Portal 2 - Valve's Last Isolated Single-player?

Hectic Glenn

Hectic Glenn

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The Final Hours of Portal 2, produced by Geoff Keighley (of Spike TV fame) is a fly-on-the-wall app for the ipad which follows Valve's progress from the initial conception of a Portal sequel (or prequel!) to the finished product. It is hugely insightful into the working processes at Valve and who the people really are behind the names we've become familiar with.[br]Geoff quotes Valve as saying:
'Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience.'
Click to expand...
It is key to point out Valve said 'probably' so this could change. Also it important to clarify that this doesn't mean we won't have any more single-player experiences from Valve, it would mean multi-player features would come alongside future titles. Fear not!?
 
Co-Op for Episode 3?? Hmmmm that would be different
 
is portal 2 really classified as an isolated single-player experience considering it came packaged with an extensive, well grafted and considered co-op campaign? i'm not quite sure i understand the terminology here. a multiplayer feature already did come with their latest story driven game. hell, if you were to count that the L4D titles do have singleplayer options with a multiplayer feature attached to it (albiet the selling point of the two titles) and before that came the orange box, a series of singleplayer games with team fortress 2 attached.

maybe i'm looking a little to into it, but it doesn't seem too new to me.
 
So... future SP campaigns will support co-op drop-in or what?
 
*If* the quote is accurate - and I'm guessing we shouldn't read too much into it - look at what it says again: "'Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience." So: 1 - by this definition, portal 2 is a game with an isolated single player experience. It has a co-op mode, but the single-player bit is there. 2) It will probably be the last game with such an element. That would mean, if true, no games in future with a single-player element AT ALL. Which is what makes me think the quote was either sloppy, or just plain wrong. Valve would probably be burned to the ground if they dropped any chance of a future single-player half-life.
 
Yep. No chance of them trying to turn Episode 3/HL3 into a coop game. It would well and truly ruin Valve's greatest series. I'm not going to take that quote at face value.
 
knut said:
is portal 2 really classified as an isolated single-player experience considering it came packaged with an extensive, well grafted and considered co-op campaign? i'm not quite sure i understand the terminology here. a multiplayer feature already did come with their latest story driven game. hell, if you were to count that the L4D titles do have singleplayer options with a multiplayer feature attached to it (albiet the selling point of the two titles) and before that came the orange box, a series of singleplayer games with team fortress 2 attached.

maybe i'm looking a little to into it, but it doesn't seem too new to me.
Click to expand...

I agree . Also in my opinion Portal 2 was all about co-op . No doubt in my mind . I was hyped about the Single Player , but kinda felt that Valve were more "proud"(so to say) with the co-op rather than the SP story , charecters and etc. Given the quote above I share the confusion as well .

PS: Is it just me or I don't see the single player element in L4D?

PS2: No chance for Ep3 to be coop .
 
I think it makes more sense to look at it like Episode 3 / Half-life 3 comes with Counter Strike 2 in the {insert colour here} box.
 
I think co-op is a great idea, personally. It adds so much more replay value to a game.
I played through all the HL2 series in co-op via the Synergy mod last year, and it was an absolute blast.
If you take some of the Gordon/Alyx scenarios where they're split up and Alyx is helping out, that kind of thing would be amazing in co-op.
 
I think it would be much better if we could play as the citizens, or anyone other than Gordon and Alyx to explore the universe.
 
Yes, I wasn't espousing playing as those two necessarily; it was more the "split up and assist each other" gameplay mechanics that Valve employed with those two.
 
It means that co-op will be possible in every upcoming Valve title if u ask me. Having Co-op as the _only_ available playmode except online multiplayer would be a fast way to the grave, especially when it comes to the HL-series.
 
Bye bye Valve. It's been fun, but you are not my cup of tea anymore.
 
don't let the door hit you on the way out
 
Inanimate said:
It means that co-op will be possible in every upcoming Valve title if u ask me. Having Co-op as the _only_ available playmode except online multiplayer would be a fast way to the grave, especially when it comes to the HL-series.
Click to expand...

That was my thought exactly when I read it.

I also like Pi's idea of being able to play different characters in a real meaningful way. Usually co-op means singleplayer-but-with-more-players-shooting-gun. One of the highpoints of Portal 2's co-op campaign for me though was when you were at the mercy of the other player's actions or vice versa. Truly having different roles made it extra exciting. I'd really like play more games like that.
 
Doh,
I hate coop games.
Wish there was also a cheaper version of portal 2 that had the coop part removed since I won't be able to enjoy it anyway.
I'm just jealous that I'm missing out.
 
I'm guessing they mean any SP will feature optional co-op in the same levels in future.
 
ríomhaire said:
I'm guessing they mean any SP will feature optional co-op in the same levels in future.
Click to expand...

The only way that really works is in that Gears of War kind of way and even then it's a little played out. Portal 2 took it in an awesome direction. However, I don't know how Portal 2 was considered to be isolated single player seems... they exclusively advertised P-Body and Atlas on TV.
 
