Comment by ang_cire
1 day ago
> Multiplayer games routinely just get killed by their publishers.
You are confusing "multiplayer" with "massively multiplayer online" games. The vast majority of multiplayer games are not MMOs. There are tons of multiplayer games that you can run your own servers for, or which use P2P or local LAN connections to not require any publisher presence or support for.
Hell, set them up a Minecraft or ARK or whatever survival-crafter game server, and they can invite and play with their friends on it.
Yes! I'm a huge fan of those. Increasingly rare, though. Was trying to play No Man's Sky, Sniper Elite v2, Quake/Quake2 Enhanced recently with the kids and all required centralized multiplayer. Super disappointing. I do run servers for MineTest (Luanti, really, but ya know), Xonotic, Starcraft 1, etc. but connect-by-IP on an actual LAN seems like the exception these days, rather than the rule.
Out of curiosity, what games published after 2020 (just making up a year here) can you play on LAN with one player creating a server and another connecting via IP? It's my ideal setup, but it seems to only really be available in open source games.
> what games published after 2020 can you play on LAN with one player creating a server and another connecting via IP?
There are tons, it really just depends on what you want to play. Looking at my steam library (installed only, so I can verify there's a LAN option) gives me:
Misery, Necesse, Voyagers of Nera, Infinite Rails, Windward Horizon, 7 Days to Die, HumanitZ, Barotrauma, Avorion
Keep in mind that those are just from the MP games I have currently installed, that are from 2020 onwards. I have 131 mp games from that release period, and only 33 of those are installed, and I only checked games that I figured would be likely candidates (i.e. I excluded Sniper Elite 5, Remnant 2, MechWarrior 5, etc).
So yeah, LAN/ direct IP connect options are still really common, it's just something to check beforehand. Also, the genre really changes the likelihood of having it.
Some smaller titles in there, which makes sense! I'll admit I haven't heard of any of those games, so this may be ignorance on my part. I was thinking of the games from the bigger studios and their general desire to retain complete control of the multiplayer aspects of their games, but I concede that while they have the most players, they are not most of the games. =)
Appreciate you doing some legwork to make your point!