In most game releases, whether It's considered a triple A title or not, adding multiplayer into the package makes the product more appealing.Even of it doesn't seem possible or makes no sense at all, they still push it in hopes to get a few more sales. Many games have went through this route and failed miserably, but some actually pulled off unique multiplayer that not only is fun, but stays true to the game's concept.
Uncharted 2 and 3
Its safe to say we got Uncharted 2 and 3 for the single player campaign, to witness Drake's adventure and his many "OH SHIT" moments. After seeing the end credits roll, we have multiplayer to play around with. To our surprise, Naughty Dog created a relatively decent competitive multiplayer that's worth investing a lot of hours in. Everything we love about Uncharted was embedded, making it stand out from other third person shooters - The simple, but smooth climbing mechanic, the solid cover shooting, and the ability to kick people off ledges. Yes, that last one is really satisfying.
There were tons to unlock and was well supported for months. It even had other modes like a coop mode which pins 3 players against waves of enemies, or an adventure mode that requires you to perform certain tasks to succeed. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception(now free to play until level 15) is literally the perfect package.
Mass Effect 3
This was shocker. When Bioware announced the last Mass Effect game would include a multiplayer mode, I expected the worst. A horrible multiplayer with the single player being affected since they used resources on the online component. Well I was proven wrong, and not only was the single player the best int he series, the multiplayer proved to be a great addition. It has the right addiction that makes you want to go "Just one more game..: after a round ends.
You and three other players team up to go through 10 waves of enemies and do objectives until extraction. It's a simple mode and there's nothing else, but multiplayer shows how fluid and effective Mass Effect 3's combat can be. There was also a sense of grinding as well since you need to earn credits to buy packages that have random items such as medi-gel, heavy weapons ammo, or new classes and race, weapon attachments, and of course new weapons. To top that all off, the multplayer had great support from Bioware with a good amount of DLC's coming out for free to add more content like maps. Yes, MP maps for free, hard to believe.
Red Dead Redemption
In my eyes, Rockstar Games can do no wrong, and apparently can do the unthinkable. I thought it was impossible to create an open-world multiplayer, but they did it. Instead of HUD lobbies for certain game modes in the multiplayer, you have the game's map as your lobby to do whatever you want, and I mean anything. Its just like the single player campaign minus the main story. You can raid bandit camps, play poker, or claim forts as your own. If you really want that competitive edge or more coop, certain parts on the map have stations were you can search for a quick match.
When players start joining your map, you can either team up or simple shoot each other for the heck of it. If there's enough people, you can go full on posse vs posse which can be pretty crazy,especially if the enemy possie tries to invade your little fort you call home. Another great thing is that this game, even though played in Asia, had no problems with internet connection or lag, which makes everything way more satisfying. It's a great multiplayer that wasn't necessary since they developed an amazing open-world western but they did it anyway and succeeded in making it worth checking out.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Yet another title that's great on its own, but because this generation is the age of online gaming, even Assassin's Creed got the multiplayer treatment. When announced, I couldn't wrap my head on how it could work. what, find the right player to stab with your hidden knife? Apparently I had the right idea back then because that's pretty much what multiplayer is. Every player is in disguise as one of the regular NPC's out there and can really be hard to spot. You have to find those inconsistencies that would make a player stand out. For example - running around on the roof(Bad idea), sticking out like a sore thumb.
Brotherhood was the first to introduce multiplayer and since then, every new release of Assassin's Creed had their version of the multiplayer with new game modes and maps, but the concept is still the same. It can get tedious at times, but it surprisingly works.
Dark Souls/Demon Souls
I had to include this. A painfully challenging RPG that merged multiplayer and single player together. It's online component was unheard of. For Single Player, with it being very hard, some players can assist others by leaving messages on the ground for other players to see to either warn them of upcoming dangers or inform them of an item/equipment that would be hard to spot. Or hint at a boss or enemy's weakness. You can also lie to kill someone. You can tell someone died by following false information when you see blood stain(interacting with it shows how the player died) and a message beside each other saying "jump here". I've tried it, people do jump.
But the multiplayer aspect doesn't stop there. You can also drop your sign on the ground for people to find so they can summon you into their world to assist them in a certain part in the game. You can also do the same and summon other players to your game if you need help. If you want to be competitive in either Demon Souls or Dark Souls, you can drop your sign to ask for a battle with another player. believe it or not, there's a community for PVP with a certain spot in the game where you can find players looking for a fight. The game is quite deep in character development that there are a good amount of builds to play around with making the game appealing to competitive players. If you don't want to wait for someone to accept your challenge, you can use a specific item to invade another players game and attempt to kill him before he reaches an enemy boss. To this day, people still play the game to create new characters for PVP. I'm sure From Software didn't see that coming.
Were in a generation where having some form of multiplayer is almost mandatory. Even though it's not necessary, they are pushed into adding it somehow to make it sell better. I don't believe multiplayer will help the game sell more copies, but a lot believe so, that's why we have dumb multiplayers in games like Dead Space or BioShock 2. Even the recently released Tomb Raider reboot has a multiplayer component which isn't very good. But this whole Idea of adding multiplayer isn't a complete waste as you can see above, I just hope we have more hits than misses in the future.
This is actually old news but I was thinking if posting anyway because I'd really like this franchise to stay afloat for future projects. With me now a fan of the series that has now played both Darksiders 1 and 2, It would be sad to see a series go out like this simply because It couldn't find a new home after THQ's unfortunate bankruptcy. But thankfully a company has taken interested . Crytek USA has shown interest and the best part is a good portion of what used to be Vigil Games(Developers of Darksiders) is now working at the said studio.
