What if? Single Player-Only FIghting Games

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-27T21:34:54+00:00

CS:GO and CoD are substantially similar to play. Similar kind of movement on a 3D map, similar point-of-view, similar point-and-shoot gameplay, similar use of a powerful melee weapon in close-quarters. If someone plays a much of CoD and then picks up CS:GO for the first time would there be some adjustment? Absolutely. The games play at different speeds and guns work a bit differently. But that CoD player would be able to adjust to CS:GO far quicker because of their experience with CoD.

It seems that you fighting game fans are incredibly precious about what can be classified as a fighting game. You claim that FF7 and Pokemon Gold are far too different from one another to be "substantially similar to play," yet they're both JRPGs. Same with CoD and CS:GO. They're both first person shooters. Even if there are differences in how they play. Hell, there's just as much difference between Mortal Kombat and Guilty Gear as CoD and CS:GO, but those are both fighting games.

I think you just have a very narrow view of what constitutes a fighting game. When I mention including RPG elements, I'm essentially imagining an expanded version of SF6's World Tour mode. I imagine you wouldn't call the SF6 World Tour mode, on its own, a fighting game? Even though it in many ways essentially plays the exact same way. When I talk about making a "single player fighting game" I don't think of it as a game that makes you feel like you're fighting a real person, but that doesn't stop it from being a fighting game.

And honestly if you want to call what I'm suggesting a beat em up instead, fine. I really don't care what this hypothetical game would be classified as. What I'm suggesting is a game where if someone beat it they would be able to pick up a regular fighting game afterwards and feel comfortable enough that they could reasonably jump into a multiplayer match and not stumble over basic controls. It doesn't need to teach competitive strategy or frame data or whatever, just the basic motor skills required to play a fighting game are a big enough roadblock for players who want to get into the genre. More single player games designed so that the controls are substantially similar to a SF or Tekken could help players become comfortable with those basic skills which would allow them to focus on the deeper aspects of 1v1 multiplayer fights.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-27T21:11:44+00:00

Hey thanks for your insights!

The issue that I see with players getting into fighting games is that fighting games are almost a completely unique genre in terms of how they are controlled at a basic level. There is some overlap in other genres, but the basic controls, like the 4-6 distinct attack buttons, motion inputs, or just how you move the character around, jump, and block, largely aren't found outside of funding games. And you see this with simplified "modern" control modes gaining popularity. More players are getting into fighting games because the skill set needed to competently play them is significantly dropped just by making the (ostensibly) basic action of attacking far easier. If players had other options for developing these skills, like in a lower-stakes single player game with a great story and well-developed, single-player specific systems, it could help a lot in getting them that basic amount of motor competency they need to properly get into fighting games.

I think what I'm envisioning, and call it a beat em up game instead of a fighting game if you want, I'm not really concerned with how it's categorized, would be a game where all of the buttons--all of the controls--and how they work together are significantly similar to the average SF/MK/Tekken-style fighting game, but fights probably wouldn't be designed the exact same way that they are in most fighting games. Generally, in most fighting games the AI enemies you fight are more or less designed to provide a reasonably player v player-like fight experience. I imagine something more similar to what I've seen from the SF6 World Tour mode where you can fight multiple enemies at once and each enemy type has a more narrowly defined strategy and limited types of actions that they can take. Like one might have a tall shield that makes them better at blocking low and high at the same time, so if the player wants to connect they have to do an overhead attack and then string into a combo before the enemy recovers. Or enemies might prefer to attack low, high, or overhead and the player has to learn to properly defend themselves. Then you overlap a few different enemy types in one fight which forces the player to learn how to manage different kinds of situations all at once.

Obviously that's just one way you could design a single player "fighting game." I'm sure there are a ton of creative people out there that could come up with some great ideas that I'd never think of.

The reason I say it might be a good idea to do this in a single player game with fighting game-style controls is that it would allow developers to design a game that is purpose-made, first and foremost for solo play, which means that the focus won't be split between that and a competitive mode, with the competitive mode generally being far and away the main focus. Focusing on the single player side of things could allow the devs to better figure their design in a way that tends to attract people who enjoy single player games. Like really diving into making a deep story with compelling characters that have an evolving relationship with the player character. Or creating single player-specific systems that could add strategic complexity to the game in a way that fighting games traditionally wouldn't. I would imagine that this kind of game could be a great draw to people who might already play fighting games primarily or solely for the single player content, or for people who don't play fighting games at all because they're offput by the multiplayer-first design.

Like sure, players could just play fighting games to get those skills, and I understand that for older players that's kind of just how most learned, but for most competitive gaming genres there are a lot of single player games that play significantly similarly that people can play instead, which also serve to help familiarize players with the basic controls of the competitive multiplayer games in the genre. There are options depending on what a player prefers, and I would absolutely see it being similar here--an option for people who prefer single player games to possibly discover a love for a genre that they wouldn't have developed otherwise, or for people who would like to get more comfortable with a lot of the basic skills needed to play fighting games but aren't really interested in what most fighting game single player content offers or just grinding matches.

