Xbox boss says single-player games are not dead

Speaking to Gamespot, Xbox head of publishing Shannon Loftis weighed in on the recent debate around single-player games.

Following the closure of Visceral Games by EA, the games industry has started a discourse over the future of single-player games and whether or not, from a large triple-A publishing perspective least, games that are single player only are still commercially viable.

"Game development in general is about a couple of things," Loftis told Gamespot. It’s about delivering and experience and it’s about telling stories. Storytelling is as central to game development as it ever has been.

"I don’t think that it’s dead per se. I do think the economics of taking a single-player game and telling a very high fidelity multi-hour story get a little more complicated. Gamers want higher fidelity and they want higher resolution graphics.

"I don’t think that there is ever going to be a time when there aren’t single-player, story-based games," she continued. "I do love the idea of building a community around the experience of these games."

Loftis also said that the Xbox Game Pass service, which allows users to download a library of games for a monthly access fee of £10, helps to fund the single-player projects given that the multiplayer focused games are generating their own economy.

Thanks, Gamespot!