While developers continue to push the envelope in competitive multiplayer, gamers are noticing an increasing absence of local multiplayer options. Online multiplayer has been here for years, but it has definitely become the mainstay of multiplayer gaming, with the exception of perhaps Nintendo’s consoles, which have always focused on local multiplayer options. By and large, however, gaming has left behind the big days of playing together on the same console, particularly with shooters and racing games, both of which are my some of my favorite genres.
One of my fondest memories is playing Need for Speed: High Stakes on the PC, splitscreen with my little sister. It was one of few PC games I can recall ever playing splitscreen in general, but it was addicting. Sharing the same keyboard, we would race against one another, try to take one another down as cop and robber, or team up as cops to stop all the racers. The possibilities seemed endless. This was back in 2004, when online gaming was more limited to PC and Xbox had really only been the successful console to implement it. My world of gaming was quite small, but I was a happy camper.
Several years later, I discovered Star Wars Battlefront on PS2. I was hooked, over and over. Again my sister and I took our gaming to new heights, enjoying the crazy amounts of variety Battlefront offered. We could not get enough of teaming up as Clone Troopers on Kamino, trying to see how many kills we could wrap up. Despite her being three years younger than me, she kept up and often surpassed me, to my surprise. It was a strange competitive/cooperative mixture. There were times when I wished we could have our own screens, but neither one of us minded it. In fact, it made sense when playing co-op on large maps where it could sometimes be easy to become lost and we needed to locate one another.
Being late to modern gaming, I have always been a generation behind in consoles. This is likely a factor in my sentiments against online-only multiplayer, but there are significant issues with the gaming industry’s tendency to exclude offline multiplayer. In many ways, it’s become a rarity to have full offline splitscreen features in a AAA game anymore. It makes sense for online multiplayer to take center stage (in most cases), but gaming hasn’t changed as much as people think. There is something about being next to a loved one while playing together that is far more intimate and memorable than simply chatting in-game while not being able to see one another.
Let me be clear, though – I have no issue with online multiplayer. I just have an issue with developers excluding offline multiplayer, especially when the elements for it are already there. The recent Star Wars Battlefront games are a prime example of this issue. Both games include offline elements, but they are pretty bare bones compared to the online offerings. I was infuriated to discover that none of the DLC content was made available offline in 2015’s Battlefront, which defeated the purpose in my mind. Walker Assault is a ton of fun with a friend offline, and it’s a shame it lacked additional offline support. To me this was a deliberate and lazy move by EA.
2017’s recent Battlefront 2 offers more maps for offline, but somehow offers less variety of gameplay. The offline elements are limited to simple shooting matches with none of the fun of Galactic Assault. I’m baffled at this, because it seems prudent to at least include some variety since they chose at all to include offline options. For a gamer like myself who enjoys both online and offline options, I feel a bit shortchanged. At least bring back Walker Assault or something to mix up the game type. Working towards a goal more complicated than simply eliminating the enemy is definitely a recipe for fun, and it’s disappointing how EA chose to ignore this potentially great feature.
The Need for Speed series is even more faulty in this area, and to no one’s surprise – it is another EA-owned franchise. I cannot remember the last Need for Speed game that featured offline multiplayer, which is battling because the older games were known for their amazing local multiplayer options. I loved the online aspects of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, a reboot a few years back – but it also lacked ANY offline options. I was absolutely floored that the developers didn’t take advantage of the potential fun offered from split screen racing and playing as cops against racers that has made the Hot Pursuit games so addicting. Another key missed opportunity.
Developers like to reason that the computing power it takes to render split screen is too taxing on the visuals, and they obviously do not want to see their beautiful game with less than the best graphics. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that gamers who play on the same console together aren’t doing it for the graphics (primarily). If the framerate dips a little at times, or the textures aren’t quite as sharp – that’s not an issue for most. I’m not focused on the visuals when I’m playing with someone on the same console – because visuals are not what it’s about. It’s about playing together. I could not put it any simpler than that. It’s about experiencing the same game together, next to each other.
I fully support the ever-expanding online gaming community and look forward to its future innovations. My only wish is that we would stop alienating such a large portion of gamers who have pretty simple and easy requests from developers, especially when you consider these offline expectations are not new features. Games would sell better and would promote better longevity if they simply offered more incentive to wider audiences. I guarantee you there are plenty of gamers who would buy more online-focused game IF it included plenty of offline options to keep them coming back.
Jon Hand Thoughts 