Local multiplayer is back, but is it here to stay?

[Administrator]

The future of games, for years now, has been connected. This year's biggest blockbusters - from Titanfall to Watch Dogs to Destiny - are about bringing people together online, weaving players' experiences into one another's in new and pervasive ways.
There's another type of connection that was feared lost in the online swell, though: the thrill of being together with friends in a single room, huddled around a single screen and revelling in a single game.
"I think online kinda killed it for a while," says Matt Thorson, who developed the frenetic multiplayer game Towerfall, and is part of a wave of developers driving a resurgence in local multiplayer. Thorson believes that 'online' has become so synonymous with 'multiplayer' that some gamers behave as though nothing else counts.
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