Eidos Montreal developers Mary DeMarle and Partick Fortier have stated that Guardians of the Galaxy will be single player only in order to ensure a strong narrative. While the studio initially considered adding co-op and multiplayer, they eventually decided to limit players to the “leader” character Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord), and instead allow for greater communication with other Guardians.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is an upcoming single player action-adventure game developed by Square Enix’s studio Eidos Montreal, announced recently at the company’s E3 2021 presentation. The game will follow the wacky antics of the Guardians and feature well-known characters and villains from the Marvel universe.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Senior Narrative Director Mary DeMarle revealed that Marvel had given them free rein to build their own version of the Guardians. Rather than focus on the movie or the comic book versions of the heroes, DeMarle says that Marvel urged the studio to “make this your own, as long as you stay true to the essence of who these characters are”.
While there were previously rumors about Eidos having scrapped a multiplayer mode for Guardians of the Galaxy, Fortier clarifies that the decision came from looking into the source material. He adds,
It became pretty clear that we were going to hit the core of the Guardians through the narrative. And if you’re going to do narrative, then it’s not necessarily super-conducive to [live service or multiplayer games].
The studio’s experience with other single-player games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider also helped shape the decision to stick to single-player. DeMarle states that, by going single-player, the studio was “able to focus on building a strong story”.
In this case, players would be put into the shoes of Star-Lord, and given a variety of social mechanics to motivate and manipulate the other Guardians to a certain goal. “Knowing that you’re working with a team of characters who are unique individuals and very unpredictable,” DeMarle says, “allows us to start playing with that to build a stronger narrative.”
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy will release on October 26, 2021, for the PS4 and PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch.
[Source: Gamesindustry.biz]
