There is a pretty heinous trend that seems to be appearing more and more in this next-gen era, and it has already started to destroy some potential good times. I am referring to the fact that games these days are starting to avoid or limit one-console multiplayer for the ability to play online with friends.

In particular, I must bring up Left 4 Dead.

Picture renting the game with the intent of making a weekend of it. You tell your friends to come over Saturday night for beers and zombies. Truly it will be an event that the gods themselves might envy. You set up, every-one’s settled in, you turn on your console and… you come to find out that you can only have two players per console. The rest of the night everyone is arguing about whose turn it is.

Why on earth would anyone think it’s a good idea to limit the players in such a fashion? Is it just too much to ask of this next generation to keep track of 4 sets of health, ammo, and other stats while rendering what they are seeing? The Nintendo 64 found a way to do it, Halo 3 even had it’s method. Heck, the PlayStation 2 even had the semi-functional multi-tap so four players could go head to head in a game like Ape Escape.  So why not Left 4 Dead, why not gears 2?

I can only imagine that developers worry about the gameplay of splitting the screen up 4 times, and making it so everyone can still see clearly enough to make the game enjoyable. Another argument, for gears specifically, is that because the online component is based on 5v5 teams, if you were able to take 4 players online, it would unbalance the game teams so somebody would be left out, or fewer games would be join-able due to one console taking up almost the whole team roster. I can understand that much, but why not let me take 3 fellows to a LAN match, of all things?

I am concerned that all games soon enough will become online-only multiplayer, as that seems to be the case with the Xbox 360. Because it has such a well-established online community, why not abuse it? I don’t want to insinuate that developers are splitting up same-console multiplayer for the sole purpose of selling more copies. I can’t accept that developers are so completely cold-hearted. Perhaps the marketing agencies, sure, but not the ones making the games we play. I digress though to my original point. If developers want to include multiplayer functionality at all, it needs to be complete and functional. Nintendo learned that lesson with Zelda: Four Swords. Don’t assume every player has access to friends with the same hardware.