Wolfenstein would be “diluted” by multiplayer, says MachineGames

While a former BioWare developer accuses EA of pushing multiplayer into games for the sake of microtransactions, another developer has come out to say that they won't be shoehorning multiplayer into their games and take away from the single-player experience.

MachineGames' narrative designer Tommy Tordsson Björk told GamesIndustry.biz that the 'only way' the Wolfenstein developers can focus on creating and immersive single-player experience is without the distraction of multiplayer.

"The only way we can create these super immersive narrative experiences is if we can solely focus on the single-player," said Björk. "Having a multiplayer component in this work process would just dilute it all. That's the danger if you try to do two things at once.

"We just keep our heads together, and focus on making a really good single-player game… Doing our thing is what makes the game great."

Björk's feelings on multiplayer have been echoed in the past with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus' predecessor, The New Order. Back in 2014, Bethesda's Pete Hines told CVG that MachineGames makes "interesting and compelling single-player experiences" and that multiplayer just meant a more expensive game making process.

Instead of working to "continuously improving a singleplayer experience" you'd have to be hiring people for multiplayer game creation and maintenance.

Plenty of single-player games have seen multiplayer add-ons like multiplayer in Mass Effect, Uncharted, and more. Sometimes, multiplayer works for a game and other times it doesn't. While Wolfenstein, a franchise with plenty of shooting, could have a multiplayer mode, the developers are choosing to skip it altogether.