Game director Hideki Kamiya has revealed that Scalebound will support co-op throughout the game’s entire campaign.
“Co-op works throughout the entire campaign,” Kamiya told Polygon. “You can play by yourself if you’d like. You can play with your friends whenever you like. It’s not a mode – a lot of people have asked us if it’s just for bosses, but it’s for the entire game’s campaign.”
PlatinumGames has not yet revealed how the matchmaking system will work, but creative producer JP Kellams has stated that there will be no lobbies.
“I hate lobbies and there’s no Japanese multiplayer game that has a good lobby,” Kellams stated. “So you can fully expect that Scalebound will not use lobbies.”
There will be incentives to play Scalebound with other people. Not only will it make some of the more complicated boss fights a little easier, players will be able to earn rewards when playing in co-op.
“We don’t want to make a game where you have to play the multiplayer to beat it, but we don’t want single-player to be a totally different beast,” Kamiya explained. “What’s more important is designing the combat encounters to encourage you to play multiplayer and reward you for playing multiplayer.”
Other rewards will come from the social aspects of the game. This includes showing off your dragon to other players.
“One of the big elements of that ‘togetherness’ is being able to show off your dragon in co-op,” says Kellams. “As you spend so much time riding through the world, fighting these bosses, customizing your dragon and then getting into co-op and showing off your dragon, having conversations like, ‘What armor is that? Where’d you get that skin?’ – and when you’re evolving your dragon, players will ask, ‘How’d you get that horn? What breath is that?’ – all those experiences, will be part of the meta-game of communication on how to build the best dragon for your play style.”
Scakebound is set to release in 2017. The game will release on Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One.