Goodbye Disintegration Multiplayer, We Hardly Knew Ye!

Multiplayer is one of the most fickle pieces of gaming in recent years. It is near impossible to predict what the zeitgeist will cling to this week and abandon the next. Over the last fifteen or so years, the term multiplayer has changed from punching your brother, to swearing and throwing racial slurs down a headset microphone at strangers. I’ve never really cared for either; unless it is controller swapping on games of Crazy Taxi, all the while swearing death upon one another and that clock. However, I’m in the minority on that one, and I’m fine with that because I’m right.

You may remember a game called, Disintegration. Mike wrote a review of it around the time of its release five months ago, when it was shiny and brand new. Hailing from the hands that brought you Halo, Mike noted the easy-to-learn but hard-to-master movements of the in-game bike, squad-based combat, and mix of low frame-rates and long loading times for the PS4-Slim. He also noted that the game was very much, “a multiplayer-first, campaign-second experience.”

As a blog post on the Disintegration website notes from two months ago, “We have made the difficult decision to remove Disintegration’s multiplayer modes from the game across all platforms.” The process of removing multiplayer began immediately, and would continue through the rest of the two months, “and will conclude on November 17th with the full removal of multiplayer.” To settle fluttering hearts, Mike did also note that the single-player didn’t “feel like too much of an afterthought.” The single-player will of course be staying as long as the game is listed on storefronts, so players can still enjoy what Mike gave a reasonably well-scored and praised review.

In the statement announcing the departure of multiplayer from the rather obvious multiplayer-focused shooter, the developer and publisher V1 Interactive and Private Division thanked players for playing. Part of me wants to say I’m sad for its whimper, though it is a hollow feeling instead. Disintegration was never aimed at me, though for those that did play it, there wasn’t as much fanfare as you’d expect with such a title. It was strange, as they said in the announcement “we stand by the creative risks taken to launch such a unique, genre-bending game created by this small but talented and passionate team.” Goodbye Disintegration multiplayer, we hardly knew ye!