During the past five years first-person shooters have evolved to become not only multiplayer focused, but multiplayer exclusive. Titanfall, Evolve, Star Wars: Battlefront and Rainbow Six: Siege are just four examples of big, AAA budget games released by top-tier publishers that have invested all their energy on multiplayer experiences. It's an evolution that has the gaming community at large divided, and some questioning why consumers are seemingly getting less product at the same price.
Game designer Cliff Bleszinski weighed in on the topic while speaking to PCGamer this past weekend. He shared:
Naturally, developers are turning away from investing millions of dollars and thousands of man hours on creating campaigns for their multiplayer-oriented shooters, resulting in customer satisfaction relying entirely on the competitive portion of these games. For single-player oriented gamers, it's a change that has made the shooter climate less attractive than ever.
Some gamers have questioned why the savings made from cutting campaigns out of the development process haven't trickled down, and in some cases haven't reduced DLC and microtransaction bloat. It's a question that has no sure response, and is probably best answered by the skyrocketing cost of game development in the modern era.
