PSLS’ ultra-sexy, ultra-new webcomic, POWERon, is back, this time taking a look at the breaking news that GOW will have multiplayer. What does that mean for the franchise? Read on!
Dan –
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that GOW is getting multiplayer. As games like Uncharted, and Mass Effect seem to have forced online components added to it, it would only make sense for GOW to join the crowd. The one question that needs to be asked is – Will the product suffer or benefit from diverting resources? With the issues surrounding the ending of Mass Effect, would production have gone better if multiplayer was taken out at the start? Given the track record of Santa Monica Studios, I know they will give us a premium product in GOW: Ascension, but can’t help but wonder if the end product would have only been that much better if it wasn’t a single player only venture.
Sebastian –
History is littered with the corpses of franchises that decided to “go multiplayer” to appeal to that percentage of people who simply won’t buy games if the back of the box says one player only (weirdos). Of course, GOW is from a crack team that have yet to make any big mistakes, so that does give me more confidence than usual. But, on the other hand, the same studio is now developing two games at once, so who knows how many talented developers who were instrumental in GOW‘s creation have now left for the other project? (Stig Asmussen for example). That alone could be a tough challenge for them, so I just hope that further stretching themselves with multiplayer won’t hamper the final experience.
That said, we’ve had three main games and two PSP ones, and as the Greek setting is the same, they needed to do something different.
What do you think about the news that GOW is getting multiplayer? And what did you think about the latest issue of POWERon? Let us know in the comments below.
