Summary
- Larian Studios head Swen Vincke says that single-player games can still thrive in the current gaming market.
- Vincke says that single-player games just need to be “good” to do well.
- Some publishers like Sony are beginning to move away from live-services and back to single-player games.
Baldur’s Gate 3 director and Larian Studios head Swen Vincke has commented on the perpetual discourse surrounding the “death” of single-player games.
The supposed death of single-player games has been a topic in the gaming industry for over a decade now. Since it became established that the money-making potential of a popular live-service game outstrips even the most successful triple-A single-player game, people predicted and/or feared that publishers would begin to aggressively pursue live-service titles at the expense of beloved single-player series.
To a certain extent, this is what happened. Publishers like Sony and Electronic Arts pivoted their business model towards live-service games, to mixed success. Electronic Arts continues to generate obscene amounts of money from EA FC, while Sony has largely given up on live services after the cancellation of The Last of Us Online and the high-profile failure of Concord. Ironically, Sony now has most of its first-party studios working on expansive single-player open-world games.
Good Games Do Good
“That time of year again when big single-player games are declared dead,” Vincke writes. “Use your imagination. They’re not. They just have to be good.” The Belgium-based Larian Studios has made a legacy of creating single-player RPGs, namely the Divinity series and now, Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a shining example of a successful single-player title, earning a record number of game-of-the-year awards and peaking at over 875,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. Larian continues to support the title, with the upcoming Patch 8 set to add cross-play and photo mode to the game, along with several new subclasses.
Although Vincke is correct that “good” games tend to be rewarded with commercial success, this isn’t necessarily always the case. Several factors affect the success of a title, and not all of them are directly related to how good the actual game is. This isn’t exclusive to single-player games, however. We’ve seen plenty of beloved live-service games shut down after failing to attract a viable player base.
Larian Studios is currently working on two unknown projects, both of which are believed to be single-player titles.
- Released
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August 3, 2023
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence