Using 2017’s end-of-year industry analysis features as a barometer, you might reasonably have expected single-player titles to be dead and buried by now. It was the year PUBG seemed to materialize from thin air and top a Steam player chart that CS:GO and Dota 2 had sat atop for years. In that same 12 months, Epic’s new game Fortnite went from a PvE flop to a hastily assembled battle royale with 10 million players in its first two weeks. Battle royales were en vogue, and pulling in huge player bases.
Also in 2017, Arkane released Prey. It was the latest in a string of nostalgic single-player franchise reboots, spiritual sequels and crowdfunded rebirths that harkened back to a golden period of late nineties to early noughties gaming, and like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Thief (2014) before it, it’s commercial performance was modest. It would not be…
