The entire pitch for Steam darling Erenshor is that it’s an MMORPG where the ‘MO’ is a complete fabrication. It’s a single-player game riffing on World of Warcraft, except all the other ‘players’ running about and questing are entirely simulated, and it’ll likely remain that way throughout early access because the game’s solo dev believes single-player gamers are “very underrepresented in today’s gaming market.”
“That’s [co-op is] probably the biggest request I get,” developer Burgee Media said in a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session. “It’s a huge undertaking to rewrite a game into co-op, and I feel an obligation to deliver on what was originally promised (a single player MMO experience), so it’s not in the official plans for the time being.”
While playing games with ‘optional’ co-op by himself, Burgee Media says he always feels like he’s “missing out” or will “get stuck on a grindy part” and wish he was playing with a friend instead “because the game was probably designed with multiplayer in mind.”
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And that’s why Erenshor was made with single-player as the sole focus. “Folks who buy it to play solo know they’re getting the full experience and it’s tailored for them,” Burgee Media added. “I think the solo gamer is very underrepresented in today’s gaming market.”
There we go – no co-op in Erenshor for now, but the indie dev doesn’t totally rule out the possibility as a post-launch addition: “After 1.0, I may look to bring someone in to add co-op, or offer it as a free DLC, just to separate it from the main game itself a bit. (This is just thinking out loud, not a promised feature).”
Indie dev behind single-player MMO that sold 30,000 in its first month quit his job to make the game because he “would have forever regretted not trying” otherwise
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