We commenced 2024 with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and concluded it with Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Both titles are fresh releases from cherished franchises of the 2010s triple-A singleplayer era, marking their first returns in many years—a complete decade since Arkham Knight and the previous Dragon Age installment, while five years have elapsed since BioWare’s Anthem misstep. Both were—at least during part of their developmental phase, with The Veilguard—efforts at crafting live service, ongoing multiplayer experiences akin to Destiny.
Following Anthem’s critical failure and its inability to hold onto a player base, culminating with BioWare and EA ceasing updates for the title, Veilguard is said to have undergone a soft development reboot, shifting from a Destiny-like format back to a wholly singleplayer RPG more reminiscent of earlier Dragon Age titles. Suicide Squad faced an additional year of delays after an initial gameplay reveal that was met with negative feedback, yet importantly retained that live service framework, consisting of a campaign accompanied by repeatable missions, “endgame” content, and seasons of subsequent support that were abruptly terminated.
Attempting to convert a singleplayer studio into a ‘live service machine go brrr’ revenue generator is not a wise gamble.
I perceive this situation as The Veilguard retracting from a catastrophe, whereas Suicide Squad rushed into a situation that has harmed numerous reputable, established studios. Live service games rank among the most prevalent, yet they are resource-demanding and necessitate long-term investments from developers and publishers. Players naturally set high expectations for games that require significant time commitments, while this time requirement often leads them to settle on a singular live service game, sidelining others, intensifying competition within the genre. The requisites of a live service title differ from those of a singleplayer game with a defined conclusion, and many of the most triumphant narratives emerge from dedicated new studios or those well-versed in developing multiplayer titles:
- Escape From Tarkov: the debut project from Battlestate Games.
- Roblox: Initially launched in 2006, it is the sole title produced by the Roblox Corporation.
- Fortnite: Epic had an extensive history of multiplayer engagements with Unreal Tournament, bolstered by substantial resources from owning and licensing the Unreal Engine.
- Final Fantasy 14: A specialized MMO division, “Business Division 5,” within the publisher Square Enix.
- Diablo 4: This is Blizzard, known for creating World of Warcraft.
- Path of Exile: Up to now, this series has been the exclusive focus of Grinding Gear Games.
In examining singleplayer studios that have adeptly transitioned to live service, I notice only early pioneers, unique situations, or mitigating factors. Digital Extremes and Bungie were the initial studios, once focused on singleplayer, that found significant success in creating MMOs with action-oriented mechanics and a focus on smaller, instanced missions instead of expansive worlds—they were among the trailblazers in this arena, and even Bungie has encountered substantial challenges, while Digital Extremes has maintained its course.
BioWare’s The Old Republic was a more conventional MMO emerging from a distinctly different era of development. After an explosive start, it has entered a—admittedly remarkable—long, gradual increase in popularity and updates. Valve uniquely stands out, a company with no real direct counterparts in the industry, with its triumphs in Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive preceded by years of popular multiplayer titles like Counter-Strike, Half-Life: Deathmatch, and the prototype of live service in Team Fortress 2, to name a few. Apex Legends served as a mid-stage live service game, but was innovative and comparatively an early adopter of battle royale gameplay, with Respawn possessing its own prior multiplayer credentials. Conversely, Obsidian’s Grounded may be one of the more unique cases: A compact live service survival game that achieved moderate success while the studio as a whole continued to prioritize singleplayer RPGs.
The latter part of the 2010s and the early ’20s have witnessed numerous unsuccessful live service games, particularly from well-respected singleplayer studios. Here’s a brief summary:
- Redfall: Secured a 44% review score from PC Gamer, contributing to the closure of the admired studio Arkane Austin, Bloomberg posits it underwent a contentious, disoriented development.
- Outriders: Held a 63% review score, failed to generate profit during its initial, most prosperous year, received a solitary expansion and appears to be lacking further updates.
- Anthem: Earned a 55% review score, underachieved in sales against its budget, the BioWare/EA narrative continued with content updates and a proposed 2.0 overhaul canceled after two years.
- Marvel’s Avengers: Achieved a 69% review score, with official support terminated after just over two years.
- The Last of Us Online: Canceled prior to launch as the studio feared it would “severely impact development on future singleplayer titles.”
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League: Obtained a 67% review score, underperformed commercially, with content updates shelved after less than a year.
Clearly, we have witnessed enough to recognize that attempting to reconfigure a singleplayer studio into a “live service machine go brrr” profit-generating system is not a prudent move, nor the wisest allocation of these extraordinary amalgamations of skill, experience, and institutional insights. It’s akin to trying to make a sports car off-road: That’s simply not what the vehicle was designed for, and you’re likely to damage your suspension.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard seems to have caused a rift among the series’ fanbase, with its commercial success still in question, but it generally performed well with critics—I personally enjoyed it—and it certainly doesn’t seem to have resulted in any sort of disaster financially. I firmly believe that had Veilguard launched with a battle pass, seasonal content strategies, and a halfhearted approach to repeatable assignments, its reception would have more closely resembled that of Anthem or Suicide Squad.
PCG online editor Fraser Brown accurately noted that Fortnite’s success is an anomaly in the industry, not a projection of the future of games. When deciding on what your thriving singleplayer studio should pursue next, which scenario do you envision as more plausible: That it will create the next Destiny, a 10+ year profitable enterprise, or a polished but insubstantial MMO-lite that will need to be retired within one to three years, its epitaph being one of those cringe-worthy .jpeg apology messages to the community? Let singleplayer studios focus on singleplayer games.