Metroid Prime 4 Should Not Have Tacked-on Multiplayer

I see this brought up all the time on Reddit. Should Metroid Prime 4 have multiplayer modes? The answer is no.

Metroid has had multiplayer before, but was it any good? Was it worth it? Did it catch on and last?

Metroid Prime 2 had multiplayer, and it was serviceable, but it didn't catch on. No one talks about it now like they did with Halo. Why was this? Halo was a new franchise, and from the get-go, it had a fun campaign and a good multiplayer component, and so it was accepted. Metroid, for years, was a franchise known for its single-player, so for it to have multiplayer for the first time felt opportunistic and disingenuous; it felt like it was trying to capitalize on a fad and trying to be something it was not.

Metroid Prime Hunters was designed in the reverse way. It was first designed as a multiplayer game, and then the single-player was tacked on. This is why the multiplayer component made more sense. It was also novel to see an online FPS on a handheld; it was a technical marvel. The game was praised for its multiplayer, and its single-player was criticized. The game, however, did not catch on and last because its multiplayer still wasn't as good as those on the best FPSes and its single-player did not measure up to the other games in the series.

Tacking on multiplayer in predominantly single-player games is still a fad, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Naughty Dog still slaps multiplayer on their predominantly single-player games. The last two Tomb Raiders - single-player action-adventures, have had multiplayer tacked onto them. The multiplayer modes themselves aren't bad, but the games did not receive their critical acclaim because of them. Instead, I would say that they received critical acclaim in spite of them.

Don't sully the name of Metroid with tacked-on multiplayer. Splatoon is a great online multiplayer shooter, but I understand that people want one that is in first-person; it would also help the general perception of the system if it had a killer app that was in first-person and with a realistic art-direction. Therefore, it would be best for Nintendo to develop a new first-person IP with multiplayer as one of its focal points from the get-go.

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