Nintendo's Multiplayer Problem

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Stop me if you have heard this one before, but, Nintendo is in a strange place. The launch year for the Switch led to one of the most important and accomplished years for Nintendo in some time. It has brought a renewed enthusiasm to an audience that has always loved Nintendo but has not felt the same connection they once had during the 80’s or 90’s. Unfortunately, though, it seems a trend has formulated with certain Nintendo first party outputs and it’s about to come to a head as they roll out the still relatively unknown paid online service in September.

Games from Nintendo that focus in on multiplayer as the key component has lost a fundamental chunk that many fans are still looking for. That, of course, is single-player content and it seems gone are the days of Subspace Emissary in Super Smash Bros. and a surprisingly and enjoyably deep RPG-like single-player in Mario Tennis Power Tour for the Game Boy Advance. If these types of games have a single-player component at all it is at best run-of-the-mill and inconsequential. It might be easy to look at the new Mario Tennis Aces and understand that the bulk of enjoyment from that game will come from couch or online co-op and/or competitive play. But for people who just enjoy the cordial kingdom of Mario characters and want to lightly mess around with a tennis game starring said characters, the option is a poorly realized adventure mode. Mario Tennis Aces is only the most recent example though: Smash Bros. has all but abandoned anything substantially single-player; Splatoon and Splatoon 2, for a series oozing with concept and style, sadly fall into the Mario Tennis Aces camp of providing a single-player option that doesn’t really jive with the core aspect of that game and is mostly underwhelming; Arms followed suit of many other fighting games providing a very basic arcade mode lacking the detail and charm of Nintendo; Mario Tennis on Wii U was just lacking content all around. Without knowing that Nintendo’s first party machine will provide something unique, weird or enjoyable from a game like Mario Tennis it becomes hard to recommend it to people who will not or cannot extract fun. There is an opportunity to fill out a game like Mario Kart by adding some silly cutscenes or explaining the meaning of those characters racing karts against each other that can only add to the experience. There is a way to utilize the story they built for Mario Tennis Aces while also providing an adventure mode worth going through that doesn’t include crazy spikes and dips in difficulty. Give Smash Bros. another story mode! There is clearly a very skilled and loyal fanbase that treats Smash as a serious fighting game, but, hell, the whole point of that game is seeing Donkey Kong interacting with Bayonetta or Mario teaming up with Sonic or Solid Snake. That’s the appeal to the vast majority so lay into that appeal of the bizarreness of all these characters coming together with a cool story mode.

With all that being said, the core gameplay of many of these games is still there. Without a campaign to turn to multiplayer is the way to experience these games. As September creeps closer and closer, Nintendo is going to find themselves in a situation where a large base of Switch owners are going to be unaware and uninformed about the fact that they need to pay for the privilege of playing online. Without a great campaign mode, these games could find themselves in hot water as more casual players buy Splatoon 2 only to find out they can’t experience the meat of that game without and extra charge. The paid online service is more of a speedbump rather than a barrier, but it’s an extra reason why I hope they can look at the campaign modes of these games and rework what has been a disappointment and give a reason for all players to want to buy the game.