Don’t @ Me | Battle royales like Apex Legends are killing single-player games (and you’re to blame)

Tired of battle royales like Apex Legends and other live service games? Here's why they're killing the industry, according to one disgruntled editor.

[harmny]

F*ck you. How about that.

[Eonjay]

You stole my response.
Obviously we have to buy the premise that Bradley Russell of Game Revolution knows best for gamers.
Then after we swallow that horseshit we have to the lie that single player is dying. Proven lie a billion times over.
So then since we know that single player games aren't dead or dying, how are we supposed to reconcile blame for something that isn't even happening?

[S2Killinit]

As far as I read, I dont think he is lying. The question is, are things as bad as he is making them out to be?

[rainslacker]

For any game to kill the SP games, the premise has to assume that people only ever play one game. Like, if they start AL, they're forever and always locked into that game and will never again play another game in their lifetime.

Given that in the past couple years, we've seen the meteoric rise of three of these battle royale games, the first two seeing two sharp drop offs of player counts when the next one comes, only proves this to be untrue.

The author also assumes that the "you're" or we, are somehow the one's that are playing these games as if they're some sort of addictive narcotic that we crave beyond all else, and that the same market that has been buying SP games, are the one's moving over in droves to MP games as their primary, or main source of gaming consumption. It ignores the fact that the number of gamers has actually always been increasing over the years, and that it's just there are more players now, and that it's the publishers themselves chasing after the more lucrative MP gaming which makes it APPEAR that SP games are dying, when in fact they're doing just fine, but it's just a bit different now.

[Jin_Sakai]

There’s room for both. Apex Legends is doing great and so did single player games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, God of War, and Spider-Man.

[ravinash]

There are a large number of BR games out there now, PUBG, Fortnite, Apex to name a few, but for the one we can name there is about 90% of such games I could not.
I think if anything, it's not the single player games that are suffering but the multiplayer ones.

Everyone going to take their chance to grab a bit of the BR pie, but when the winners and losers have appeared, they will ether go back to where they came from or chase onto the next big thing.

[vladstad]

guess they think we arent able to play more then one game at a time.

[Hydrazinezz]

The only thing that kills a game is a shit game...cough anthem cough..

[KyRo]

What a load of bollocks.

[Nyxus]

No they're not.

[TheEnigma313]

Ummmmm SP games are doing just fine, maybe not on the xbone, but ps4 it's just fine. Not everyone plays MP games.

[Artemidorus]

Careful of the bone I had to take a break from here using that word.

[TheEnigma313]

they were that sensitive huh? smh

[Artemidorus]

Fraid so

[BlackTar187]

wait......... is Bone considered negative towards xbox? wow, people are super sensitive nowadays.

[Segata]

Oh yeah? Watch this BONE....thugs n Harmony made my fave rap Album ever in East 1999. Take that! ...or something

[EmperorDalek]

Just curious, in what context did you use it? Could you repeat the comment? Hard to believe with so many people who call it the Xbone, that you'd get singled out and banned for simply using that term.

[Artemidorus]

Used it in the sense of calling it X followed by certain words and then you get informed it's trolling.

[EmperorDalek]

Now that's just generalizing. Gravity Rush 2 sold horribly, despite being a great game. Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 4 were recently considered sales flops, despite being good games. So it's not like being on PS4 automatically means it does well.

If you can give a good argument that multiplatform single player games sell significantly worse on Xbox, even when considering the install base, then do tell. If it's just another "lol no gaems" argument, then I'm looking forward to the new Xbox studios shutting you up.

[gangsta_red]

Lmao, too funny. Was just commenting on the perceived hysteria some gamers have when it comes to MP games.

[Eonjay]

I think its too funny that no one is more disrespectful to gamers then game journalists.

[TK-66]

When will people just learn the SP and MP games both have a place and that the existence of one doesn't negate the other? This isn't a one or the other situation but for some reason people push this stupid narrative.

[Quetzll]

Quick! Everyone flock to this click-bait bullshit article and comment on how wrong they are. The quicker we can get the one or two contrarians in here, the quicker we can get a couple dozen more people all saying the same thing! YEAH! N4G!!!!

[Eonjay]

So sound like you could be a games journalist.

[Tross]

Yep. You just need to suck at writing and constantly post the same steaming pile of cow dung as everyone else, and ignore any facts that disprove what you’re trying to say.

[rainslacker]

Power to the people!!!

[jznrpg]

Battle Royale might kill other MP games but single player is fine. I am still buying Days Gone , TLOU2 , Ghosts of Tsushima , Death Stranding , Code Vein, Arc of Alchemists and the list goes on . I haven’t considered trying Apex.

[RememberThe357]

Even look at Assassin's Creed, they started doing better by committing even more to the single player experience. RDR2 blew up before it even had multiplayer. People want their single player games. We can have both and most of us actually play both.

