Anyone who remembers the original heyday of Golden Axe during the rise of the “16-bit Revolution” (no relation to Nintendo’s Wii codename) likely remembers one key aspect to the title: The ability to team up with a friend to bork-up some orcs. At least, I think there were orcs…
In any case, it turns out that in the new Golden Axe: Beast Rider, the lovely Tyris Flare is going solo, and Sean Ratcliffe, SEGA’s VP of Marketing, is here to tell us why:
“Rightly or wrongly, we don’t have co-op multiplayer in the game,” he offered, a statement that was met with a short, yet uncomfortable pause. “I think as much as anything it’s taking inspiration from the original series but in terms of that multiplayer co-op the developer decided that they didn’t want to take the game in that direction.”
“If Golden Axe: Beast Rider is successful,” he added, “we can then come back with something else that maybe will have the co-op mode that everyone is wishing this game has.”
Or, as Joystiq says, they could just give people what they want in the first place, which would be a novel idea. On the other hand, maybe they should be sure they can get one player right before trying for two; why sacrifice two lambs when one will do just as well?
