Is a game still a: "Single-Player Title" if it can be played online with others?

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

Sorry if this is a tiny bit of a reactionary thread but it's something I've been wondering as of late in regards to how some games are classified.

So for example I've heard many classify titles such as...

Dark Souls
Elden Ring
Monster Hunter
Nioh's

And so on as Single Player Titles.

And it's true that you can play all of these titles by yourself but as someone who has spent much of my time in these games... playing them online with others, it feels weird to classify them as Single-Player Titles since I feel like calling them that implies that they are games that are ONLY played Single-Player.

Like I wouldn't call Call of Duty a Single-Player Title despite it having a Single-Player Campaign as it also has Multiplayer. As do all the titles above.

I just feel like it muddies the water with titles that are actually only able to be played by yourself.

PlanetSmasher · May 22, 2022

If the game's main gameplay flow involves you playing by yourself I'm alright with calling it a single-player game with multiplayer features.

If the primary flow of the game involves co-op or competitive multiplayer (Monster Hunter is clearly intended to be played co-op, for example, whereas Souls and Nioh aren't), then it's a multiplayer game.

Nexus2049 · May 22, 2022

I'd call Uncharted 2-4 single player titles despite them having MP, for example.

RoboitoAM · May 22, 2022

You're overly complicating tags

GJ · May 22, 2022

I've played all the games you've mentioned in the OP on my own, with the exception of MH which I've played with friends, but I played the majority of it on my own, and I count them all as single player games. A multiplayer game to me is something like CoD or Fortnite. Something that you actively play with or against others. Soulsgames for example to me (as someone who doesn't care for PvP) are single player games with a multiplayer component. It's all optional and it won't really alter your experience.

Also; The Last of Us had an amazing multiplayer mode that not enough people played. A lot of people don't even know it's there since they only ever think about the story. Would that count as a multiplayer game? Or a single player game with a(n optional) multiplayer mode?

Lunatious · May 22, 2022

PlanetSmasher said:
If the game's main gameplay flow involves you playing by yourself I'm alright with calling it a single-player game with multiplayer features.

If the primary flow of the game involves co-op or competitive multiplayer (Monster Hunter is clearly intended to be played co-op, for example, whereas Souls and Nioh aren't), then it's a multiplayer game.

This. To me there's a difference between "co-op game that can be played solo" and "solo game that can be played co-op".

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

PlanetSmasher said:
If the game's main gameplay flow involves you playing by yourself I'm alright with calling it a single-player game with multiplayer features.

If the primary flow of the game involves co-op or competitive multiplayer (Monster Hunter is clearly intended to be played co-op, for example, whereas Souls and Nioh aren't), then it's a multiplayer game.

But even then that feels like a weird thing to say, as if the onlines of Souls games and Nioh are just... happy accidents that just happen to be there rather than something they intend people to use.

jwk94 · May 22, 2022

Yes? Did people forget coop is a thing??

L Thammy · May 22, 2022

A game can be a single player game and also a multiplayer game.

sku · May 22, 2022

It's both. A game can be multiple things

Cokomon · May 22, 2022

This is why I feel like PvE and PvP is a better delimiter for games that have any form of multiplayer. Even if the multiplayer feature is just drop in co-op.

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

L Thammy said:
A game can be a single player game and also a multiplayer game.

Obviously but I'd say there is still an almost intention to make it seem like some games are purely offline experiences rather than something that has been designed to be fully playable online.

Like I wouldn't say AC: Valhalla and Elden Ring are the same, the former can only be played by yourself while the later can be fully played online with others.

PlanetSmasher · May 22, 2022

Kalentan said:
But even then that feels like a weird thing to say, as if the onlines of Souls games and Nioh are just... happy accidents that just happen to be there rather than something they intend people to use.

It's more like the co-op and PVP features in Souls and Nioh are supplemental content designed to provide options to players, whereas in Monster Hunter, the co-op is the point.

Yes, you can play Monster Hunter solo, but the game isn't built around that as the primary thrust of the gameplay. You're supposed to be teaming up with other hunters. The opposite is the case for Soulsborne games - the games are built around solo play, with the online features existing to add options to the experience.

Eidan · May 22, 2022

RoboitoAM said:
You're overly complicating tags

Yes.

Jimnymebob · May 22, 2022

For me, if I'm playing a multiplayer game, it is a game that I'm playing with people, and if I'm playing a single player game, it is one that I am playing by myself.

Like if I'm playing Streets of Rage by myself and say "I'm playing a multiplayer game", I'd sound stupid.

