December 2017, Bethesda made a video with guest star, an iconic spokeswoman: Lynda Carter. The internationally renowned publisher is the protector of single-player games at a time when multiplayer is invading our screens and dripping like an oil spill that cannot be stopped. Is solo really disappearing and why? After a brief consultation on the IUCSP (Union International for Conservation of Single-Player) list, a reflection is necessary. It is therefore to the memory of the solo that we dedicate this obituary I have something to neigh: to death the solo, with always as much horse bad faith and human dishonesty.
Solo: when it's long, it's stupid
Mylène Farmer sang it so well "Du temps, du temps, Du temps Il te faut du temps, Du temps, du temps, non non non" and in the twenty-first century, who really has it? Already not Patrick, father of two tearful loaves, nor Joanna young housewife emeritus shared between the Angels of reality TV and his virtual shopping, nor Kevin the little button-pimple who has so many but so many courses to revise! Our hard work ends their day on the kneecaps, exhausted by the of life and that of people too. So when they rummage through their library of real or virtual games, they are torn by the choice: "Not this one, I don't know where I am anymore", "Hum this one either, it's still in blister, I was so hyped by the ads that I took it day one, but I won't have time to do it for two months", "You, I like your cover but not at all your kind of game", "those, I don't even know what it is… There was a bundle at 5 euros, it was cool to inflate my library of games "… Then finally, comes the long-awaited revelation, it is worthy of the sun that shows up between 5 storms and 7/7 of rain. A mouth-watering jacket, a shimmering patty: it's the latest RPG in fashion. It is 9pm, the clock is on, it will not exceed 0:30. Patrick has a long day tomorrow and like all heroes, he gets up early! Cinematics, first excitements and first decisions: what mouth will I be able to make to my character? Patrick is a handle, as soon as he tries to change the parameters, his avatar looks like Johnny Hallyday botoxé with a Donald Trump cut and a biologically inconceivable body. I join in his distress, they are aliens who design the character creator, it is not possible otherwise. 11pm, Patrick finally has a hero who could claim Mister cassoulet in the absence of Mister Universe. It's a good start. The excitement rises, the anxiety of the chrono too. Epic adventures are coming and then suddenly… Patrick's hero meets an NPC, whom we'll call Unskilled Cul-Terreux, and he needs you. Your mission if you accept it, is to recover 6 hens who have made the trunk. It is well known, the hens are world escape champions, David Copperfield just has to behave. After this frustrating quest, the desire to make a KFC becomes real. But alas for our bugger Patrick, it's time to go and up!
New day: metro, work, sleep. Finally the motto for Patrick would be rather: diapers, saturated periphery, boring job. In addition, it is an exceptional evening, Patrick goes out. He jumps into his mobile Cactus to join his friend Steve… whom we will call Stevette to avoid a horde of rabid feminists. Stevette has dream hair, because she is worth it, she is buxom and above all, she is an expert in multiplayer games. MOBAs, MMOFPS, MEUPORGs and all extended acronyms have no secrets for her. On her player ID plate, one could write "multi is her life". Opposite, Patrick, he is an old man, he likes solo games, good old cooperation with the so-called rectangular Bender view and from time to time he lets himself go to play online with friends.
– So, you started your game?
– Ben, I launched, I created my character and then… I recovered chickens
– And that's it?
– Don't believe it takes time to look like something!
– That's why I abandon solo games, with my 1200h on LoL, my 500h on Overwatch and my 300h on PUBG, I really don't have time to follow a 100h story. Damn what, we're tired of these games that think we're all unemployed without friends.
Stevette raises an essential point, to play 100 hours alone is to be a nolife, to play 300 hours with two or three, it is to be a cyberconnected ultra fashion trend. Thanks to this counter conversation, you saved a session at the shrink! Fortunately The Order thinks of you, 7 hours of mustaches, including 5 of cinematics: two evenings and it's complete. Nowadays, who would pay a game 70 euros day one to get stuck 100 hours of solo play? Fools, breakthroughs of the bulb and low Munster race of connection, undoubtedly.
At one we are bored, at two we are ecstatic
In the age of everything connected, living without internet and without console subscription is like running naked in a primary school. Unthinkable! We easily boast of a speed of 1GB, to download 50GB in 1 hour but rarely not to have the PS+, Xbox Live or simply an internet box. Consolers and PCists, you are united by the sacred bonds of online. Love is beautiful, especially cow love. Let's go back to Patrick and Stevette. In a burst of extreme kindness, Stevette offers a game session to his friend. Great, that's a good idea. What if we made GTA V? Ah bah nan, impossible to play in the same room like a San Andreas, maybe a little Halo 5 then? Bad pickaxe, no more local co-op… And why not a little Red Dead Redemption? Stevette wants to show Patrick what multi called "Battle Royal" is. To hell with pizza night, beers and laughter in the living room. Patrick goes back again, an hour's drive under the snow, he hastily turns on his PC and eats in two a box of peas particularly filthy. Headphones on his ears, microphone in front of the tarin to avoid unwanted breathing noises, Patrick joins Stevette on a private channel "You'll see, it's super mega cool to play with others, at least, we never get bored".
