How The Xbox One And PlayStation 4 Are Changing Multiplayer Games

How The Xbox One And PlayStation 4 Are Changing Multiplayer Games

What does being a next-gen game or hardware mean, exactly? While the answer is kind of murky — in some ways, the coming generation doesn’t feel like a huge departure from our current generation of hardware — one of the places we can see concrete changes is when it comes to multiplayer games.

So let’s talk a little bit about what we can expect out of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when it comes to (console) multiplayer games, shall we? Improvements, changes, continuations of trends, predictions — you name it. Here are some of the many ways next-gen games and hardware will affect multiplayer games.

Control

Online Experience

  • Dedicated servers: When playing against each other, Xbox One players don’t have to worry about dropped matches or bad connections as much — matches won’t be hosted by other players. Thankfully.
  • More online-only games? Current trends make it a safe bet to assume even current-gen games will require you to constantly be connected to the Internet — and already, we’re seeing games like next-gen racer The Crew require players to be always-online. Heck, at least one game — Titanfall, the mech-shooter by the folks who brought us Call of Duty — won’t even be bothering with single player; it’s multiplayer-only. Hopefully, the more we see online-only or multiplayer-only games, the better developers can utilise online features to give us more alive and complex games — versus online-only functioning as DRM for players. But even just based on the fact that the Xbox One initially wanted to be an always-online console, we can safely assume we’ll see way more always-online, if not multiplayer games.
  • Better Connections: The ways we connect with our friends and with each other will improve, too. Our friends cap on the Xbox One will increase — we can now have up to one thousand friends. Dang. And the new reputation system on the Xbox One means that not only will feedback affect what your reputation is — which affects the sort of player you’ll be matched up with — but it can also recognise when you’re playing like a troll or griefer.

Social Experience

  • More inattentive players? The Xbox One’s new snap mode means that players can multitask with ease; we all have the ability to ‘snap’ from one application to the next. Why wait in a multiplayer lobby when I can browse Twitter or something while I wait? Heck, why not have Twitter running at the same time/over my game? Snap mode is a cool feature, but I can totally see some more absent-minded players using it and then basically going AFK in whatever game they’re playing.

Game Content

  • Absent friends: Of course, while online-only is on the rise, so is asynchronous multiplayer. That is to say, your friends don’t always need to be present when you’re playing against them. Forza 5 for example will base AI on actual players and their behaviour — so it’s like others will be able to race against you, without ever actually playing against you. It’s kind of spooky, actually!
  • More Free-to-Play games: Here’s another trend that is likely to continue, if not grow in the coming generation. Already, there’s proof of it: fighting game Killer Instinct will start off free with one unlocked character, and any additional characters will cost five bucks a pop. It will undoubtedly not be the only game of its ilk, especially since free-to-play games go hand-in-hand with multiplayer games.
  • Downsized MMO: one of the big buzzwords for the coming generation is “shared-world shooter” — not quite MMOs, and not quite single-player/multiplayer, either.

Lots of changes, lots of improvements, and perhaps some worrying trends — what are you looking forward to or dreading out of next-gen games and hardware?

The Multiplayer is a weekly column that looks at how people crash into each other while playing games. It runs every Monday at 6PM ET.


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