PlanetSmasher · May 22, 2022

Jimnymebob said:
For me, if I'm playing a multiplayer game, it is a game that I'm playing with people, and if I'm playing a single player game, it is one that I am playing by myself.

Like if I'm playing Streets of Rage by myself and say "I'm playing a multiplayer game", I'd sound stupid.

Yeah, like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has a co-op mode. But does anyone think of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as a multiplayer game? Nah.

gabegabe · May 22, 2022

If I play only the campaign of Call of Duty and never enter the multiplayer, is it still a MP game or for me it was a SP game?

I think you're overthinking it. Just enjoy the games you want.

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

PlanetSmasher said:
It's more like the co-op and PVP features in Souls and Nioh are supplemental content designed to provide options to players, whereas in Monster Hunter, the co-op is the point.

Yes, you can play Monster Hunter solo, but the game isn't built around that as the primary thrust of the gameplay. You're supposed to be teaming up with other hunters. The opposite is the case for Soulsborne games - the games are built around solo play, with the online features existing to add options to the experience.

But you can play Souls and Nioh with co-op as the point. You can literally play the games completely from start to finish with friends. It's not just something you take advantage of at certain points in the game.

Yes, you can say in MH that co-op is the point but you can still play the entirety of MH Rise completely by yourself from start to finish. There is no content locked behind only playing with others.

Son of Sparda · May 22, 2022

RoboitoAM said:
You're overly complicating tags

Yea this.

Souls has always been a single player experience for me.

spam musubi · May 22, 2022

Any distinction is as useful as its utility. So the question is, why do you feel a need to separate these things? What utility does it provide to you to have these types of games in a "not single player" bucket?

Spring-Loaded · May 22, 2022

jwk94 said:
Yes? Did people forget coop is a thing??

Is co-op not multiplayer? Is Tri-Force Heroes a single-player game, just with co-op?

spam musubi said:
Any distinction is as useful as its utility. So the question is, why do you feel a need to separate these things? What utility does it provide to you to have these types of games in a "not single player" bucket?

Is the presence of player messages in Elden Ring multiplayer? I know there are tonnes of things I would have never found or figured out without those messages.

if someone asking for a singleplayer game recommendation didn't have internet access, knowing that Elden Ring isn't purely a singleplayer game would be meaningful to them.

PlanetSmasher · May 22, 2022

Kalentan said:
But you can play Souls and Nioh with co-op as the point. You can literally play the games completely from start to finish with friends. It's not just something you take advantage of at certain points in the game.

Yes, you can say in MH that co-op is the point but you can still play the entirety of MH Rise completely by yourself from start to finish. There is no content locked behind only playing with others.

That's not what I'm saying. The clear intention of Monster Hunter is that you play it with other people. The fact you can play it by yourself does not change the fact that the core gameplay flow is designed around playing with a team.

Similarly, the fact you can theoretically play most of Dark Souls in co-op (you actually can't play the whole game in co-op, btw, there are portions of every Souls game, Nioh game AND Elden Ring that have to be played solo) does not change the fact that the core gameplay loop is structured around solo play with the multiplayer being supplemental to it.

I'm talking about the core gameplay loop and structure here - that's what defines if something is a single-player or multiplayer game. The fact you have the option to play a game the other way does not change the fact that some games are INTENDED to be played multiplayer and have an optional single-player mode and some games are intended to be played solo and have optional multiplayer features.

Erdnuckel01 · May 22, 2022

You are probably overthinking this, I only play games singleplayer no matter if it has an intended multplayer component or not. It's just by choice. And there are people that play only the multiplayer portions of games like COD or Halo or whatever.

I see it like this, can I play it fully on my own without having to play with others but could if I wanted to? Then it is a singleplayer game with multiplayer features.

If I can only play it in parts on my own but am forced to play with others for some parts, it is a multiplayer game.

Spring-Loaded · May 22, 2022

Erdnuckel01 said:
You are overthinking, I only play games singleplayer no matter if it has an intended multplayer component or not. It's just by choice. And there are people that play only the multiplayer portions of games like COD or Halo or whatever.

I see it like this, can I play it fully on my own without having to play with others but could if I wanted to? Then it is a singleplayer game with multiplayer features.

If I can only play it in parts on my own but am forced to play with others for some parts, it is a multiplayer game.

Is "singleplayer game w/multi elements" the same as "multiplayer game with sp elements"?

spam musubi · May 22, 2022

Spring-Loaded said:
Is co-op not multiplayer? Is Tri-Force Heroes a single-player game, just with co-op?

