I highly doubt any of the people reading this have the power to change anything in the games industry, but just in case: my thesis here is that the world is craving online co-op games, and it's crazy that we don't have more of them. Or, at least, more of them that don't involve shooting my friends in the face, or hanging out with strangers.
Think about all the success stories of the past year. Among Us: a competitive online co-op game about betrayal, sabotage, and lying to your friends. Valheim: an online multiplayer game about building cool Viking houses with your Viking buddies, and fighting dragons together. Animal Crossing: New Horizons: a game about building extremely cute villages, and inviting friends to hang out in them.
What do they all have in common? The ability to hang out with friends, in a time when hanging out with friends is sort of illegal. It doesn't take a genius science-tist to figure out that this enforced social distancing is making us all crave conversation like never before, and I don't even have to do any research to tell you that shares of Zoom, Discord, and Skype are probably at an all-time high thanks to them being the main methods of communication during a pandemic.
But I do know this: the pandemic isn't the only reason I want to play games with my friends online, but I'm glad we're all on the same page now.
You see, I used to live in jolly old England, and many of my friends were made when I lived in London. That was about five years ago, and since then, I've moved to Canada, and a lot of them have moved, too — to Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, and, most exotic of all, Manchester. Twenty years ago, our best chance of staying in touch would have been MSN Messenger, or maybe pigeons. Twenty years ago is a long time, and simultaneously not long at all.
These days, I can talk to my buds on Instagram about their latest cooking adventures, make fun of them on Twitter when they post an old photo of themselves in a terrible hat, and chat to them on Discord about a stupid video I thought they'd enjoy. I play Dungeons and Dragons with friends in London every Saturday; I occasionally hang out in a coworking call with chums in Texas and Michigan; I work with a bunch of lads who largely live in and around my original hometown of Loughborough. I have been lucky enough to make friends all over the world, but now I am unlucky enough to be separated from most of them by oceans, mountains, and space. Such is the way of life, these days.
Fortunately, Nintendo seems to be on the ball for once when it comes to recognising the people's desire to play online. Granted, they're not terrible at it — they made Splatoon, after all — but the janky Nintendo Switch Online app was a strange attempt to keep online activity in-house, when most people would rather turn to Discord or similar software that was built for the sole purpose of online communication.
Recently, the Japanese powerhouse released an update for Super Mario Party that adds online play to the game — an incredible addition that seems as generous as it is surprising. Or, perhaps more cynically, they realised that a couch co-op game won't sell in a pandemic, where couches are getting about as much use as shoes, offices, and mouth-operated doors.
Either way, though, I'll get to play yet another game about betrayal and sabotage with my friends, now that we've exhausted Valheim (although we have moved onto Astroneer, which is also excellent). I'm hoping that game developers will do the game developer thing of seeing the success of a game, and immediately trying to replicate it; if we're lucky, we'll start seeing some fantastic new online co-op games on the market in two to five years.
And, yes, I'd prefer those games to not have guns. There are a wealth of online multiplayer shootgames on the market, and for whatever reason, I've never really been able to get into them. Maybe it's the fact that a lot of them are uninteresting settings for me — I don't really fancy being in a warzone, but I'm also not particularly won over by the more sci-fi settings of Destiny and Overwatch, either — but it's more likely the fact that I want to play online with friends, not strangers.
In Valheim, Astroneer, Among Us, and now Super Mario Party, the gates are closed around our little community. The monsters are monsters, and the only other enemies are your friends. There's no superpowered 15-year-old who's been playing Fortnite his entire life and could beat me with his eyes closed. There's no threat that someone with Level Twenty Billion armour will fart in my direction, killing my Level Six character instantly. I tried to get on board with Destiny during the early pandemic days, but I felt like a kid on their first day of school, finding out that everyone else knows advanced calculus and I'm still struggling with the alphabet.
(Yes, I know, Among Us is technically about killing your friends — but we take it in turns, you know? It's different.)
Take Minecraft, for example. It's been over ten years since Minecraft came out, and because it's now a multi-million dollar industry all on its own, people keep trying to reinvent that cube-shaped wheel. And I don't mind! But what makes Minecraft great is the feeling that the world is yours to create, explore, and shape, and that feeling is made even better with friends. If I logged into my world and saw some rando burning all my crops and teabagging my pet cats, you can bet I'd stop playing.
The games that I've named so far range pretty significantly in terms of what you do, and whether you do it with or against someone, but, generally, all of these games have something in common: they all feel like playing a board game with a bunch of friends. They all have that "Saturday night hangout" feeling, where the stakes are low for a lot of the game, and then, suddenly, the stakes are sky-high — but you all come together to overcome those stakes again and again until the game ends.
I'd love to have more experiences like this. I love the emergent storytelling of getting repeatedly murdered by wolves in Valheim, pulling off an inexpert lie in Among Us, and showing off my walk-through aquarium in Minecraft before getting poisoned to death by my own pufferfish. I love messing around with my friends — who are all people I have chosen to keep around, because I like them — and not having to worry about some doinkus ruining the fun.
