As we close out 2012 (good job on predicting the end there, Mayans!) I've had my attention drawn to this article from IGN. Crystal Dynamics Global Brand Director Karl Stewart has announced via his Twitter that the new Tomb Raider game to come out in 2013 will include online multiplayer. And I've made my comments on the trailer back in June, so there's no real point in rehashing what I thought of it. Like I said back then, I've never played a Tomb Raider game before, but with this being a reboot, this seemed like potentially a good place to jump onboard and see if Miss Lara Croft
And then this happened...
Now, I've got nothing against multiplayer - provided that all three people are in the same room with me and are therefore bound to have at least the semblance of civility and basic knowledge of the English language. But when a franchise that has not had - or, apparently, needed - multiplayer for nine entries of its series and then suddenly makes the jump, it just has one question spring to my mind.
Why?
Granted, most of Tomb Raider's appeal is based upon the heroine and her two best friends, but the franchise has managed to last this long without any issue coming up that it needed to be anything more than single player. And anyone who says that games have to be multiplayer now to compete in the market nowadays, I have one word for you.
Skyrim.
Not convinced? I'll follow that up with three more words.
Dragon Age: Origins.
When multiplayer gets tacked on to a game as - in my experience - it always seems to be if at all, it had nothing at all to do with the game itself, which is a big reason why I don't review the multiplayer aspect of games I review (if at all). And because of multiplayer being tacked on, the main game itself almost always suffers. For an example, I'll give the Halo franchise.
The first game had a multiplayer aspect, but it was always among the local network on Xbox (As I remember, the PC version was full internet, though I could be wrong as I never played the PC version). Halo had a great story, in my humble opinion, and the development team was allowed to focus strictly on it and made something that was pretty awesome.
Then we come to Halo 2, where multiplayer was touted as a big deal and the game itself suffered immensely for it. At least, that's the approach I'm taking for the pointless cliffhanger and overall a very, very short campaign. Bungie's development team was spread too far and focused too far on an aspect that should not have been a high priority.
Flashforward to Halo 3 and you get a storyline that you get dropped into and you only really understand if you have bought Bungie and Microsoft's line of spin-off books and memorabilia (Order now, kids, or the Covenant wins!) that take place between Halo 2 and 3. This is another problem entirely that I have with Halo, but I'm getting off topic. While Halo 3 gave an alright conclusion to the series (though not enough for Microsoft, it would seem), the storyline was again rather shortened and the pacing suffered, as did the campaign as a whole.
But the multiplayer side got some new map packs and some customization options through DLC and if you buy into Mountain Dew and Doritos, you get extra codes for more points and...really? All of this work - development and marketing and all - got put into something that really shouldn't have been the main focus of the game in the first place. Really?
This is kind of what I fear might happen with this new Tomb Raider. What doesn't help is that we've already been told that the game will take roughly twelve to fifteen hours, which is only a few hours more than it took me to navigate my way through Halo 2. And this being before the development team revealed multiplayer. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for the time being and hope that they don't completely ruin any potential storyline by putting too much focus on the multiplayer aspects.
And again, I have no problems with multiplayer games. But, that's just the thing, they're multiplayer games. Very rarely is there any way to have single and multiplayer exist in a way that doesn't damage the other in at least some way, to the point where one of the other becomes absolutely unnecessary. It's about finding balance, something that even the best of development teams can't seem to do. The new Tomb Raider looks like it's going for a grittier, more realistic portrayal of the franchise, and I'm honestly hoping that it will allow us to look past the boobs that have been the object of many a man's ogling since the late nineties and see an interesting action-adventure survival game that, hopefully, won't be bogged down by pointless multiplayer.
Then again, maybe the spirit of Jimmy Hoffa will appear to me and reveal to me the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything.
...what? It's just as likely.
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