Is the presence of player messages in Elden Ring multiplayer? I know there are tonnes of things I would have never found or figured out without those messages.

if someone asking for a singleplayer game recommendation didn't have internet access, knowing that Elden Ring isn't purely a singleplayer game would be meaningful to them.

That's making a distinction between online and offline. There are plenty of fully single player games that have online-only components. Elden Ring's messages are a lot more optional compared to some other games. OP above made a distinction between AC Valhalla and Elden Ring for example, both have online elements.

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

spam musubi said:
Any distinction is as useful as its utility. So the question is, why do you feel a need to separate these things? What utility does it provide to you to have these types of games in a "not single player" bucket?

Well to be honestly I feel like having just two terms: "Single-Player Title" and "Multiplayer Title" don't actually do much.

Like in Dark Souls 3, the whole Covenant system is designed with the online play in mind. Grinding for the resources to upgrade the Covenants and get their unique items/spells/etc, is specifically made to be insanely hard to do by yourself to make sure that people actually engage with the online.

Like when you say to someone that X game is a "Single-Player Title" are you talking about a game that can only be played by yourself or a game that also has the ability to go online with others?

Spring-Loaded · May 22, 2022

spam musubi said:
That's making a distinction between online and offline. There are plenty of fully single player games that have online-only components. Elden Ring's messages are a lot more optional compared to some other games. OP above made a distinction between AC Valhalla and Elden Ring for example, both have online elements.

Is there a distinction between real-time multiplayer and asynchronous stuff like time trial ghosts and messages? What's the core purpose of calling something "multiplayer" if it isn't just "involving other players"?

spam musubi · May 22, 2022

Kalentan said:
Well to be honestly I feel like having just two terms: "Single-Player Title" and "Multiplayer Title" don't actually do much.

Like in Dark Souls 3, the whole Covenant system is designed with the online play in mind. Grinding for the resources to upgrade the Covenants and get their unique items/spells/etc, is specifically made to be insanely hard to do by yourself to make sure that people actually engage with the online.

Like when you say to someone that X game is a "Single-Player Title" are you talking about a game that can only be played by yourself or a game that also has the ability to go online with others?

You haven't really answered the question though. What do you need this distinction for?

L Thammy · May 22, 2022

I think in general, nerds have a really dumb way of processing genres and things like that. I don't mean that as an accusation against the OP, but look at arguments about whether or not Smash is a fighting game, for instance.

Basically, categorization is not really an attribute of a game. That idea should be put aside. There's the case where the game is directly trying to be part of a particular tradition, like how Hydorah is deliberately trying to follow older shmups like Gradius instead of the newer school of bullet hell shooters, and there you can say that the game belongs in the category because it's intentionally putting itself in the category. But a lot of times that's not so much the case.

Instead these categories are mostly terms of convenience, existing simply to group together related things that we want to discuss. Towards that end, it's the discussion that best defines what games fit into it, not the games themselves. To the point of the OP, is Monster Hunter a single player game? I personally play it single player almost exclusively, so if someone was into single player 3D action games, I'd think to bring up Monster Hunter because that's how I'm approaching it. I think it's a fun experience when approached that way. The fact that it does have multiplayer and can be played with other people isn't really relevant to how I'm looking at it at that moment.

There's a similar issue in how people get about the proper names of genres. Again, it's a term of convenience, so the main reason why these terms are popularized is because they're good for letting people know what you're talking about. So back when the Vita was struggling, I'd see fans of the system get upset about hunting action games being referred to as "Monster Hunter clones" because they viewed it as a threat to the legitimac of those. But ultimately, a major part of the reason for the prevalence of the term is simply that Monster Hunter is by far the most visible game of its type, and so it makes a natural point in comparison against games that are attempting to offer similar experiences.

The argument's been made to use the official terminology, but sometimes we abandon that because the official terminology isn't useful. Capcom uses "hunting action" to describe Monster Hunter, sure, that's fine. But there isn't much spread of "panic horror", the term they used to describe Dino Crisis, because there just isn't enough need in most conversations to distinguish it from the "survival horror" term that they came up with for Resident Evil. Or you have the Tales series, which comes up with terms like Enforcing One's "Justice" RPG or RPG of Discovering Your Own Reasons to Live which are really just glorified taglines and I don't think there's even a pretense that we're supposed to take them seriously.

Shemhazai · May 22, 2022

If you can play the game without needing to interact with any other people, then yeah, it's a single player game for all intents and purposes.