[Artemidorus]

It's called choice, if people no longer want to play something then they won't.

[yomfweeee]

Here's how these terrible sites work. Oh, look hot article about "single player games thriving". Let me go write about "single player games dying".

[rainslacker]

Yeah, except we'll see an article about how they're dying more readily than we'll see its counterpart. Gaming journalism rule #1. Come up with a dumb concept which can't be supported, and will only be disproven with hyberbolic arguments, even though those arguments are logical, and you'll get clicks.

[Gaming4Life1981]

I dont like them so I dont play them but I don't think they are killing the industry.

[Dannycr]

I see, we have arrived at the point in time when the blame switched from Fortnite to Apex. Fortnite is no longer the biggest sin of gaming, now it is Apex Legends. Ok then...

[gangsta_red]

Remember when it was CoD that was killing single player games....those were simpler times.

[BlackTar187]

rofl so true.

[Dannycr]

I was going to reply with "Good times", but tbh that sucked too.

[SuperSonic91]

Bad bloggers like Gamerevolution are killing the video game industry and they are to blame. How about that?

[FloydianAndroid]

False narrative. Resident evil 2, metro exodus, DMC V are all great singles player games and would be up for game don’t the year so far.

[DVAcme]

Lol, precisely the opposite. PUBG was killed by Fortnite and that's getting killed by Apex Legends, there's only one top battle royale game at any given time. And games-as-service have gotten the worst goddamn beating since the concept first was created, with Fallout 76 and Anthem being industry embarrassments. Meanwhile, last year and the beginning of this one have been banner years for single-player or multiplayer-optional games games, with hits such as Monster Hunter World, Yakuza 6, Fist of The North Star, God of War, Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry 5, and many more coming up. This guy is effin' delusional.

[rainslacker]

Even PUBG and Fortnite aren't being killed by AL. All those other MP games aren't dying either. Goes hand in hand that if one game is killing an entire type of game(more than a genre), that it'd be affecting all the offerings within the same type of gaming.

There are just too many people in the market today for a single game to kill off a significant amount of the rest of the market.

[SCW1982]

Accept the fact that single player games are doing better than they have done in quite a while.

[StrengthInNumbers]

there's always something allegedly dying in video games..

[PoSTedUP]

the journalism.

[FPS_D3TH]

Lmao and the top article right above this one as I post this asks why single player games are so successful today... so yeah... bout that statement.

[Persian_Immortal]

Killing single player games? haha your a regular comedian mate bravo. Nintendo exclusives are selling double digit numbers, Sony exclusives are selling double digit numbers if anything SP gaming is bigger then ever.

2015: The Witcher 3 Overall Goty 257 Gotys 10 million+ sales
2016: Uncharted 4 Overall Gotys 165 Gotys 11 million+ sales
2017: Zelda Breath Of The Wild 189 Gotys, 12 million+ sales
2018: God Of War 193 Gotys 9 million+ sales
2019: Its gonna be a critically acclaimed SP title
2020: Its gonna be a critically acclaimed SP title

[Soybetaboy]

I agree

[zombiewombie]

Somy seems to be doing fine with SP games. I think you mean shareholders are the reason why SP games are being killed.

[NickAwesome]

Sadly i agree with the author but there is still hope, people with get bored of battle royale, this trend can't last forever! Sony,Bethesda,Rockstar and many indie studios are fighting with passion the good fight to keep making amazing single player games, i love those studios but it must be very demoralizing for them to watch all those bland, uninteresting, copy paste battle royale games getting all the players. If you like single player games speak with your wallet, show them the love they deserve

[mastershredder]

"Battle royales like Apex Legends are killing single-player games" Yeah... here we go. There read that single player bs somewhere decided to jump on the bandwagon. One dog barks another starts even if it does not know why it is barking.

Real revolutionary there Brad.

[ghostrider32]

MP games are not killing SP games. You goddamn baby boomers just hate to see things coexist. SP games are still successful you crybabies.

[rainslacker]

Baby boomers? You mean those born between 1945 and 1960 or so? The people in their 60's and 70's right now?

