Rare's Everwild Set To Feature A 'Large Scale Multiplayer World'

I thought this was cancelled.

I really hope it supports PvE multiplayer. I’d love to get into Sea of Thieves but the PvP aspect of it really turns off me & my group.

@ParsnipHero same was thinking was a large PvE title. So here is hoping

I'm really over large scale MP worlds. It was fun at the start of last gen, but unless you are willing to devote your entire game time, for years, to just that one game, you end up falling away, never finishing it, and never able to jump back in.

I just don't have that kind of energy anymore.

it's nice to think they know what their game is about now maybe? it seemed like they were kind of directionless before, so that's a positive, if it's true.

If this is Sea of Thieves but in a massive forest then I'm happy.

I can't say this has been on my radar at all since it was revealed. Nothing about it has me 'excited' at all - at least not yet. I'd rather have a Single-player game first and foremost - whether it can be played co-operatively or competitively with others as well.

This is starting to sound more and more like a 'Cloud' based game. Large Scale world could be too big to distribute on disc and take up too much SSD space - better to stream, Advanced AI computations (maybe even using ML) could also be running in the cloud.

I'm not 'excited' by this project, but I'll keep my eye on this. It hasn't done anything yet to make me want to 'try' it, even for free on Game Pass, but there is still plenty of time to give me a good reason why I should try it...

This is one thing I wish MS would focus a bit less on, online multiplayer.

I also thought this would be single player....interest on this one just completely disappeared!

@Halucigens Same! Though I wouldn't mind if they dropped the PvP elements and focused on PvE.

Multiplayer announcements and job listings for Everwild, at this point, is worrying. I've had a LOT of fun in Sea of Thieves, but that game only works because of multiplayer. A second release of a bare-bones playspace relying on player interaction to be relevant isn't exciting.

Well...worrying to a point. The game doesn't actually exist yet, lol.

An MP game is a hard no unless they have one big single player campaign attached to it.

@Leuke Yeah I loved for it to be like a minecraft, viva pinata, and sea of thieves hybrid where we all are building this huge garden.

Really hoping there is a strong single-player element to this game. It looked like such a cool world and has the potential to have a really cool story and exploration around it. Playing co-op campaign games with any more than one other person usually really hinders the story and atmosphere of these type of games for me.

Been playing Banjo-Kazooie on Switch (for the umpteenth time taking N64 and XBOX into account) and I really miss when Rare made excellent single player games.

Can't believe it's been two years since I first saw the trailer and thought "what sort of game is this?"

Also surprised I'm still asking what sort of game it is.

I’ll be very surprised if this comes out looking at all like the trailers we’ve been shown so far

Sounds bad to me. Pass

So yet another bad money grabbing GAAS game, no thanks

@Rmg0731 last year or so they said they were basically going back to the drawing board, more or less. Not unlike what had happened with Metroid Prime 4 on Nintendo's side.

TBH was coming here to say that I had never liked Rare's 2020 summer special video in which they streamed or recorded two of the senior staffers on the project just talking to each other about this game. The discussion sounded like a brainstorming session, and that's not great; it suggested they still hadn't set a clear direction for the game, and I was right.

@Bleachedsmiles it won't. Those 2020 trailers were already touted as concept videos, and they already started reworking the game a year ago.

@Richnj you know it's the same with bloated single player open world games tho? The number of players is actually irrelevant to a game's bloat (or rather, whether one burns out from the game itself, at all).

Why do I get the feeling Everwild is becoming the Xbox's answer to Pokémon (some people had been spreading gossip about a Pokémon clone on Xbox).

@Jark it's not irrelevant, the number of GAAS that are MP heavily outweighs those that are single player, and the MP ones have far more bloat than the single player ones, primarily due to the FOMO nature of these types of games.

@Richnj Well, despite what I wrote above in a related post - which could imply otherwise - MP games don't necessarily have "activity bloat" per se. Neither are they far exceeding big 1P campaigns fraught with icons and filler quests on a world map. Plus, these games effectively replace content (and sometimes actually do that) rather than simply stacking on more stuff to do.

These games are FOMO'd, as you say, but the real danger they have is mindless repetition from the literal same activities & modes, rather than cloned activities/tasks & modes usually gated behind something arbitrary (plot points, for example).

They're not at all bloated by FOMO itself; these two things are independent axes of each other which contribute in their own way to burnout.

Single player games, however, that have Ubisoft or Mad Max style bloat, number in an amount large enough number to make no matter about which is worse in quantity. All the proof you need of this is the # of people who don't finish a campaign (measurable by achievement stats) or the people whining about open world tropes (which is the majority of critics for example, part of the reason why Elden Ring is so well-received too, for bucking trends).

