I have my online games, but the never ending progress in them means that you can’t really swap between games as often as we would like.

I would cite influence advertising as part of the problem. With even single player games being affected by the way gaming “engagement” is perceived.

I’m playing Sifu at the moment on PS5 and Max Payne 3 on Series X. Even the quality of how the games are produced is lessening because of how much studios are trying to appeal to influencers more than customers. Max Payne 3 is a game. It can be hard, it can be easy. Regardless, it’s polished to a mirror shine.

Sifu has great combat and is satisfying to play, but the roguelite stuff within (solely designed to appeal to Twitch players, like the genre as a whole) is a major bummer. People are currently arguing vision. Whether or not the game should be made easier due to how the difficulty doesn’t mesh with some people. Difficult games are fine, but they’ve got to be designed well. Sifu isn’t really. It’s a victim of the roguelite dragon the studio has been chasing. This is a game that deserves to be easier to play, something tells me that they’ve only kept the difficulty high to advertise it on the fact that people will be repeating levels a lot in their time spent playing the game.

The ironic thing about difficulty is the sense of identity people both feel for themselves and feel of the devs, when the devs are arguably going against their own identities by chasing trends.

The issues I have with Sifu starts with multiplayer games. The game itself is arguable an MP game due to how many people watch it on Twitch.

Just because people watch a game on Twitch doesn't mean it's a multi-player game. This whole post is just some projected nonsense.

Roguelites created for streamers? What?

Sounds like you just don't understand what roguelike and roguelite games are all about.

@SenorFartCushion
Budget is king , the sad truth about generational leap is being overrated and easily overshadowed by its budget, a triple a game from the last decade or two still holds itself and get liked the way it looked more than its technicality behind it.

Obviously that’s good. But can you not follow the patterns that literally every other company has been making these last few years? Games as a service multiplayer games are made mostly to rid ones catalogue of any single player only games

@Senor

That's a baseless point. There are significantly more companies that continue to produce single-player experiences, than there are companies that have dropped single-player completely to rid their catalogue of any single player only games. This is fear mongering.

Someone said this best a while ago in a PS Group. Sony is the AAA Blockbuster Film / HBO of gaming. They create premium high quality content. That has allowed them to make a huge comeback during the PS360Wii era, dominate the home console market during the PS4XBOWiiU era, and is what will continue to carry them into the PS5 generation and beyond. How many single player games have they released for the PS5 compared to Live Service games. How many single player games got cancelled for a live service game?

4 of the 7 known Live Service games are from 2nd party developers, so where is this concern from single player games coming from. Naughty Dog is making Factions.....And they've made several multiplayers before without it affecting their single player narrative driven games. Firesprite is a brand new developer under PlayStation, so there shouldn't be any AAA single player expectation on them to begin with, people were just talking about how this is a VR studio and okay with it, but have a potential issue with them working on service games. Guerrilla is releasing Forbidden West this month A single player game, with a Horizon VR exclusive later this year (also likely single player), so why is it a problem that they have a team working on something else multiplayer / GaaS based.

This fear mongering needs to stop.

PS Gamers praise Sony for their first party and the amazing narratives they play and create with their IPs. Why are they so fixated on holding them back from attempting to do the same in a multiplayer space. If you don't like playing online then don't. Destiny is an example of one you don't really have to, and that's a 5 year old experience now. Let them learn and grow in the Online space, just like they did in the Single Player Space.

People say all the time, I want Bloodborne for PS5 or Bloodborne 2. Well in a Ongoing world, they could still be getting new content from Bloodborne to this day, have new content launch each year, have an option where you and friends can take on a Raid Boss, and so much more. What is the fear in this?

Stop the fear mongering and just say you don't like multiplayer / online games, and these games aren't for you and move on. But there are millions of PS gamers who want to enjoy games like these and want to see Sony's first party blend narrative and world building into AAA online experiences. The PS3 had significantly more multiplayer experiences than the PS4 from Sony studios and the PS4 was a significantly more successful and online focused console. That has to change, because gamers are going online more.