[SpineSaw]

I must be upfront and honest. I don't follow these hacks that do these kinda hack jobs like this one. But I do comment on what they have to say or at least my comment will be based of the title of their hack job. So with that said I don't care enough to read what this cockroach and his fellow cockroaches have to say because the title says it all and based off this guys title "Battle Royale games are not killing off Single Player games". This cockroach has it wrong. BR games are killing Multi-player games and GASS games not SP games. Games like Call of Duty, Anthem, Sea of Thieves, BattleField, TitanFall, Destiny and wait and see if the Division 2 opening sales are below Division 1 opening wk sales...they will be! So I don't know or care what this cockroach has to say because he/she/ it has no clue what their talking about and its just wrong they have a platform to say it. Makes one wonder who is paying these cockroaches to produce this trash and why. Single player games God Of War, Horizon Zero Dawn or let's just say any Single player game that Nintendo or Sony releases is doing better than ever in the Battle Royale era while the GASS and Multi-player games struggle to hit past success. Maybe if this cockroach is talking about low budget Indy SP games maybe he has a point but when has low budget Indy games done well enough to talk about to start with? And again I don't care enough to read this garbage to find out and no offense to the SP Indy dev....please keep doing your thing cause I've played and loved a many of those type games and IMO some are fantastic. No, this cockroach has it wrong on all fronts and if anyone is killing anything it's the cockroaches like this clown that's killing gaming and 'The Cockroaches are to blame"!

[nibblo]

Single player games may not be dying but they are falling into a cookie cutter like pattern where original ideas and concepts are verboten or they have become interactive movies. I understand it as these things are more guaranteed to bring in sales but I am not encouraged. Most of the single player games I have enjoyed this gen have been indie games like Rhyme or What Remains of Edith Finch, games that don't seem to care for the latest trends or what has worked in the past or trying to be movies but just concentrated on originality and out of the box thinking. Even good game play seems to have become a dirty word these days and something relegated to the past.

I really do think the death of AA games is the main reason for this, publishers just don't want to take the risk anymore and I agree with the author that it is ultimately our, the game buying public's, fault and only we can change it but I just don't see the interest to do so.

[Petebloodyonion]

How is it my fault that single player or any other type of game are getting killed?

I'm a consumer and as a consumer, I invest in what I want or what fill my needs.
Perhaps I don't want to invest 60$ in an experience that will take me a month to complete.
Perhaps I want a quick rush for 25 min instead of getting in a tutorial about how I should play the game.
Perhaps I prefer the quick adrenaline and bliss that provide me being in the top 10 on PUBG compared to being overpowered and in control in God of war.

In the end, if ppl are currently playing battle royale instead of playing single players game perhaps it's because they are getting something out of it that they don't get from a story-driven experience.

Remember I play a game to have fun and entertain myself.

[AK91]

Well the author isn't wrong but the situation isn't as dire as he/she makes it out to be and it's mainly because their are multiple quality SP games that come out each other but only one successful BR game per year.

[Tross]

Singleplayer first party titles from Sony and Nintendo beg to differ.

[Mr_Luke]

Nothing is killing single player games...

[TechnoGoat]

Hyperbole at its worst..

[dimasok]

BR and all of that MP crap should die a slow, painful death

[Kubark]

I actually prefer a quick death for BR.

[Kubark]

"While Apex Legends is (and has thus far remained) a very interesting, competent game, it still pales in comparison to dozens upon dozens of single-player games released every year in terms of unique, compelling reasons to pick up a controller."

I agree with this. I really don't see how Apex has anything on Titanfall 2, yet Apex is by far the more popular while TF2 struggled to maintain its player base on the pc (and it was a great single player experience too). While I don't think single player games are in as much trouble as the author says (we've had RE2 and DMC 5 release early this year), there is some truth in the complaint.

[NotanotherReboot]

PUBG

[BadElf]

wuht? No

[BrettAwesome]

No I'm not. I play single player games almost exclusively, and I didn't make those games either

[XxINFERNUSxX]

I don't play any battle royal shit. The only true skill FPS in my book are Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. These two games are legends.

[StormSailor]

Multiplayer games kill each other, one comes take the place of the old that becomes irrelevant

Nobody stopped buying Devil May Cry 5 because Apex launched, but I bet many people ignored Anthem or abandoned Fortnite because of Apex

[mandingo]

wuuuuttt

[Xaevi]

Single player games aren't being killed at all. Look at how many multiplayer only games have had a single player added when a sequel was made. Titanfall comes to mind, which happens to also be made by Respawn.

[2ndhandcorn]

Horde modes co op already did that for me years ago lol.

[Segata]

lol, I don't even play MP games. Only Singleplayer games mainly. Try again tho. This week I been playing a ton of DMC5 & Bayo 2.

[bellome]

The writer is a moron. Greedy publishers are the ones to blame.

[windblowsagain]

If you only play one game then you have blinkers on.

You should try many games, both SP and MP.

Experiences is the name of the game.

[guyjean]

Battle Royal games are the most boring trend I’ve witnessed in my life so far. Hope people get over it soon.

[T2X]

No, they're not killing sp games. Different demographics.

[HeyNowChillax]

Congrats, you managed to overlook and piss off Kratos, Aloy, Link, Geralt, Ellie, A. Morgan, Nathan D., "Hunter", the entire Disney crew and Spiderman in one sentence.

[CYALTR]

Great points. Battle Royal games are ruining gaming in the same way that social media is ruining society