That doesn't mean that it's not also a multiplayer game, just that people who want a wholly single player experience can find that in the game.

Dogui · May 22, 2022

Is a game still single player if you ask for help in the internet on how to defeat a boss or solve a puzzle?

Is an online competitive game even multiplayer if people only fights from better frags and don't help you improve?

If in the center of the universe we are all alone, isn't every game single player?

Spring-Loaded · May 22, 2022

spam musubi said:
You haven't really answered the question though. What do you need this distinction for?

They just mentioned stuff like Dark Souls 3's covenant system.

It's similar to saying a game has MTX, even if the player never has to interact with them to complete the game—their presence is what ultimately matters

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

spam musubi said:
You haven't really answered the question though. What do you need this distinction for?

Well because It feels weird when say someone holds up Elden Ring as an example that people want "Single-Player games", that it's a push back against Multiplayer games. It feels weird because if your someone like myself, who played much of these games with a friend (co-op is MP), it feels odd to hear that sentiment. Cause clearly people aren't pushing back against online elements in their games if they are playing a game which has online elements lol

spam musubi · May 22, 2022

Kalentan said:
Well because It feels weird when say someone holds up Elden Ring as an example that people want "Single-Player games", that it's a push back against Multiplayer games. It feels weird because if your someone like myself, who played much of these games with a friend (co-op is MP), it feels odd to hear that sentiment.

So is it basically about winning internet arguments? You can just pick whatever goalpost you want for that.

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

spam musubi said:
So is it basically about winning internet arguments? You can just pick whatever goalpost you want for that.

It just feels like people want to pretend the online elements of some of their games don't exist because they think it taints them.

Keym · May 22, 2022

It's a single-player game with optional online co-op. The end.

ChrisD · May 22, 2022

Does this have to do with the 'Singleplayer Titles with 100+ Hours' thread a few days ago? Because I was going to post in that but started wondering the same thing and figured I'd skip lol.

Out of 299 hours in Rise, an easy 190~ have been solo. For all intents and purposes, I put more time into a "singleplayer portion" (despite the fact it's actually the same Hub quests I could do with others) so that's sort of a singleplayer game with an attached multiplayer option. But that's a bit muddied for sure.

Not muddy in the slightest: Dark Souls. And Bloodborne, Elden Ring, etc. I don't even have messages on 99% of the time. I boot these games up offline. When PC shut off multiplayer that wouldn't have effected me one bit (I'm console though). Out of the 250~ combined hours across all those games, I've done online… anything, for maybe an hour or two total? So yeah they're well-known multiplayer titles. But for me it is legitimately one of my favorite singleplayer series.

nicoga3000 · May 22, 2022

Is this in response to that thread about the most singlrplayer hours in a game or whatever?

For me, I just look at it as how I engage with it. If a game, like Mario Kart, can be fully enjoyed singleplayer and that's how I go about it, then I consider that a singleplayer experience.

jroc74 · May 22, 2022

RoboitoAM said:
You're overly complicating tags

jwk94 said:
Yes? Did people forget coop is a thing??

This.

Borderlands series can be played completely solo for the main campaign.

Its also one of the main games ppl talk about for multi player, local or online.

Mukrab · May 22, 2022

Yes. I also always include games like civilization when talking about single player games, even tho i played it a ton with my friends.

Kalentan · May 22, 2022

nicoga3000 said:
Is this in response to that thread about the most singlrplayer hours in a game or whatever?

Not solely, but part of it. Though I will say seeing someone list FFXIV on their list of Single-Player title wanted me to just outright consider the term dead lol

iksenpets · May 22, 2022

Kalentan said:
It just feels like people want to pretend the online elements of some of their games don't exist because they think it taints them.

I mean, I kind of agree, but at the same time, it the multiplayer is peripheral enough to the experience that people who don't like multiplayer are able to engage with it as a single-player game without any degradation of the experience, then yeah, it's a single-player game.

That's all people are saying when they cite it as a single-player game. They want games that offer the experience of playing Elden Ring single player. If anything it means they're respecting multiplayer fans enough that they can celebrate a game like Elden Ring giving them a multiplayer experience, so long as it doesn't intrude on the single-player one. If Elden Ring were made to require a partner, or balanced in such a way as to really favor the multiplayer experience, they wouldn't like it anymore.

Ra · May 22, 2022

Sorry, an admitted reaction thread. Not allowed.

Is a game still a: "Single-Player Title" if it can be played online with others?

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