I'm a little bit perplexed by this to be honest. For me, and I think I'm not alone in this regard, co-op isn't something I have the opportunity to do very often. It requires you to have lots of friends who are enthusiastic about the same games you play, and who happen to be available at the same time you play. Not only that, but the co-op experience in a game like Portal 2 suffers from diminishing returns, and I would expect the same could be said about any future half-life game that featured co-op as well. The same could also be said of Left 4 Dead, which to me has been Valve's most disappointing series.

Meanwhile, there are some great single player games out there thriving - series such as Mass Effect, Fallout, Uncharted and Elder Scrolls to name but a few, all very popular and not diminished by their lack of co-op or multiplayer in any way. I appreciate what Valve is trying to do, I can see the fun my brother had playing Borderlands with all his 360 playing friends, but I can't see this as a viable way forward for the makers of the best games in the industry.
 
Avoidist said:
For me, and I think I'm not alone in this regard, co-op isn't something I have the opportunity to do very often. It requires you to have lots of friends who are enthusiastic about the same games you play, and who happen to be available at the same time you play.
Click to expand...

I'm the complete opposite. Whereas growing up I didn't have many friends that I could co-op through games on the consoles (NES/SNES/etc.), once I got to university I had way too many people to play games with. There are a group of us that met at uni that gaming is one of the ways we still hang out all the time, and I have a lot of single player games sitting unplayed in Steam because although I know they'll be great games (I wouldn't have bought them otherwise) gaming has become very social for me, and games where I can play with at least one other person get preference. It's hard to get through massive SP experiences for me now; I prefer shorter, more concentrated games if they're SP-only. The majority of my gaming time is monopolized by multiplayer experiences (whether that be [DotA then HoN then ]LoL, TF2, MNC, etc.)

As for what percentage of gamers are in either boat (don't have people to play MP with or play MP almost exclusively) I wouldn't want to hazard a guess, but I think gaming overall has become more social in the past several years. I certainly wouldn't want SP gaming to disappear completely (and I keep telling myself I'll get through that Steam backlog...heh), but if experiences could be crafted where you can have multiple people working together as a team that still work pretty well as SP then I'm all for it.
 
I'm not sure I'd trust an off the cuff remark by a guy who got famous for being on Spike TV. If it is legit though, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't usually play the co-op part of games since few of my real life friends play the same games as I do, especially Valve games for some reason. As long as the game can be completed as if it was an SP game (kinda like Demon's Souls) then I would mind in the slightest. But if I had to play multiplayer, I would probably not buy it until I could convince someone I knew to also buy it, which means a good chance of me never buying it at all.
 
I am sure they dont mean they will skip singleplayers forever like some people said before

well I hope so

episode3 the mmo?
 
The trouble with shoe-horning co-op into a singleplayer campaign, especially one as story-driven as Half-Life, is there's always potential for people to muck about in your game, ruining the experience for you. Playing co-op with someone you know and trust is a blast; playing co-op with random strangers is a crapshoot. Can you imagine reaching an emotional scene in Episode 3, only to see your partner who's driving Alyx hopping about like an idiot?

I do see potential for something like scene-specific co-op; things like massive shootouts where players can opt-in to another person's SP campaign as one of the nameless NPCs lending their gun to the fray. Then they'll be cycled out when that segment ends. Giving players something to do usually guarantees no asshattery, so for firefight/puzzle segments co-op could work. Having someone along for your entire campaign, however, I don't see that working at all.

That being said I'd be up for some Decay-esque gameplay in Ep3.
 
Still, I can't imagine who would want to play Alyx. I certainly wouldn't want to, unless it was a separate co-op campaign from the main story. The perspective would obviously be quite different, and I think everyone is going to want to play as Gordon in what could be the last Half life title of this story arc. Certainly one of the most anticipated.

Also, what would they do to make Alyx unique? They would have to give her a special ability or tool; Gordon has the Gravity Gun.
 
ZT said:
Also, what would they do to make Alyx unique?
Click to expand...
She can speak.


Real answer, she can hack. That could be a neat puzzle co-op mechanic. Besides, with regards to, "Who would want to play Alyx?" you make it sound like everyone is going to play the game once then put it on the shelf. Multiple playthroughs from different perspectives, man.
 
I'm wondering what happened to "The Crossing", Arkane is now working on Bioshock or Oblivion. Maybe Valve has taken aboard the ideas that Arkane started.
 
I thought about Arkane as well looking at this thread; as for what happened to The Crossing, it's dead by all appearances. Sad, really. But yeah, Valve might decide to use the idea.
 
Someone actually saw people playing The Crossing at Valve after the game was put on hold.
 
Sooooooo a game like Half-Life would still be single-player, but it would utilize some form of social media for fellow HL players to connect with each other?

Like Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network.
 
I personally like the idea of Valve exploring the concept of co-op, if thats what they are implying. If they did it in the next Half Life installment however, I would prefer that it be removed from the story of Gordon Freeman, perhaps from the perspective of some rebels/citizens, maybe even the Combine (I think it would be really cool to play as some Metrocops). I dont like the idea of making existing characters playable however, as peoples playstyles could mess up the personalities that previous games have established.
 
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