Two gaming franchises are getting new installments this November, Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops and . Two recent interviews with these games' developers offer some good news and bad news for co-op gamers.
First, the good news. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood game director, Patrick Plourde recently told GamesRadar.com that there would "definitely be co-op in the brand" in the future. Before you start prematurely popping your wrist daggers, he had this to say as well:
I think eventually there will definitely be co-op in the brand. For Brotherhood we focused first and foremost on the validation for multiplayer. In campaign, co-op comes with a lot of challenge. At GDC the Saint's Row guys were like: 'if you want your game to have co-op - especially in a sandbox - you need to build it from the ground up.' They're right - it's a couple of years of turnaround to make sure co-op would work.
So you can expect co-op in Assassin's Creed, it just may be a few years away. I'm just glad they're working in that direction. Baby steps, Ubisoft Montreal.
Now for the bad news. Mega franchise Call of Duty developer Treyarch recently sat down with GameTrailers.com to talk about the latest iteration: COD: Black Ops. Treyarch has built co-op friendly campaigns for the COD series in the past, and this left fans hopeful for a co-op campaign in the Cold War era shooter. Alas, it was not to be. COD: Black Ops Community Manager Josh Olin explains why:
...the priority was telling a really, really great story and a great narrative....when you get to the end of the game you'll understand why it couldn't be told from multiple perspectives. It's meant to be experienced by one person at a time. It was more of a conscious decision...not a technical limitation.
Hey buddy. This is a conscious decision, not a technical limitation.
As disappointing as that is, there are some interesting rumblings about the co-op zombie mode. The devs keep mentioning the 'three pillars' of the game, which are the single player campaign, the multiplayer, and the zombie mode. If the co-op zombie mode is as robust as the single player campaign there might be some very good news for co-op gamers this November. They also mention a combat training mode, which is also co-op friendly.
BREAKING: Fresh from Josh Olin's Twitter account regarding the new Theatre Mode: (I'll translate from Twitterese to English) Theatre mode is a multiplayer feature only. It will not work for the campaign or zombie mode.
Call of Duty: Black Ops is available November 9th.
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood comes out November 16th.
Source: Gametrailers.com