It is on this promise of a wild evening that our forty-year-old with a hectic life discovers the battle royal. The first parts are a hymn to discovery, the senses are boiling, the pleasure at its peak. The games follow one another and the dead parade, the loading times too. After an hour of play, Patrick yawns at the crows, it's all well and good, but… In the end, we always do the same thing, he thinks. Stevette smells boredom like a stup dog around a dealer.To motivate Patrick and prove to him that it is a view of the mind, dream hair makes them switch on the FPS of his heart. "It's going to pulse, I'm bringing in Joe and Averell, we're going to do a team deathmatch." Patrick is only half convinced, he has the feeling of being the Rantanplan of history but good pear, he lets himself work. After all, his mom always told him to test before criticizing. The game begins, the forty-year-old noob becomes the easy target. Our white rabbit is betrayed by his immaculate moumoute, we do not fool a band of wolves on the lookout. Two minutes later, Patrick is offside, Joe bellows into the microphone, Averell… Averell what and Stevette tries not to lose face. It's so much fun to wait for a 15-minute game to end and as a bonus to get yelled at like rotten fish. 1h30 later, after 10 deaths, x swear words and a lot of frustration, Patrick thinks it would be better to hunt chickens, at least they would not have the idea of camping with a sniper. Stevette, like the Joan of Arc of the multi, goes back to the charge and preaches for her parish:
"Frankly, it's so much fun for many … It seems unimaginable to me in 2018 that games can be solo without offering multiplayer. I play with others, not to be withdrawn." Stevette is right, solo activities are for nazes. Eagerly the reading for four, the nap in group, the baths in bus … Because it is well known, all the leisure and pleasures of life must be done with others. Don't we say quality takes precedence over quantity? It is probably not the football fans who will disapprove.
AI, the cancer of challenge
Patrick knows that the evening is coming to an end, with it, the chimeras of an extraordinary gaming experience fly away and crash against the screen. He has nothing against a multi session from time to time, it's like alcohol, it's good for your health as long as you don't abuse it. But tonight is the beginning of an ethyl coma! Patrick thanks everyone, it's time to make a remake of 20000 leagues under the duvet.In the meanders of sleep, nightmares are stirred with big blows of giant snipous chickens. Patrick will sleep badly that night and as all studies show, it is the video games that are at fault. Moreover, they are also responsible for unemployment, crime and poverty. The harmful power of pixels is not underestimated.
After a new day of work that we could cleverly name "We take the same and we start again", Patrick trades his cap of more or less productive worker for that of the virile male taking care of his offspring. This exciting scene of the animal kingdom will be quickly avoided for what interests us most: video games. What's more, this column is not intended to feed ARTE documentaries. Patrick joins Stevette on Discord, you have to live with the times, to hell with the obsolete Skype, TS and mumble. Besides, hats off, inventing a communication application that advocates dispute and dissension, it was necessary to dare. Note, an illustrious marketing product manager once said, "The more you take them for idiots, the more they like." Apple approves, we a little less. Everyone is on his favorite game and very quickly the debate returns to the need to have multi. Patrick grumbles, let him harvest his 15 Eye of the Void, a plant with an epic name, which is much less so when you are in front of it. Stevette does not waver: "way, the enemy AI in games, it is always stupid and we have no merit to defeat it. To surpass oneself, it is possible only against other players." Before we talk about enemy AI, let's take a moment to reflect on allied AI. At this very moment, all our thoughts are with the players of Resident Evil 5.Playing together in cooperation is simplifying your life. To play alone is to be maso. Brainless AI requires ingenuity, reflex and resistance in the face of suffering. Sheva is a little too inclined to confuse skincare herb and Cannabis. So the day you really need to be treated, your inventory will be empty. It is to wonder if your virtual teammate would not be the incarnation of the god of destruction Shiva, at a vowel, doubt is allowed.
Patrick contradicts the fallacious arguments of his friend Stevette: "It's a question of parameter selection. If you want hard games, you have to stop playing easy with the audience. And there are Die and Retry!». Stevette disapproves, playing against AI is being a handle and then, hyped hard games, it's to give yourself a genre. It is well known, DMC, Dark Souls, Bayonetta are for those who have something to compensate. In any case, there is no merit since we can always fool AI, which is not the case for a human. The AI is so stupid that it can't cheek, play with its rotten connection to be in god mod, farm spawn locations, use bots to benefit and cheat in the broadest sense. The 1.5 million Chinese banned on PUBG will not be able to say otherwise. Moreover, to raise the video game difficulty to the rank of master, nothing like shooting on loop on 12-year-old kids who discover FPS!
This conversation, as sterile as a Monsanto field, brings the sulphurous question of surpassing oneself. The player of a multi game is by definition in competition with others, the solo player is in competition with himself. In the end, who has the most merit? The man who has been fighting since the dawn of time against his fellow human beings (and daily too) or the man who defies his future, the robot? When Patrick crosses the sword against the boss The Lord of Impenetrable Darkness, skinner of the abyss and depths, and he knocks him down after 10 tries, 2 evenings and 6L of coffee, the pleasure of success is immense. It is not the look of the AI that he seeks, nor rise above the other. It is the personal satisfaction of accomplishing a journey that includes a beginning, adventures, an end. Yes, you know, this relatively useless weird thing called a Story. And in this story, Patrick and his avatar evolve intellectually and emotionally. There are some who will also take in reputation and potency while the other will take in cholesterol, but this does not concern us. Maybe single-player games will be gone in a century, there's a good chance that I too… In the meantime, the abundance of multi games must not become a monopoly. Solo and multi are two facets of the same coin, so they are complementary, can you imagine the stupid air that we would have with a coin without a number?
Yes, solo is life!
