Starbreeze: co-op games are boring without "competitive elements"

Syndicate's lead co-op programmer Lars Magnus Lang has told OXM that co-op games need "competitive elements" if they're to sustain player interest. Keep your enemies close and all that.

"I think it's a mix when it comes to co-op audiences," the Starbreeze boffin commented, when we asked how Syndicate's contribution stands apart from comparable modes like Modern Warfare 3's Spec Ops.

"First off, with the multiplayer audience, you need to somehow appeal to their competitive sides, and if you don't, then it quite quickly becomes boring. So in that sense, this definitely caters to the audience. We have competitive elements in there, but you can choose to ignore them. We have scoreboards and things like that.

Why not go the whole hog, then, and give the new Syndicate deathmatch? "We tried out a bit of competitive multiplayer early on, and in the end, we chose to focus on the coop, rather than to add multiplayer that we felt didn't match up to other multiplayer games out there. So we took those elements that worked in multiplayer into co-op.

"It would have been great to have a competitive mode, and who knows - maybe," Magnus Lang reflected. "Maybe in a future game. It would have been really nice, because it's a fun aspect, but if you can't do it well enough, don't do it. There's only so many man-hours, and only so much we can fit it into."

Those in search of a co-op game that's purely about reaction times may want to give Syndicate a miss. "If you play it as a stand-up shooter, you'll have a really hard time."

Syndicate's online takes the form of a separate campaign, charting the rise of new syndicate Wulf Western. Four players fill the shoes of four agents, murdering rival businessmen and pinching their implanted DART chips to secure competitive intel.

Wi-fi hacking programmes serve as secondary abilities, letting you deactivate cyber armour and "heal" friendly agents. The mode offers (deep breath) 12 upgradable breach applications, 25 chip upgrades and 19 weapons upgradable in 87 different ways.

"At the foundation, it's a really hardcore experience where you really need to cooperate," Magnus Lang explained. "At times it's not really a shooter, it's more of an MMO experience almost, in the way you'll need to heal and revive and use reach applications."

EA released a Syndicate co-op demo on Xbox Live yesterday. Have you downloaded it? How are you finding it?

The game itself is out on 21st February in North America and 24th February in Europe.