麻豆约拍

By Aaron Bayne // 麻豆约拍 The Social contributor // 15 July 2021

After nearly fifteen years of producing single player games, the Assassin’s Creed franchise is going online. While the series has dabbled in multiplayer in the past, Assassin’s Creed Infinity – its current working title – is set to takes things to a whole new level with the franchises’ first live service experience.

To many, “live service experience” may induce an unknowing shrug of the shoulders, but it is one of the biggest gaming trends working its way through the industry right now. Mega-hits such as Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto Online have obtained momentous successes by delivering constantly evolving online experiences that ensure players keep playing.

The live service format made its home in the free-to-play market, with games such as Apex Legends making their money through purchasable in-game items (micro-transactions) and limited-time battle passes.

These primarily provided new skins for characters, weapons, or items, that players could then show off to their friends in-game. Fortnite has drawn in massive audiences by working its way through various purchasable pop-culture icons such as Batman, John Wick, and Iron Man to name a few.

It is an approach that doesn’t strong-arm players into spending money, allowing players to pick and choose when and how much they spend, and over the last half-decade or so has become the industry norm.

Most big publishers have at least tried their hand at the format, but news of Assassin’s Creed Infinity has some worried, as it shows the overwhelming financial pull of the live service model over traditional single player experiences.

Since its launch in 2007, the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been definitively single player, and decidedly popular at that. The latest entry in the series, Valhalla, broke opening week records for the franchise, but developer Ubisoft are keen to “guide, grow, evolve and define the overall future” of the franchise with Infinity.

But that “future” isn’t just in relation to the Assassin’s Creed series as it also embodies the general direction the industry is moving towards. If upcoming games aren’t entirely stripping campaign segments from their game – such as Battlefield 2042 – they are looking for more ways to extend the life of their property.

Even some of the best single player games this year have tried to implement ways to keep players engaged, with Returnal infusing daily challenges and slight online components into its looping structure, and Hitman III releasing new targets and skins each month.

While the move may induce a collective eye-roll as seemingly every other release requires that you devote every waking moment to them, the new financial structure has reportedly increased the value of the overall industry, making it too large to ignore.

It has led to traditionally single player studios trying their hand at the model, with Bioware’s Anthem showing that simply throwing content at players doesn’t always work. But by finding the balance of quality content, and continual support, games can immeasurably extend their lifespan.

Finding this balance, you need not look any further than Grand Theft Auto Online, which remains popular and successful eight years on from its initial release and shows no signs of stopping. Many have even speculated that developer Rockstar could have released the sequel fans have been clamoring for, but the continued success negates the need. Why pull sales away from the older game when it is still selling?

This unbridled success is something nearly every studio and franchise is hoping to emulate, resulting in a mass migration to an online structure. Being able to build upon an experience rather than start from scratch each time is cheaper and less time consuming, and if it continues to be a success for other games, why wouldn’t others like Assassin’s Creed want to join in?

Unfortunately, moves like Ubisoft’s will only continue to rear their head, with upcoming games such as Halo Infinite Multiplayer, Forza Horizon 5, Gotham Knights and Battlefield 2042 all intent in being around for a long, long time. Even Arkane Studios, famous for their work on single player games such as Dishonored and Prey, unveiled their online co-op shooter Redfall – the studio’s first foray into multiplayer.

While there will always be space for story-driven experiences, the live service format is steadily enticing more titles in, and personally, I don’t think it is going anywhere. While the model does don a quantity over quality mantra more often than not, with free-to-play games on the rise from some of the biggest franchises, and players being able to play with friends without ever spending a penny, it is a more inclusive and consumer friendly model than previous online incarnations.

However, from a financial standpoint there is the fear that studios will begin to lose interest in large single player games that can only really be sold once. And this already seems to be the case with Ubisoft, who are taking their most successful franchise in the hope to make it even bigger.

Whether Assassin’s Creed Infinity marks yet another franchise lost to the live service machine is yet to be seen, but just like its counterparts, it’s hoping you will be playing for infinity.