business people might push to offer a product the market expects.
yeah he isn’t exactly subtle but his point is well made and kind of nice to see being said.
awaiting the forced apology.
So, obviously not a Skyrim player. ;)
Multiplayer isn’t the be all and end all and especially if it is crappy.
I would rather play a really good SP game then a crappy, glitchy mp game (not that I have even played Spec OPs, just heard good things about the SP).
I remember when TTLG studios was forced to add multiplayer to System Shock 2….
…
…
AND IT WAS AWESOME. lol Sometimes it can work in the games favor.
Actually yes I am – this is about the only single player game I play, so yes it can be done, but the vast majority of my playing time is spent in multiplayer on other games. And I consider the lack of multiplayer a drawback to Skyrim (having said that I have no idea how they could create a workable multiplayer for Skyrim).
I have put more hours into the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games than anything else and I have no so much as clicked the multiplayer button on the menus so it is not something I would consider to be “everything.”
Just saying…
I didn’t even know that Spec Ops had multiplayer, i’ve only ever heard about its singleplayer. :S
Each to their own but I suspect their are a lot of people around of my persuasion :)