God, every single game must have multiplayer now. Why the hell does a survival horror game need multiplayer?

It would suck if you were on the Necromorphs team and got to play the Guardian. Imagine if no-one came by and you just hang on the wall the whole time...

are you joking atron,

did you fucking play SS2?

everything in dead space is identical besides the creatures and even the fucking storyline has parallels

Apparently Dead Space was going to be System Shock 3.. and Bioshock.. wut?

Well, Mirax pretty much said what I was going too.

I guess by putting multiplayer into a single player game they're trying to reach out to a wider audience. But every game doesn't NEED multiplayer..

I can see this becoming as unnecessary as Resident Evil 5's multi-player.

I'm honestly surprised that EA are giving so many chances to a franchise that really has yet to prove itself as far as sales are concerned.

don't know about you but I want hot Necromorph on Necromorph action!

Again, as long as this is not shoe-horned into the game, I don't mind. So long as I can play the single-player story by myself, without an AI partner or something, I'm good.

But if resources go to multiplayer that could have gone to single-player, well, the multiplayer had better be fucking good.

This could lead to some very funny moments: Xenomorph upleveling, Demons Soul like Death-system, strategic placement of Necromorphs, Tower defence-like, Survival of the fittest...VISCERAL GAMES HIRE ME!!!

@bruceleethree
Since when was taking bits from a great game, combining them with bits from another great game (Resi 4) and producing a great game a bad thing? I'm not seeing the logic there

As for multiplayer, one thing I enjoy about Dead Space is that it has none. If it were to be co-op of some sort that could be cool. Competitive however seems a bit silly to me

@Mirax "Why the hell does a survival horror game need multiplayer?"

To help revive and modernize a stagnant, nearly dead genre. Just because something is a survival/horror doesn't mean you have to experience it alone. Resident Evil 5 was a great start on learning how to implement multiplayer into it, now they just need to learn how to re-craft it so it's scary instead of just tense.

What I don't get is why people complain about having an optional multiplayer choice.

I'd rather have a great single player with no multiplayer than a mediocre single player with tacked-on multiplayer.

The only multiplayer i prefer is co-op. The first game was awesome although it was too short, but I can't help myself thinking it would have been awesome as a co-op game.

@TheDirtyHobo

Thing is, the effort and resources they will spend to develop the multiplayer mode could be used to enhance the single player experience. Plus, Resident Evil 5 wasn't scary at all, and the the co-op certainly didn't help.

Isn't this "Horde waves" thing getting a bit old? Now, I don't know what kinds of weapons or kind of atmosphere DS 2 will provide, but the game doesn't need it.

Unless they provide some kind of branching story for the Co-Op mode, maybe, but anything else I can't see why they'll bother.

Whys everything gotta be competitive with you, ta fat fuck?

Heaven forbid we get a Co-Op Mode!

Ass. :D

"Thing is, the effort and resources they will spend to develop the multiplayer mode could be used to enhance the single player experience"

This excuse has never made sense in my mind. The existence of a multiplayer mode very, very rarely has any significant effect on single player. How many games have you played where the single player offers an excellent experience, but multiplayer is either sorely lacking or non-existant, and you think it could be done much better? Probably dozens. How many games have you felt the multiplayer should have just been cut so they could tighten up the single player experience? Probably a handful at most.

Funny enough, RE5 is one of the only games I'd see as a fathomable answer for the second question, though I personally disagree with the sentiment; I absolutely loved the co-op.

"Plus, Resident Evil 5 wasn't scary at all, and the the co-op certainly didn't help."

I know that. I even said that. I said they need to make it actually scary instead of just tense. But it was still a great start for implementing a co-op system in general.

You know what would be kool a co-op multiplayer in a maze where both of you have to find eachother or a horde mode kind of thing. That would be really great.

@akathatoneguy

For starters,

"Also, whenever a game like this that is blatantly made for single-player adds a forced multi-player mode, it tells us that game developers are buying into this whole "games can't just be single-player any longer" crap."

I'm hoping you mean 'forced' as in unnatural, not as in mandatory, because if you mean mandatory your whole argument just became fucking stupid. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there.

With that out of the way, I already went over why claiming the resources argument is big wad of hullabaloo. A solid, captivating single player has nothing to do with multiplayer. Any developer worth their salt would polish single player with the same amount of fervor whether or not there's a group working on multiplayer. As far as I know, they're usually an entirely different, completely dissociated staff anyways.

Now, I won't lie, the text in the article makes me think of a competitive mode instead of co-op, and that's much more sketchy in my book. I don't inherently support it or think it will be great, I just don't think people should be up in arms over something they don't know about one way or the other. That's the internet, I suppose. If it is a competitive mode, I sincerely doubt I'll enjoy or make regular use out of it. That being said, I support their efforts to expand their game and audience, whether I wind up liking the results or not.

For the hypothetical you threw out there, no, I would be more comforted to have a friend in that situation. But that's just one situation, you can't narrowly define a genre by one possibility. No, the standard single player horror formula is not as effective with a second player added in. That doesn't even come close to meaning that you could never change the formula, add new things into the equation and come out with a different result that parallels or even exceeds what you get now. You can be just as lonely with two people as you can by yourself.

I absolutely love single player games, don't get me wrong. The majority of the games I play are RPGs, both Western and Japanese. Co-op has always been my idealistic future of video gaming, no matter what the genre. I'm honestly quite sad that developers seem afraid to deal with co-op in story-driven games. I would love nothing more than to have a friend online be able to play Rita while tackling Barbos in Vesperia, guard my back as Wrex while infiltrating ExoGeni in Mass Effect, or team up as Lone Wanderers to clean out the ghouls in Tenpenny Tower. I'd like to think I'm not completely alone on that sentiment.

I can't imagine anything other than a survival mode even working in Deadspace MP.

Although I think zero gravity 3rd person MP would be cool if done right.

I don't think Dead Space 2 needs multiplayer in the traditional sense, but anyone who immeadiately jumps to the conclusion that multiplayer can't benefit a typically single player genre hasn't heard of or played Demon's Souls.

Perhaps multiplayer could weave an interesting mechanic. An extra player who could assume the role of a different character, such as a P-Sec, playing in a completely separate part of a level yet able to communicate with an engineer player, operate controls and/or go places that the other can't. Everyone's jumped down the "it must be deathmatch" route.

Designing good online levels doesn't necessarily mean designing good online multiplayer maps. It may very well be that they're looking for someone with experience in crafting fun coop maps. That's different from creating offline single player maps in many different ways.

This just in: Every game copies Adventure on Atari. Plagiarism solved. Now you're allowed to enjoy them.