Comments 35
Hanging out with friends is "sort of illegal"? Must suck to live in that version of reality
"I miss my friends but I don't want to kill them" is an excellent out of context sentence.
Three words: It Takes Two
I wish The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had local/online co-op. It would have been a lot of fun for friends to be able to drop in and out and cause mayhem in Hyrule. It wouldn't necessarily need to be any particular player's Hyrule either, but more of a hub where one's actions are largely inconsequential, and players get to keep any booty seized.
When hanging out we maintain our distance and wear the mask if we're in public.
Easy peasy, no harm done.
All that and my games is all I need to not go insane.
I am just as active with my friends as before this whole pandemic started.
...well I don't have any friends. 😢
@sanderev
This article made me feel sad for the same reason. 😞
Just like @CactusMan I too like this article, a well appreciated expression of familiar game sentiments. Cooperative experiences are often the very best and most memorable times that we can enjoy in this hobby. And Nintendo is surely one of the most quixotic developers when it comes to maligning their own most popular genres / playstyles it seems, haha.
I have some hopes that the new Miitopia will strike the right chord and bring people together in a zany way.
Netplay on Dolphin emulator has been a God-send during the pandemic.
@KateGray
I'm with you totally. I miss multiplayer games that are worth it, and I am absolutely sick of the vast majority of options for multiplayer being games with guns. What is it with this country that a gun has to be everywhere? And furthermore why do they always have to be fighting games against each other. I mean, Smash is incredible, but there is a severe disparity between players if you are good and your friend is not (or vice versa). What happened to games like Battletoads where the point was to fight alongside each other?
Balloon fighter, Tetris 2, DKC, Bomberman, Contra, TMNT 2 & 3 & 4, Double Dragon, all great games for multiplayer. Some against and some cooperative. I'd like more competitive puzzle/strategy games for co-op play. More games where the point isn't always violence. I don't have any friends to play with, but if I did, it would be great to have more options for co-op.
You always write great pieces with good ideas. Thanks.
@sanderev
me neither
@Aurumonado Agreed. Had some great fun playing Double Dash and Melee with my older brother who’s moved out.
I play D&D with friends pretty frequently mostly because not many of them have the same console. It’s easiest to play games on a phone or D&D because everyone has a smartphone nowadays and an imagination in some capacity. I would love to play switch games with friends but not many of them have switches.
I remember when I had friends...
The rocks and trees are my friends.
I've never had any online friends to game with, all of my IRL friends are into weird stuff like reading books and watching sports, so my multiplayer gaming is with my wife and kids.
One thing that I may not understand either about this article or about online multiplayer gaming is the lack of what to me woudl be online multiplayer games. I know Free Realms crashed and burned a few years back, but I think WoW is still a thing, perhaps only for people still willing to pay $15 per month for it, same with Final Fantasy 14, which I keep forgetting is a thing but it still seems like there are updates still coming out with it. Then there's that Second Life game, think that was a real thing, and the Sims.
Oh, my 1 experience with what I'd consider to be multiplayer online gaming was Home on PS3, but despite spending many hours playing every new area, I never played with others.
So I guess I find it odd Free Realms or Home or something similar didn't make a comeback during the pandemic, and also the seemingly complete lack of above mentioned online multiplayer games in this otherwise entertaining piece. I'm obviously missing something somewhere, just not sure what? 🤷♂️
Guess that's why I like JRPG so much. I get to game with a group of other entertaining characters and beat the bad guys through the power of friendship. 😉
@KougerKing unfortunately that's the reality of living in Canada. But I agree. Sounds like a distopian nightmare.
@KateGray Thanks for the article, I know what you mean, online multiplayer games have literally got me through this pandemic, my weird, dysfunctional online family (who I probably speak to more often than my actual family) of about 4 friends have had some great times playing sea of thieves, deep rock galactic, fallout 76, and even things like world of warships, but the game is almost a side element to the online socialising that these games deliver.
Swap Note was great for talking to friends.
Last weekend I was trying out the new online Super Mario Party with friends all over the world. We were having a great time until a connection error on the second to last turn. Nintendo really needs better online.
Me and my friend group from school played a fair bit together at the start of lockdown through among us, since we had people who had never really played anything and people who played lots of stuff. But that slowly stopped as people slowly dropped off cus they lost interest or were busy with other things, and those who played a ton of pc stuff were very competitive and just sorta stubborn too, which probably drove some people away. Then the remaining four of us started a Minecraft world; me and one friend being basically completely new to the game and the other two having played since it came out, basically. This went on for a few months, but literally every time we played one of the more experienced guys had some issue with what me or the other inexperienced person were doing, be it what we build, how we build, how we don't know crafting recipes, don't know how certain elements interact. Slowly this just turned into berating, especially towards me, since I got more of a handle on the mechanics and such and built bridges and towers that were apparently "ugly" or "had no purpose". This basically boiled up over time, and I eventually just stopped playing cus I was drove out essentially because I was being creative and unique in the game... That's about creativity and freedom.
