www.Multiplayergames.com – Multiplayer Games

Let this stand as one of the few cases where a developer eliminating cooperative play from a game can be seen as a positive. Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling stated that adding co-op play to Modern Warfare 2 would cause problems within the story. Adding co-op led to this:

“But it really broke the cinematic experience, took the immersion out of it, out of the story and the pacing and everything we’d spent so long crafting. It just ruined the experience we were aiming for, so we took it out, kept the single-player for that one player intact and polished it.”

We agree, even though we haven’t played it. It has happened before. Next time you play a game in co-op through the main story, try and pay attention to the plot, the pacing, and the characters. You can’t. Other players are chatting in your ear, they have to leave for a brief second to do something else, or someone else skips a cinematic because they had already seen it (or some other variation).

You are pulled out of the game world and inserted into a social experience. That is fine for some games. No one is going to argue if you play Tetris with friends chatting into a headset. For something story-driven, it should be a developer’s choice without any ill consequences. Those “wow” moments are so easily ruined when someone isn’t paying attention, and the overall product does not turn out as it was intended. Good call Infinity Ward.

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