Cliff Bleszinski says Japanese games need multiplayer

Cliff Bleszinski isn’t too keen on keeping his opinions to himself, and now Epic’s design director has some advice for Japanese developers – take a page from Namco Bandai’s book. Specifically he is talking about Dark Souls, and the game’s consideration of Multiplayer gaming.

“My advice to Japan is that in a disc-based market right now, you cannot [ignore multiplayer],” Bleszinski said, adding, “I’m not saying tack multiplayer onto every game.”

Bleszinski believes Dark Souls was highly innovative in its approach to multiplayer, both for Japan and globally, and that the game “is going to continue to inspire a lot of Western developers to figure ways that you can have connected elements in campaign games, and have more of a blended experience.”

Cliff specifically mentions Grasshopper Manufacture’s Shadows of the Damned, lamenting the lack of multiplayer in an otherwise great game.

“The dialogue had me laughing out loud, just even the key-door systems in there; it was a beautifully crazy game with really fun gameplay, but no multiplayer co-op experience in there. I’m not saying tack on versus; there’s a billion different ways you can do some sort of ‘players interacting with other players’.”

“And if you’re going to make a third-person shooter… the fact that Vanquish didn’t have a multiplayer suite was a crime.

“That IP, it was pretty good as far as being Western, but the gameplay was great, the vibe… and I’ve often said on record that if Gears is the kind of Wild, Wild West coal train chugging along, that Vanquish is the Japanese bullet train, with style and everything. And there is absolutely no reason I shouldn’t have been zipping around, doing the mega slides, diving up in the air in an arena with other players.”