A comparison:

• Destiny 2 isn't played as a 100% collect-a-thon or measured by completionist standards; hundreds of hours in a live service game is spent perfecting the craft on a selection of a smorgasbord of activities (sometimes a singular aspect, like Crucible/Trials, with only some campaign hurdles to overcome just to get there). The collection / checklists grows as a consequence of what you do; for most players it is not the primary purpose or systematic impetus of the gameplay. Part of my og overall point: how often this butter is churned is the burnout, and that's up to the player, regardless of FOMO.
• Mad Max I mention bc the game deliberately goes out of its way to entice you to do most things in its world, just to progress. The activities themselves feel too inspired by checklist mentality (so it's a checklist game with formulaic humdrum), and it could take someone much much longer than they intended just to get past hurdles - dozens of hours longer (I took over 100 to check the checklist on HM). This is not unlike a MP service game to players who are burnt out by the grind, which is my point.
• Note: the hours themselves don't matter; it's how we filled them. Contrary to what some POS website says, open world games take hundreds of hours, potentially, just like live service MP. All of them these days spread content over months and years due to DLC, so it is completely one's own fault if you chug the drink down all at once. Furthermore, many players potentially drop a game before 10-50 hours in, respective of whether its gameplay is good enough to keep going. Again, hence my original point, more or less.

I think we've now addressed what needs to be, replete with definite misconception and probable misunderstanding. As everyone has their own tastes (I'm one who likes everything), the arbitrary player can not definitively deconstruct aspects they don't like without acknowledging similar drawbacks in the stuff they like. Thus, it's irrelevant as to what type of games enable burnout (and bloat & FOMO), bc it's just not based on content rollout (as is typical with GAAS). It's based on the cross section between player mindset, habit and intrinsic game design.

TLDR - Also, bloat is not a good characterization of the problems facing MP games (I shouldn't have implied MP and 1P burnout as similar, originally, in retrospect). Burnout in general has different metrics (hours is actually an insufficient metric) all contributing to it. Big open world titles (or drawn out 1P campaigns) are not exempt. Not relevant as to whether 1P or MP exceed each other in number of examples of burn out content or which is better at mitigating it, either; same with the number of players a game could feature, simultaneously, NOT determining whether it'll burn you out tbw — that only determines the nature of burnout. Your complaint and my points are directly addressed with that; I'm not humouring any further discussion on my part.
(Edit: Don't need to, all this would've been in further rebuttals if it not here).

Other edits:

• Added an overview comparison of D2 and Mad M, and a conclusion paragraph that rolls better into the TLDR.
• removed Ubisoft analysis & commentary on narratives; weren't integral to the thrice-repeated main points.
• Cleaned up the TLDR

@Jark "I'm not humouring any further discussion on my part."

Considering my initial complaint was the ever growing worlds of MP GAAS style games, and you went and unloaded a rant that didn't really address my initial complaint, I'm going to go ahead and assume that's because you had that rant in your back pocket and wasn't really here to engage but to do your rant and leave. And seeing as you responded to several users, that's my bad for taking the bait.

Mad Max takes a fixed 60 hours for a completionist, and you could pick that up today and those hours are the same as they were when the game released.

Destiny 2 takes over 100 for the base game, and over 300 for the Forsaken expansion, and that number grows every year with each new expansion, and you have a limited time to do this else that content gets vaulted before you finish, or actually before yiu even start.

If you can't see the difference between that single player experience and the MP Destiny one, or heaven forbid, see the latter as being preferable, I can't help you.

Another generation of Rare only working on one game. Even all these years later its still so sad to see what they've become.

Wow what a missed opportunity, seems like Rare has given up on developing real games now. Rather than do the new Perfect Dark or a proper Banjo Threeie they choose another online multiplayer game. Thoroughly disappointed!

@Royalblues The trick is to incur brain damage till you forget everything, then play Viva Pinata as if it's new. I recommend a lot of drugs and alcohol.

I'd rather have Banjo-Kazooie, Viva Piñata and Conker. Everwild might be good like Sea of Thieves is but why all games need to be new online IPs? Not having new entries in these series since Xbox 360 is criminal. They're also the kind of thing that Xbox lacks so it baffles me even more, not to mention that even Bubsy had his comeback. They have grown and acquired dozens of studios and still can't take care of these beloved franchises.

Rare has always worked in teams, Team Killer instinct became Team Conker, Team DKC became Team Banjo and eventually Team Ghoulies.
What I am trying to say is that Everwild is likely Team SoT's next title and will take the flaws of its predecessor and improve upon it (please don't make it require Xbox live gold)

Q) Are you as excited to see more of Everwild as us?

A) My excitement for Everwild has dwindled to non-existence at this point; the apparent focus on multiplayer (perhaps in the vein of Sea of Thieves, which is a lovely concept but not for someone who lacks Xbox Live like myself) just hammering in the lack of interest further. The game has a nice visual flair, but by Rare's own admission, they presented the game before they even know what the gameplay would be... the most important part of a game.

I've other Xbox titles that have captured my intrigue anyway and my focus is on listening out for news on them now.