Back in 2017,Arkanereleased two great single-player games -PreyandDishonored: Death of the Outsider. Prey was developed by Arkane Austin, while Dishonored: Death of the Outsider began life as an expansion forDishonored 2, before Arkane Lyon spun it off as its own standalone game.
In the five years since, neither studio has released a game that’s strictly single-player. Prey’sMooncrashexpansion, released in 2018, added a multiplayer mode, Typhon Hunter. In 2019, Lyon worked with MachineGames onWolfenstein: Youngblood, a co-op shooter that had as much DNA shared with Borderlands as it did with B.J. Blazkowicz. Then, in 2021, Lyon launchedDeathloop, a single-player/multiplayer hybrid where the player’s campaign as Colt can be interrupted by invasions from Julianna, controlled by another real-life player across the internet. In 2023, we’re gettingRedfall, Austin’s first game since Prey. It, like Wolfenstein: Youngblood, is a co-op shooter. Unlike Youngblood, it’s set in a big open-world setting. In Arkane’s 18 years of life prior to 2017, (outside of KarmaStar, the studio’s little known 2009 foray into mobile gaming) it had released just one game with a multiplayer component - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Arx Fatalis, Dishonored, and Dishonored 2 were exclusively single-player.
RELATED:Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider Was An Expansion Done Right
Arkane’s games have rarely been big money makers. The first Dishonored was a big hit, but since then the studio’s games have gained a reputation as rich, complex, systemic titles that impress its fans and developers but have a hard time making much mainstream impact.
Deathloop was pretty good, and Redfall looks like it could be good, too. But, it’s disappointing to see a studio renowned for its rich single-player experiences pivoting so hard toward multiplayer.
This isn’t to say that Arkane devs don’t have genuine interest in making the kind of games they’ve made for the past five years. Deathloop, in particular, shares a lot of DNA withThe Crossing, a canceled single-player/multiplayer hybrid the company worked on in the mid-’00s. But, the pivot to multiplayer came after Arkane had had multiple games underperform in a row. That would seem to indicate some sort of financial pressure.
Fingers crossed, Game Pass can give Arkane options. If the devs at the studio want to continue to make multiplayer games, hopefully they can. But, if they want to return to the single-player style they built their reputation on, I hope they can do that, too.
