If you pay attention to broader industry trends, especially when it comes to the types of games that every publisher is eager to include in their catalog (before they realize that throwing so much into one basket is probably not a good idea), you definitely You’ll be familiar with Sony’s recent foray into live-service gaming. The company’s efforts are still in their infancy, and we’re only now getting the first of 12 games it plans to launch. Sony delayed half of its titles before we even had a chance to stream one. Whether or not anyone cares about the games themselves, PlayStation’s desire to diversify its first-party offerings is easy to understand. Sony is keenly aware that making increasingly expensive single-player games won’t be sustainable in the long term – and it’s already difficult to do so now.
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One way to achieve this is to bring PlayStation games to other platforms, a bridge Sony has already crossed.A historic stance against releasing first-party games on any content but PlayStation hardware has been reversed. We now live in an era where PS5/PS4 exclusive games are coming to PC two years after debuting on PS consoles, which is pretty predictable.
But that’s clearly not enough, especially if Sony continues to pretend to be Xbox and Nintendo’s platform won’t see meaningful sales growth.This brings us back to other Strategy: Live Service Game.
However, let’s imagine that the desire to figure out a live service isn’t there, and the company’s many studios have to come up with new ways to force players to stick with playing the game once, rather than a single playthrough – and potentially get them to accept it in Ideas for other forms of monetization in these single-player games.
As it turns out, they may have already done so.
One of the biggest surprises from December’s Game Awards was the reveal of God of War Ragnarok’s Valhalla DLC, a free and unusual extra content that expands the main game by doing more than just adding a new story Chapters instead introduce some that are intended to be played over and over again over time. Valhalla is a rogue-lite that succeeds in so many ways that it deserves to be highlighted and worth learning from the rest of Sony’s teams.
It builds on the narrative of Ragnarok and gives anyone who usually plays these games for the story a reason to care. It relies on elements of the story’s ending, as well as elements rarely explored in Kratos’ past reboot series. It’s old and new at the same time, it’s wonderful.
At the same time, Valhalla’s gameplay easily stands alongside the main game. If you feel powerful about the variety of weapons in the game, all three are instantly unlockable in Valhalla. Instead of spending two dozen hours crafting your character, crafting the gear you like and unlocking bigger and better moves, Valhalla crams all those ingredients into a hat and then – like any rogue-lite – Pull out some of them at random and let you choose. This is the opposite of the item discovery process experienced in rogue-lite/like games, as you probably use most of your skills during the main game.
If you find combat exciting, Valhalla is basically nothing but Combat encounters, interspersed with snippets where additional narrative can exist organically. It’s still the same action you’re used to, but it becomes more exciting because you’re never sure what you’ll encounter and what skills/upgrades you’ll choose.
There’s also a rogue-lite survival mode in Sony’s catalog in The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and while it appears to be purely combat-based (contrary to the game’s message about cycles of violence, you might think), It was apparently cut from the same cloth as Valhalla.
Even before those two were a thing, Ghost of Tsushima was quietly dipping its toe into the same territory with its Legends mode. While it’s more specifically geared toward co-op, it definitely made me reinstall the game.
What’s more, all three modes rely heavily on pre-existing assets and utilize systems and mechanics that players are already familiar with and might even enjoy on their own. Is this a way to cleverly (let alone organically) extend the time PlayStation first-party games spend in our collective consciousness? I think everyone can easily make a convincing case.
My only concern is that Sony may think players will find it more palatable to see paid microtransactions in these modes. Adding these to a major part of the game will face stiffer resistance, and Sony knows it. While we’re obviously not there yet, it’s clear that these types of modes are here to stay as another potential way to extend the life of a game, and possibly make a little money in the process to supplement rising costs.
