I am always seeing people asking FatShark for Solo Mode, and it always leads to nothing. No matter how many times people ask, “Why not?” all they are ever met with is silence. People want to say that they do not speak of it because of Malice, or they just don’t care. But while the second option is pretty probable, I would like to give two other possibilities that I think could be the reason for them not speaking on the topic.
The way I see it, there are two possibilities:
GW is responsible for prohibiting FatShark from adding Private Matchmaking, and they obligated by contract to not talk about it lest it paints GW in a bad light.
People at FatShark are conflicted on the topic of adding Private Matchmaking. They haven’t said that they will add it or that they won’t add it, because they don’t know themselves. If I had to think of a reason why they don’t want it, I’d say it doesn’t fit their vision of the game, and they don’t want to spend their resources to improve the bots. And if I had to think of a reason why they would want it, it is almost everything pointed out by people wanting the Solo Mode. Things like more players would play Darktide because some people want to play the game at their own pace and Private Matchmaking would allow them to do it.
I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in the topic. I think the idea that FatShark themselves doesn’t know what they want regarding Solo Mode is a pretty interesting theory, and that’s that. Nothing more to add here, really.
SM2 has solo play so that would be a very weird double standard.
Yeah that’s probably it. I think its probably mostly that making the bots competent would be pretty hard, and they want to make a teamplay focused game, so it doesn’t make sense to sink resources into something that doesn’t fit what they want the game to be.
I do have a theory that maybe also they saw new players who played solo mode in VT2 played less and were less likely to stick around then those that played with others.
then again I wager its rather the players with long playtime hours, confident in their abilities and fed up of “people” that want a legit shot at a progress generating mode with own kitted out bots of their chosen characters and talents.
them update-hoppers be gone after 1-2 weeks when the “content” is done anyways, so why bother about em?
and a good one at that, seen little to none “non viable” tools to clear solo when it comes to player agency
More likely their consultants told their shareholders they’re more likely to sell stuff on the dumb FOMO store if you don’t have a singleplayer mode.
Doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s a common expression. Personally I might’ve bought a full set of Steel Legion armor for my characters who I can take as bots if that was an option, but nope.
To be fair they didn’t specify a year and we’re arguably still in a period which could be described as “shortly after December (2025)”, solo mode is right around the corner I’m sure…
Okay but realistically speaking its also very likely that their first solution was done without taking into account consoles and intergration with other live services past steam
I mean yeah, obviously part of the reason could just be performance issues/incompatibility with consoles. Probably also combined with issues with bots and it not even lining up with the goals of the team for the game anyways. The first response in this topic was my more serious answer lol.
IMO… the issue is single player mode won’t be fun for 99% of players who would buy the game to play single player.
The bots suck. Very few people who haven’t played the game yet would have fun playing with the bots we have. Trying to solve one of the puzzles while the bots defend you is a crap shoot and feels really bad if they keep failing to protect you.
It’s just going to be a bunch of negative reviews and refunds.
IMO to get a functional single player mode, they need something akin to Bosco in DRG. Like a combat servitor that follows the player around and is actually helpful. That is designed to help a single player and not just be a bot until a real person joins.
I think the most likely explanation (and this has been posted several times before by others - apologies - I forget exactly who - but the point is this is not my idea, I just happen to think it’s the right one) is that Fat Shark has to pay for server instances that get spun up. Ultimately, it’s cheaper to pay for one server instance for four players than it is to pay for four server instances for one player.
