If you have watched the new Nintendo direct today than you have seen the new details on Pokemon sword and shield. The new details include a look at new Pokemon, such as the legionaries. But this article is not going to be a recap, or a reaction to this new information. This article will be about an issue plaguing single player games recently. The issue is developers shoe horning in multiplayer features in a single player game.
One of the newest features shown in Sword and Shield is the addition of a multiplayer raid battle, similar to the Pokemon Go raid battles. Now, Pokemon has always had multiplayer features, the global trade network and online battles. But this new feature is different. These raid battles are said to be incredibly difficult, in other words you can’t beat them without people. We don’t even know if we can play them single player. They also said that some Pokemon you can only catch in these raid battles. What bothers me is that now, these Pokemon, are locked to players who don’t have access to the paid online for the Switch. These games are supposed to be a single player experience, but now it seems they are gearing towards a multiplayer experience.
This is more prevalent now than ever in today’s games. Another example I could use is the WatchDogs series. In these games a player could just randomly drop into your game and ruin what you’re doing, completely unnecessary for a single player focused game. I could also bring up Fallout 76, but that’s a completely different issue that I’ll probably talk about in another article.
The point I’m trying to make is keep single player games offline. Most of us don’t want to be bothered with online components when we are trying to play on our own. Its fine to have a separate component like multiplayer, but don’t merge it with the single player. With the direction that games are taking, I only hope that developers listen to the community on this one issue.
Thank you, and sorry, for reading my rant. This issue really bugs me and i just needed to rant a little to deal with my frustration. What are you opinions on shoehorned multiplayer in single player focused games?
Thoughts On Video Games & More 
It might just be another reason to try and coax people into paying for the online service. Nintendo has the weakest argument in favour of making their online service a premium service. They have very few games that give consumer a reason to want to pay $20 for the privilege of using something that was (and should) be free.
The other thing I was thinking is Game Freak saw how successful the raids were with Pokemon GO as a social interaction feature. They might be trying to capture that same feel within the new Pokemon games. Pokemon has always been a social game where you capture critters and trade them with other people, so huge PVE battles fold nicely into the existing online features.
That said, I agree with the sentiment of annoyance at including it.
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Now that you mention it, there is not a lot of multiplayer heavy switch games. This might be an attempt at bringing more people to the service. I totally agree with you
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I’m a huuuuge Pokemon fan, and I’m really looking forward to these games, but I really hope this online raid stuff ends up having a minimal impact on the game. I have no interest in it at all. If they end up locking exclusive Pokemon (or the Pokemon you get from doing this are somehow objectively better/stronger?) I’ll be super disappointed.
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I’m am also a huge pokemon fan, and these games may finally sway me into buying a switch. I did hear, however, that some pokemon are locked to these raid battles, which really disappoints me
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That’s really unfortunate… I guess we’ll have to see when they release 😦
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