Anyone else feel that sandbox games are the future of single player?

[digitaldurandal]

I think the future of single player games is limited at best. I think the best story driven games of the future are going to be multiplayer. Instead of fighting against AI as you progress through the story you will fight against people who jump in your game to play the big bad guy.

 

[Via]

I actually hope the two main types of single player game

- sandbox, like Gothic 3 or FO3

- tightly scripted and linear, like HL2 or Singularity

continue to develop side-by-side.

 

[wuliheron]

We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.

 

[Sureshot324]

This sounds a lot like the idea behind the questing system in Guild Wars 2. From my understanding the Devs want you to be exploring and OMG INVASION!. So you join into the fray to defend the town from evil doers.

That's what they did in Rift but it wasn't implemented too well.

 

[mmntech]

Sandbox games are okay but I think they've started to run their course creatively. A lot of new titles that are all basically similar.

I think the future of single player games is limited at best. I think the best story driven games of the future are going to be multiplayer. Instead of fighting against AI as you progress through the story you will fight against people who jump in your game to play the big bad guy.

As gaming jumps from a commodity based business model to a service/subscription model, this is inevitable.

 

[Stringjam]

I love both.....and there's plenty of room for them.

Whether a game is linear or open doesn't inherently make it good or bad - that's a very small-minded approach to judging a game.

I loved Metro2033 (linear); I loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (sandbox), and I love games that blend both elements (Crysis). I hope there's plenty of development for both platforms, because just having one style of game to play would be boring as hell.

 

[Red Hawk]

I think the future of single player games is limited at best. I think the best story driven games of the future are going to be multiplayer. Instead of fighting against AI as you progress through the story you will fight against people who jump in your game to play the big bad guy.

...no, I don't think that would happen. The only game I can think of that allows other players to play as the opposition during the story campaign is Mindjack...and that game was godawful. There's no real precedent for that to happen.

Single player games aren't going anywhere. Many game series are successful without a multiplayer component at all -- Fallout, Mass Effect, Bioshock (Bioshock 2 had multiplayer shoehorned in, but really, who plays Bioshock 2 for the multiplayer?), The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls, etc.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

There's still a niche for linear games. Hell, even multiplayer games still retain linearity.