Should Singleplayer and Multiplayer become completely separate?

Sure, seperate them. No problem. Whats gona happen to Local Multiplayer games ?

But what about games like Dark Souls? It integrates the PvP and co-op perfectly into the campaign. I think that in the future developers should integrate the coop and PvP into the campaign like Dark Souls did and thus obscure the difference between the single player and multi player.

Absolutely. GTA V did that, and I think that was brilliant. Otherwise, you noticed when games sacrifice one thing for another. Look at Battlefield 4. The story was awful, but you buy it for the multiplayer.

What about people who can't get online services for whatever reason (like me)? We can ONLY have Singleplayer games. Games like Dark Souls should still exist in their current form, but keep in mind those who simply CAN'T play online,

I've long been in favor of this. Why am I required to pay for a feature I will never use? Breaking the game up would afford me the opportunity to buy and play more games. Assuming the price is also halved. I would buy a whole lot more games in their respective release windows if they were say, $25-30 for the SP portion. As it stands, I only buy games that have had their prices slashed, considerably.

No I don't think that would be a good idea. Personally I enjoyed the sp in CoD and other games like it. I also enjoy mp in games like Mass Effect 3 and Bioshock 2. While I don't mind a developer just wanting to make a singular type of game ie. Titanfall I think that breaking up sp and mp just for the sake of seperating the two, especially wanting it to be a standard practice for all games, is problematic in a number of ways including distribution for the developer, fragmenting a userbase, and costing more for the consumer in the end. I'd rather just buy the whole game upfront and be done with it.

As far as I know you can play Dark Souls offline if you don't want to summon other players or being attacked by invaders. I didn't try to play it offline, so maybe you need to login at the beginning, but I don't think that being online all the time is mandatory.

I don't think there should be a rule.

If a team is passionate about making a multiplayer experience, then they should make that. Without compromise.

And if a team is passionate about making a single player experience or telling a story or building narrative and interesting characters, then that's what they should make. Again, without compromise.

And if they want to do a balanced game that features the best of both, the by all means get it out there. Follow the passion.

I do think people need to accept that not everyone likes the same thing that they like, that there is no one true way of creating a piece of art (and games are art), and I'd love it if more folks could take a live and let live approach to the things they don't care for. But now we're getting into a whole other discussion.

I really don't care about what would happen, the only time I find multiplayer in a game to be a problem is when the game doesn't need it and it's just tacked on.

as long as players can choose whether or not they want to PvP without having to pull the Ethernet cable out of their console/PC, I leave it up to the devs how they want to handle mp/sp.

On a similar topic, I think EA should remove the Ultimate Teams from their games and spin them off as free-to-plays. Shameful that they have a 'free-to-play' mode that you actually have to spend $60 to get.

separate them.

absolutely YES, if, certain conditions warrant it: namely, the devs want them BOTH to be robust and fully-developed modes of gaming. if that is the case, then, the answer becomes automatic in my eyes as one who doesn't care about profit.

why? because they are completely separate entities in their form and function and it's time for the industry and gamers to recognize that truth. now, I am NOT talking about a simplistic and inexpensive form of multiplayer that adds fun entertainment and doesn't take much resources away from the single player

however, as a single-player only gamer I and MANY others are sick and tired of our single-player campaigns being shortchanged because of the unwanted and unnecessary addition of mp.

as a side, games that require an online connection should be bought digitally and be available and a significantly lower cost.

I have one experience where I came for the single player but found the multi to be much better. Sometimes it is nice to be surprised like that.

A separation wouldn't be too catastrophic but I think the best is variety. Single player only, Multi player only, games with single player and multi player modes, and hybrids.

Single player: The Witcher series

Multi player: Planetside 2

With both modes: The Last of Us, GTAV

Hybrids: Dark Souls

There is room for each of these kinds of games.

It would help a lot, but more so, teams need to realize where their strengths and resources are. For example D.I.C.E is known for multi player, if they approached SP in more cartoony, or free-form and non-serious methods they could've succeeded. I bet Rhianna Pratchett barely had much to work with, when they asked her to fill in the story blanks for Mirror's Edge.

Battlefield 3&4 campaign sucked because EA in its typical mimic the leader fashion was for one pushing for DICE to mirror CoD's campaign too much, whereas a bot mode ala "CS: Condition Zero" with the same rules and physics as the multi-player would've easily crushed MW3 and Ghosts.

Its entire campaign was in-media res and no narrative context for half of it, with a very poor fighter jet QTE. Storytellers, even ones who tend to be EXTREMELY cryptic, at least give the player SOME foundation or context, character, goal, stakes, obstacles etc. to make you want to answer the question, and to that last part Dark Souls is an example of both done right, with gameplay incentives for the community.

No I don't

I do think that single player should not tack on multiplayer or vice versa to make the game seem more appealing

but, i'm all for more bang for my buck.

Games will always want to have both single and multiplayer as a bullet point to help sales. Sometimes if the single player game is complete, they have all the art and sound assets ready to go and it might not take a very long time to whip up a multiplayer mode. Just put up some walls to block off part of a level, use weapons that are already in game, do a fast balance attempt, bring the netcode over from some other game thats already done, blam. Maybe an extra 1% of resources from some employees that had finished their other work ahead of schedule.

I don't have a problem with it as long as they are clear on what the game is at start and it doesn't affect the real focus of the game. (And we as consumers need to be careful on preorders to not get fooled).