Nothing hurts more than popping in a niche game a mere few months after release, and finding absolutely no one online. Because of the “quick matchmaking” nature of current consoles, gamers are quick to give up searching, compared to the golden days of “the light is always on” dedicated servers. Even worse, you have the added problem of said servers being outright non-existent years down the line, eliminating even private play between friends.
Thankfully, according to a Platinum Games writer via their community forums, players will be able to test their multiplayer meddle offline with AI. I wish more games did this more often, as there are a large number of people who care about this feature. Years down the line, if someone hears about Anarchy Reigns by word of mouth, that’s a potential DLC customer, and potential future Platinum Games customer.
Some Destructoid readers know that I’m a big fan of The Bouncer, which also featured AI bot multiplayer over a decade ago — hopefully more developers follow suit, and hopefully we’ll get more solid confirmation soon regarding this feature from Platinum Games.
Bot Match Thread [Platinum Games Community Forums]