It just sucks to have some good friends who are into gaming, but not necessarily what you're into. I am the only one of us who plays Nintendo, most play primarily pc and the rest hardly play at all or own no pc or console. But whenever we did play, it was stuff that the experienced players were used to or whatever was easiest to get between us all, since nobody has consoles aside from a couple with a switch, and they aren't into the stuff I am. So it's basically been a weird limbo where I play with a discord community who I am sorta friends with, but have no real connection with yet. It's just a bit upsetting to be as into games as I am, but cus I was basically born a generation too late (DS and Wii kid here, woo) and love Nintendo stuff nobody I am friends with has any experience such things, which is a big dampener during the good old covid situation. Turns out online gaming with friends is only possible if you all have the same system or whatever, which nobody does.
I normally don't play games online, I really don't like competitive games, but I love playing Monster Hunter online because it's co-operative
@Matl
This is kind of what I am going through, so I totally understand. At the beginning of the pandemic I had a bunch of friends who I played Animal Crossing, Overcooked, Mariokart, etc. with. But then as time slowly passed, they kind of stopped. It is a bit depressing to think of games as "fads," but I guess that's what happens if you're not really into games. The vast majority of my friends who play games play more hardcore stuff as I've slowly reverted into a "casual" gamer since I can't really invest the time into it like I do on my actual work.
Oh how I yearn to live in the tropics of Manchester
@Shard1 yeah, it tends to be those who are basically pc only gamers that control what gets played among a group, unless that group is like a dedicated Nintendo or PlayStation group for example. Its just what's easiest to get everyone a copy of mostly, and as such console specific stuff is out of the question. What also doesn't help is that I'm in my last year of uni right now too, and am not enjoying a bit of it and am EXTREMELY behind cus of procrastinating and general lack of care. So my gaming is basically playing smash with a bunch of semi-randos in the discord, who range from anger issue 15 year olds to 30 year olds who stream and have a job and a life, so it's not really easy to fit in with them either, at least not yet. We get on, but they're sorta the secondary/tertiary friend circle. Just at a weird place in life right now, just dunno what I want out of anything and just gotta plough through the last couple months of uni with a ton left to do.
What even is this, There are tons of games that allow you to hang out with friends or (at the very least) shoot other people in the face with them. I can’t believe i clicked on this drivel, I’m embarrassed for all of us and especially myself.
Just think how wonderful miiverse would have been during all this. I never felt more connected to the heart of the gaming world than when starting up the Wii U and seeing all the random posts. I also really miss being able to flip the miiverse while playing a game and seeing what everyone else was experiencing at that moment. Think of how fun it would be to see people sharing reactions to the classics on the switch online apps or sending messages in bottles or balloons through asynchronous Animal Crossing.
I mean I started playing Sea of thieves with my friend because of this.
Job, kids, house... I’m afraid I’ve failed to cultivate friendships over the years and thus have been playing mostly solo since long before the pandemic hit.
It doesn’t help that I’m almost entirely a Switch gamer at this point, with its nonexistent networking/social apps. I can’t even ping my daughters or brother or friend-code peeps if they’re online. I sincerely hope Nintendo includes some kind of text/voice-chat features in the next console, because it’s a really annoying omission right now.
Despite my lack of online play, though, I can relate to Kate’s essay well enough. I think the older you get, playing with randos has less and less appeal, and you may even find yourself tiring of twitchy, violent, competitive shooters. Having more chill, diverse online multiplayers out there certainly couldn’t hurt.
Either way, I appreciate the topic and Kate’s ever-humorous delivery! Pity her wit is wasted on some people here 🙄
@Kirbyfan Agreed. Also I love your pfp
@kducky11 thanks I pulled it off google years ago. Wish I knew the artist but I think it was on deviantart.
"yo typing sux"
-Alex
@Kirbyfan Oh I recognize that pfp, isn't it from Cafe Raichu?
@Manjushri
Yeah, I signed up just because I couldn't believe how ridiculous that line of thinking was. I was warned about this site, but I decided to check it out anyway due to GoNintendo being down. But yeah, I don't think I'll be checking back after reading this garbage.
The pandemic is real, and I can't see my friends because they live in other countries. Conspiracy theories about how COVID "isn't real" are not welcome here 🙄
@ochiltree It does seem like the article can't make up its mind as to whether it's asking for more online multiplayer games with friends only lobbies, or whether it wants more online multiplayer games where the primary form of interaction isn't one of violence.
If it's the former, then i have to ask, is there really a lack of online multiplayer games with friend lobbies? ... and if it's the latter, then whilst i'm broadly in favour of there being more non-violent online games to play with friends, don't muddy your argument by including Valheim and Among Us as examples.
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