Bring a Friend
Loners, your days are numbered. If this year's E3 was any indication, more and more games are being made with the idea of cooperative gameplay in mind. Microsoft alone announced a handful of games that encourage multiple players to work together. This push towards friendly multiplayer could fundamentally change the way games are made.
alt="Too Human"/>With scaled back co-op Dyack's game feels more like Two Humans.
We're already seeing evidence of industry adjustment towards multiplayer in games like Too Human, where even solo players explore the wide-open levels that were designed for up to four players. But Dennis Dyack's game was forced to scale back its multiplayer ambitions -- a likely reason we didn't see the game touted at Microsoft's press conference this year. Instead the console maker showed us a handful of games, each with their own unique approach to bringing gamers together.
Gears of War, a game already known for its solid, side-by-side gunfights, will feature a new way to play in its sequel. In "Horde" games five players are besieged by baddies, fending off wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies. We also learned that Resident Evil 5 would feature cooperative gameplay -- a second player can hop in and play as African agent Sheva Alomar and aid Chris Redfield in snuffing out the infected. Even Microsoft's smaller games leaned towards the cooperative. The sequel to their massively successful Geometry Wars was shown with four players simultaneously blasting enemy spacecraft, though it was revealed later that Geometry Wars 2 wouldn't be playable online in such a manner -- there's just too much going on too quickly in the fast-paced game to make four-player games work online.
alt="Fable 2"/>Fable II, like George Michael, is not planning on going solo.
But the most surprising revelation came by way of Fable II, which, until now, we'd all assumed was a traditional single-player role-playing game. Taking the stage at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Peter Molyneux showed how his team had woven the ideas of cooperative gaming into their epic tale. As he guided his hero across the game's medieval landscape, he pointed out luminescent bubbles floating across the landscape. These, he told us, represent friends who are also playing Fable II. He demonstrated how players could walk up to the bubble and invite their friend to enter and interact with the game world that they'd created.
Here is where I see the potential for co-op gaming to transform the way we make and play games. Molyneux and company are experimenting with ways to make solitary gaming experiences more social. There could soon come a day when every Final Fantasy game or first-person shooter we play allows for us to play with friends. It's very possible that in the next several years, games that don't offer even rudimentary co-op interaction will begin feel outdated.
alt="Animal Crossing"/>Of course, it's to Microsoft's benefit to push gaming in this direction. Their Xbox Live service streamlines interactions like these better than nearly any other offering. But Microsoft isn't the only one touting these features. Sony, which is desperately trying to replicate the social gaming atmosphere of Xbox Live, plans to offer eight-player online co-op for their big fall shooter, Resistance 2, and their wildly innovative LittleBigPlanet will allow friends to join up online and create levels on the fly. Even Nintendo, which usually balks at the notion of online gaming, introduced a four-player version of Animal Crossing and a microphone peripheral that allows for voice chat between friends while fishing and socializing online. And Valve, which has long made a name for itself with seriously competitive shooters like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress, has cooked up its own cooperative experience in Left 4 Dead, where up to four friends fight for survival during the zombie apocalypse.
alt="Left 4 Dead"/>Surviving the zombie apocalypse with friends is the new casual gaming.
"The Steam community and Xbox Live make it easier to play with friends," a Valve representative told me while demoing the publisher's latest game. But it's how we play with friends that is changing. Until now, most online gaming has been about going head-to-head against other players. But this fierce kind of competition has limited appeal. Hardcore gamers may love the challenge of a deadly human opponent, but it's no fun to lose over and over again to the skilled players you bump into online. That's where the new, casual approach to online gaming comes in.
Still, though, some folks are a little slow on the uptake. The makers of This Is Vegas, an open-world action game styled after Grand Theft Auto, may have been caught with their pants down when it comes to integrating co-op."The story was so central to the game experience," one of the game's developers said, "that it was almost impossible." Such excuses may not hold water much longer.
