With its basketball-like battles and its competitive versus mode, Supergiant’s recently released Pyre would seem like a good fit for online multiplayer, but it looks unlikely that the game will ever support it, with the devs favouring in-person battles.
Itching for multiplayer? Here are the best multiplayer games on PC.
They say there are no plans to add online multiplayer, and in the game’s FAQ, Supergiant explains that for online multiplayer to be good it would need to be a central focus, but the studio decided to focus on the story instead. There was a time, however, where it seemed more likely.
Creative director Greg Kasavin tellsPolygon that Supergiant even created an online mode and tested it for a couple of weeks. There were problems, though, and server-side challenges that stopped it from even coming close to making it into the game.
“To have done the work properly would have extended our longest-ever project by a long amount of time, or required compromising on other parts of the game where we refused to budge,” Kasavin tells Polygon.
While squeezing online multiplayer in with an update also sounds very unlikely, Kasavin isn’t ruling out another edition of the game, if Pyre does well, which could contain new features. “If Pyre became a big hit, we would of course look at opportunities to do more with it, much like we did with Bastion and Transistor before – but it’s way too early to tell at this point.”
Pyre is out now on Steam for £14.99/$19.99.