Multiplayer has been a long-requested feature for Bethesda Softworks‘ Elder Scrolls series. With its latest outing, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, multiplayer has still yet to be realized. According to Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines, not including the component spares it from being a “lesser game”.
“I’ve always said: ‘You tell us whether or not your game needs it. I’m not going to tell you it has to be in there, or it has to be on the back of the box,” Hines told the latest issue of Edge. “If that’s the reason you’re doing it then don’t waste your time and don’t waste ours.”
Even with such firm positioning on multiplayer in Elder Scrolls, Hines said that it’s ‘not unreasonable’ for people to want to experience the RPG with their buddies.
“It’s not wrong or unreasonable for people to want to experience a game with their friends, or want to do things with folks online. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. What we’ve tried to do is help people understand that in game development, it’s all about trade-offs. One of our mantras here is that you can do anything – you just can’t do everything.
“So certainly we could do multiplayer. Unquestionably. It’s not a thing we’re technically incapable of figuring out. But when we draw up the list of things we’d like to have cut or change in order to support that feature, what we end up with is unpalatable. It’d make a lesser version of the game. And there is no doubt on the dev side that that is the case.”
Today’s lesson: The Elder Scrolls and multiplayer do not connect.
Thanks, CVG.