Irrational Games, developer behind the highly anticipated first person shooter BioShock, seems to have made a seemingly irrational decision, based on information posted on The Cult of Rapture, BioShock‘s community site.
Website manager Elizabeth Tobey explained that BioShock would not support multiplayer, citing Irrational Games’ reasoning behind the move. "There will be no multiplayer… but for a very specific reason. BioShock features a compelling storyline that revolves around the experiences of one man as he enters the decaying world of Rapture. Having a multiplayer component would have compromised the story we were trying to tell so we made the decision to keep this game as a single-player experience."
Virtually every shooter nowadays incorporates some sort of multiplayer feature, and it is typically a major component. The sacrifice of the multiplayer mode for the sake of continuity in the storyline is a brave gesture in trying to maintain the integrity and quality of the BioShock storyline.
It’s currently unclear whether or not the decision to develop a non-multiplayer shooter will affect sales numbers. The game will, no doubt, be relying heavily–and indeed, entirely–on the merits of being a solid single player title. We won’t know for a fact until June, when BioShock is released on the PC and Xbox 360.
