Stellar Blade Director Emphasises Importance of 'Single-Player Games with an Ending'

I wonder if Sony are considering snapping these guys up or at least investing?

Single Player games was, is and will always be the core pillar of gaming ......

That speaks rather well of him; I might have to pick this game up one day because it looks fun - but there's too many JRPG's coming out this year already (YS X, Trails Through Daybreak etc) so this will go on the backburner haha.

There's a lot of games out there, limited time in my life, and, frankly, I don't want to spend hundreds of hours on any one title. I like the variety afforded by exclusively playing single-player story-based games.

Everything this director has said so far aligns with my own thoughts on video games.

@DennisReynolds They are already investing.

Single player games should always be the primary and most fundamental pillar of this industry. As such, I’ll always support great games that embrace that concept and I’ll definitely be there day one for Stellar Blade. Helps that I loved the demo!

Yes. Variety is definitely needed these days. Something I don't think we'll ever see again is the PS2 launch or games, or the sheer amount of games pushed through the sixth generation, a real sweet spot were the budget wasn't too extreme, and so many games coming out every month.

I love hearing this rare voice in the modern industry. Although I just managed to get into FFXIV myself, which is going to consume so many months of gaming time. Although that's a strange one in that it's kind of a single player game with an end, it's just enormous because it's 5, soon to be 6 huge games spanning a decade all bolted together. So it's more like binging the Trails/LoH series in one big stretch. Not sure it really fits the "service" genre even though it's a subscription.

I only like single player, even if It's massively multiplayer single player then?

@Maubari If it was for eiyuden chronicle I would be picking this up right away but it will be my purchase for May

Provided you’re willing to step outside of the AAA space, I see no shortage of variety currently on offer in gaming.

@DennisReynolds Back in November Push Square published an article announcing that Shift Up was signed on as one of Sony's first second party partners in Korea. This deal is probably similar to something like Quantic Dream where Shift Up develops several games as PS5 exclusives which will get funding, assistance from Sony's XDEV team and be published by SIE as PS Studios games. It'll be interesting to see what else they work on after Stellar Blade

Couldn't agree more with him. I respect the fact that even though Shift Up already has a successful live service game with Nikki they aren't letting that consume everything they do as a studio. I think that's the primary reason GaaS games are looked down upon so much by consumers. People just don't want to see studios fall into a trap where they essentially have to give up making anything not related to their live service titles. (Well, that and the microtransactions but that's a different topic)

It seems like Shift Up has struck the right balance as while they continue to support Nikki, they are also stretching their wings creatively with Stellar Blade. It's good to see.

He's right variety is the spice of life and that's certainly true of video games. I'm currently enjoying final fantasy 7 (a single player game) and helldivers 2 (online multiplayer/ live service). There's no reason we can't have both. Let developers make the games they want to and if they're good people will buy them

We've seen Sony saying they had 12 live service games in the works and at least one (last of us online) has been cancelled with I expect more to follow suit. Only have to look at EA to see what can happen when you force all developers into a direction they don't want to go in. Although to be fair EA is starting to improve. At least from the outside looking in

I don't play many multi-player focused games nowadays because I've always preferred the RPG and Adventure stuff. But of the ones I have played they tend to be incredibly shallow experiences.
Not for lack of design mind you, a lot of the ones I've played have strong core mechanics, but typically these multi-player games are so gung-ho about milking every dollar you have out of you that they strip that experience down into what feels like just the bones of a game.
Different strokes and all that I guess.

HD2 proved that the issue with SaaS is it’s not enough to make a live service game, you have to make a very good one. Then everyone’s happy with it. For me though the worse experience of all time as a gamer has been seeing one of the funniest 1P game ever becoming an online cow to milk indefinitely, and publisher giving up totally even the idea of one dlc in 10+ years. Yes, you GTAV

@BIG3 It is refreshing to hear others hold the same view.

I see reason in story driven/gameplay focused games too it's just when the movesets or abilities annoy me it doesn't make the setting/characters/level design any better if the combat/platforming/good level design that uses them, pacing in combat and movement in general.

Not feeling annoyingly slow or eh heavy and realistic but in the most annoying way possible (vehicles ok with most times, humans the stick/pacing can be a pain to move sometimes to climb or go somewhere even in a linear level) or puzzles are what sell me on a game.

I seek mechanics in games let alone pacing or just how a game feels to play so I play only singleplayer games for those great gameplay, fair stories and differences between eras to see if the mechanics deserve a second look which 100% of the time they do but we get the same safe game inspirations. While other times they are misunderstood. Have fair to great stories/themes or just overlooked due to competition of release periods/others on the market already unfortunately.

If I don't like racing game physics/driving model why would I in games with animals/humans in different situations if the moveset is either too slow or just boring.

So as singleplayer games are all I care about, I may check out bot modes if I come across them in old games, I don't do co-op campaigns anymore because well no one plays them with me they have their singleplayer game preferences and that's totally fine I have tons of old/new games to play solo and well paid multiplayer nah pass/not into the business model/design of them these days.

That and because co-op campaigns they are rare or the ones these days I don't care for. Like an It Takes Two is great, I haven't played it though yet but I appreciate it. But in terms of say Lego games or Diablo style isometric hack n slashes I don't care for them. Darksiders Genesis was like the rare exception because of what it did compared to the others (still played it singleplayer).

Stellar Blade deserves to succeed like Grandblue Fantasy Relink also did for these types of devs trying to get a console quality game out besides their past projects but to me the demo made it clear the moveset pacing was going to get me annoyed with it the whole way through even if it's my type of game pacing matters in combat and it annoyed me in the demo.

To me it was either DMC (depends on the entry) or Souls level slow of combat and I wasn't interested in it.

So I wish Shift Up the best, they make fair points, but it's not for me with their current design even if it is my type of game the aspects about it I don't like aren't for me and will be annoying to me the whole time.

@TheTraditional I firmly believe what you're describing is not a thing of the past, it just doesn't exist in the AAA space right now. In the range of AA down to single-dev indies, the variety, quantity, quality and affordability is at an all-time high.

Single player games are where it's at for me so I like this article. There's always a risk of failure with any game, especially if they have a huge budget. I assume making a Live Service game is even more risky. For every successful Live Service game, how many fail miserably?

Single player games is where it's at.
But still I rather play a indie title that has great gameplay then a soulless AAA that looks hyper realistic and plays it incredibly safe.

@SuntannedDuck2 Yeh!