In This Increasingly Online World, It’s High Time Someone Other Than Nintendo Looks At Local Co-op.
For the greater part of the year, I’ve been more than excited for two games in particular. Fable Legends and Evolve both offer robust multiplayer and strategic depth within them.
My enthusiasm for these games has wavered, however.I’ve previously voiced concerns about Fable and its implementation of this co-op mode.
Ever since stable Internet services were able to be provided for gaming, there has been a push to use these services to encourage multiplayer gameplay. For some games, this actually makes a lot of sense.
Call of Duty and other first person shooters enjoy games without friends sneaking peeks at your screen. This strategy has spread to a huge number of games and a lot of the time it’s an advantage.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the expanded realm of possibilities that online gaming has given us.
So why am I worried about how Fable Legends and Evolve are going about things? Well I am of the school that still enjoys having some people over and playing a few games.
Console Diablo 3, for example, was a huge success as far as local co-op was concerned and gave us hours of fun (we’re excitedly awaiting August 19th for Reaper of Souls).
This social side of games is what’s being eroded by the popular shift to online co-op. Many times I’ve looked at getting another game for us to play, only to find out the co-op play boasted about is online only.
Apart from preventing me enjoying a quiet night of, say, Aliens: Colonial Marines with some buddies, my problem here is two-fold. Firstly, I’ve already spent up to $90 on a game. Now I’m expected to pay again for the ability to play the game the way it was meant to be played.
Monetizing online services such as Xbox Live and Playstation Plus helps ensure reliability but I can’t help but be bitter about it. Secondly, having spent years playing MOBAs, I know that random matching of players doesn’t always yield good results. If I’m going to play with friends, it’ll more than likely be at my house; and most of them don’t have an Xbox One or PS4.
Without local co-op on Fable Legends and Evolve, I really feel the wind leaving my sails. I want to play the games with people by my side. I do not want to be expected to pay another subscription fee for the opportunity to play with a stranger – and maybe be called all sorts of names for not playing the way he/she wants me to.
It’s not up to me to say whether this is going to improve or hurt the games overall. The difference between whether or not co-op is online or local is a matter of preference. For Evolve, it looks like the smart option but Fable could just as easily take either option.
Personally, I find the notion of gaming and socialising being mutually exclusive quite odd but it works for some people.
Am I alone in wanting local co-op back on the map? Bring social gaming back to the couch. Many more developers could afford to look at Diablo 3, Borderlands, or Mario Kart 8.
Totally agree, local coop is far more fun and for me to play with friends and a few beers they don’t all own consoles, why is reaper of souls selling out – local coop I think it’s going into a bad era, parents will now have to buy 2 consoles to keep their children happy pure joke
I am about to sold xbox one, if it says again co-op and in another game(by the way, next gen looks more like wait for the games gen…there are just not enough, most of them low graphics or just simply bad)and it is just a way of saying go on line, will say bye xbox, hi ps4,and if that goes sideways as well, then console gaming is over for me, console gaming was supposed to be for fun, with friends, guys u share coke with and laugh and eat altogether whike killing zombies on L4D or time splitters, bestgames ever, most played games since i started many years ago, now im just bored and tired of crap like destiny and the like, passed the game full in 5 days, now what? Same crap and no friends to share it with unless they happen to be in a different country or buy the same console, game and all?!?! What are they selling the extra controls for?!? Racing and sports game only?!?!?! Hell no! If they bring L4D HD collection to xbox one then they will keep me there forever and might be buying games from time t time, but so far, next console gen, i am not impressed, not one bit!
Grat article by the way
Local/couch co-op is the reason we bought a console as a family xmas gift. Now all we can do is play with strangers online. Not interested.
My husband and I love playing games together on one console, after a hard week you just want to sit down but enjoy time together, games are the perfect escape. It is really worrying that there are so little games coming out that are Co-op, for us to play together we’re expected to buy another $500 PS4 and the game again on top? That’s crazy!
Lol i switched back to snes fuck the new systems with thier no two player bs my xbox one is gonna go lonely
I’m another gaming wife that likes to play with the husband. We were excited about Evolve (just got it), but we can’t play together.
We have the Wii U for the kids and that’s fun… maybe we’ll see some variation of it for the other systems like they did with motion play? Wi fi connectivity casting like chromecast onto other screens in the house? Even a pc screen… there has to be a way.