Just Cause 3 Dev on Lack of Multiplayer: "We Did Talk About It a Lot"

Avalanche Studios' open-world action game Just Cause 3 is shipping with a focus on single-player mode, but the developer has not ruled out eventually introducing a multiplayer option to the game. Speaking in an interview with GameSpot, game director Roland Lesterlin revealed that the studio did look into adding a multiplayer mode to Just Cause 3.

"We did talk about it a lot. The modding community even created a multiplayer mod for Just Cause 2 that was super fun, really cool. The same way that Just Cause 2 was known as a beautiful sandbox in a giant open world, and it surprised many people that consoles could even do that, we wanted to have that same experience... with updated physics and player mechanics, and concentrate first and foremost in the main player."

Lesterlin went on to explain that the social features of current platforms allowed for players to share experiences, which really benefitted a game like Just Cause 3. He noted that while Avalanche wasn't ruling out a multiplayer experience in the future, the studio was focusing on the single-player experience for now.

"What we found was that a lot of players loved sharing videos of what they did. So we wanted to work on the asynchronous side of things. The challenges, ghost mode within leaderboards, being able to challenge your friends to beat feats you did in the world. Having these great PS4 Share feature and the Xbox upload feature, and Steam now has a spectator mode too. Having all these things in there feels perfect for a Just Cause game. It doesn't mean we wouldn't think about what to do with multiplayer in the future, but for this first time around we wanted to pour all our love and energy into a great single-player sandbox to start with."

Earlier this year, Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg teased the possibility of a multiplayer mode in Just Cause 3, though he reiterated that it wouldn't be available at launch. Previous game Just Cause 2 did not ship with multiplayer either, but a group of fans released a multiplayer mod which was well-received by Avalanche and publisher Square Enix.

Just Cause 3 will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on December 1.