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Video game that permits only one player

A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player 🎅 is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be 🎅 played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usually a game mode designed to be played by a single player, 🎅 though the game also contains multi-player modes.[1]

Most modern console games and arcade games are designed so that they can be 🎅 played by a single player; although many of these games have modes that allow two or more players to play 🎅 (not necessarily simultaneously), very few actually require more than one player for the game to be played. The Unreal Tournament 🎅 series is one example of such.[2]

History [ edit ]

The earliest video games, such as Tennis for Two (1958), Spacewar! (1962), 🎅 and Pong (1972), were symmetrical games designed to be played by two players. Single-player games gained popularity only after this, 🎅 with early titles such as Speed Race (1974)[3] and Space Invaders (1978).

The reason for this, according to Raph Koster, is 🎅 down to a combination of several factors: increasingly sophisticated computers and interfaces that enabled asymmetric gameplay, cooperative gameplay and story 🎅 delivery within a gaming framework, coupled with the fact that the majority of early games players had introverted personality types 🎅 (according to the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator).[4]

Although most modern games incorporate a single-player element either as the core or as 🎅 one of several game modes, single-player gaming is currently viewed by the video game industry as peripheral to the future 🎅 of gaming, with Electronic Arts vice president Frank Gibeau stating in 2012 that he had not approved one game to 🎅 be developed as a single-player experience.[5]

The question of the financial viability of single-player AAA games was raised following the closure 🎅 of Visceral Games by Electronic Arts (EA) in October 2024. Visceral had been a studio that established itself on a 🎅 strong narrative single-player focus with Dead Space, and had been working on a single-player, linear narrative Star Wars game at 🎅 the time of the closure; EA announced following this that they would be taking the game in a different direction, 🎅 specifically "a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency".[6] Many commentators felt that EA made the change 🎅 as they did not have confidence that a studio with an AAA-scale budget could produce a viable single-player game based 🎅 on the popular Star Wars franchise. Alongside this, as well as relatively poor sales of games in the year prior 🎅 that were principally AAA single-player games (Resident Evil 7, Prey, Dishonored 2, and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided) against financially successful 🎅 multiplayer games and those offer a games-as-a-service model (Overwatch, Destiny 2, and Star Wars Battlefront 2), were indicators to many 🎅 that the single-player model for AAA was waning.[7][8][9][10] Manveer Heir, who had left EA after finishing his gameplay design work 🎅 for Mass Effect Andromeda, acknowledged that the culture within EA was against the development of single-player games, and with Visceral's 🎅 closure, "that the linear single-player triple-A game at EA is dead for the time being".[11] Bethesda on December 7, 2024, 🎅 decided to collaborate with Lynda Carter to launch a Public Safety Announcement to save single-player gaming.[12]

A few years later in 🎅 2024, EA was reported to have revived interest in single-player games, following the successful launch of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen 🎅 Order in 2024. The company still planned on releasing live service games with multiplayer components, but began evaluating its IP 🎅 catalog for more single-player titles to revive, such as a remake of the Dead Space franchise.[13] Around the same time, 🎅 head of Xbox Game Studios Phil Spencer said that they still see a place for narrative-driven single-player games even though 🎅 the financial drivers of the market tended to be live service games. Spencer said that developing such games with AAA-scale 🎅 budgets can be risky, but with availability of services like cloud gaming and subscription services, they can gauge audience reaction 🎅 to these games early on and reduce the risk involved before releases.[14]

Game elements [ edit ]

As the narrative and conflict 🎅 in single-player gameplay is created by a computer rather than a human opponent, single-player games are able to deliver certain 🎅 gaming experiences that are typically absent—or de-emphasised—in multiplayer games.[15]

Story [ edit ]

Single-player games rely more heavily on compelling stories to 🎅 draw the player into the experience and to create a sense of investment. Humans are unpredictable, so human players - 🎅 allies or enemies - cannot be relied upon to carry a narrative in a particular direction, and so multiplayer games 🎅 tend not to focus heavily on a linear narrative. By contrast, many single-player games are built around a compelling story.[16]

Characters 🎅 [ edit ]

While a multi-player game relies upon human-human interaction for its conflict, and often for its sense of camaraderie, 🎅 a single-player game must build these things artificially. As such, single-player games require deeper characterisation of their non-player characters in 🎅 order to create connections between the player and the sympathetic characters and to develop deeper antipathy towards the game's antagonists. 🎅 This is typically true of role-playing games (RPGs), such as Dragon Quest and the Final Fantasy, which are primarily character-driven 🎅 and have a different setting.

Exceptions [ edit ]

These game elements are not firm, fixed rules; single-player puzzle games such as 🎅 Tetris or racing games focus squarely on gameplay.