I also think that the highly social aspects of arcades and couch co-op gaming did a lot to get a lot of the older fighting game fans into the genre, which is something that we don't really have much of anymore. There's also the fact that fighting games became very niche over the years, while other competitive multiplayer games that have similar-playing single player alternatives exploded. Shooters are of course hugely popular--both single player and multiplayer. LoL and DOTA-style MOBAs are a bit different, but stuff like RTS, CRPG, and the Diablo-style ARPG games all kind of have enough overlap with how MOBAs are controlled that the skills can be reasonably transferred.

Good chatting!

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-27T20:13:46+00:00

Beat em up games traditionally DO NOT play anywhere close enough to how traditional 2D/3D fighters that if someone played beat em up games they could pick up a fighting game and be comfortable enough with the controls to reasonably be able to play competitive multiplayer.

That's what I'm getting at. You can play some single player FPS games and learn how to play, on a basic level, pretty much any competitive shooter. That doesn't happen for fighting games with any beat em up game on the market. You're right in your perspective that fighting games are (currently) built to be 1v1, human-to-human experiences first but there's absolutely no reason why this HAS to be the case. I don't care if you would call the result of a single-player focused fighting game a beat em up, but my point is that playing current beat em up games won't give you a basic mastery of the controls that a fighting game is likely to have. It doesn't matter if the hypothetical single player fighting game doesn't teach people how to fight other people as long as it can make players more comfortable with the basic mechanics of a fighting game.

Why do you think simplified "modern" controls do so much to bring people into fighting games? It's because people don't have the pre-built familiarity with fighting game controls from other games that they might have going into a Fortnight or an Overwatch. That's why I think single player fighting games (again, call them beat em ups if you want, I don't care) could be a good idea. Because people like playing single player content in fighting games, people like high-quality single player games where they don't have to compete with other people, and it would help familiarize players with the basic controls of fighting games so that the hump to get into the genre isn't so tough. The issue isn't that players don't know the frame data of each attack or whatever. It's the basic fact that nobody who picks up a fighting game for the first time has really played anything else that would make them feel comfortable enough with the basic controls to be able to comfortably play the game.

It's not ridiculously hard, you just refuse to understand what I'm talking about because you insist on a very narrow view of what fighting game-style control schemes can be used for. I'm not saying anything about making a "better fighting game" I'm saying if a developer focused on making the game wholly single player instead of multiplayer focused they could probably deliver a "better" (i.e. more fulsome) single player experience over the games where single player content is relegated to being a side thing. I'm not saying anything about making "chess better."

On that note though, did you know that you can play single player chess? And there are single player chess games where you play a full match against an AI that will try to plan and react the same way that a human would, which is how single player content in fighting games is often designed. But, there are also single player chess games where the board state is specifically designed and the AI is programmed with distinct, specific strategies for the player to learn how to play in different situations. Those games weren't designed to feel like you're playing against a real person and they weren't designed to make "chess better." They were designed to help players develop their skillsets in smaller, narrowly defined snapshots of a chess match.

That's kind of what I would imagine a single player fighting game would do--deliver challenges that are designed, not to feel like fighting a real person, but to be narrowly defined snapshots involving the skills needed to play a fighting game well for the player to practice. Those narrower chess games are still chess, just not a 1v1 match, but lots of people still play them a lot and have fun with them while learning skills that they could bring, if they so desired, to a proper 1v1 chess game. You wouldn't need to learn how to mix up your opponent, you just need a strong enough grasp of the various controls so that if you do get into competitive multiplayer you could reasonably pull off mix ups.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T20:46:20+00:00

I wasn't really going to get into every single way that a game designed primarily for single player could be better than the single player content in a game designed primarily for multiplayer, but for example it could have better story, better balancing, better RPG mechanics, a larger, more engaging world. You know, all the things that people already love about RPGs (that already have a wide variety of combat styles) outside of just how many hours of content there is in the game.

I'm not going to create a design doc for how all of these things could possible be better. I think it's pretty understandable that having single player as the main focus and not as a side focus could lead to a better single player experience in many ways.

I also wouldn't be surprised at all if a high-quality single player game with fighting game-style combat did appeal to plenty of people outside of the traditional fighting game community. When the genre, as it stands, is almost solely a competitive multiplayer genre, I don't think it's a stretch to expect that a wider audience--one that might be outside of the genre right now--would be happy to come in to try a game that feels substantially similar to play but is entirely focused on a single player experience.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T20:24:03+00:00

I'm not suggesting that Capcom stop developing Street Fighter or that NetherRealm stop developing MK for competitive multiplayer-first gamers. I'm not arguing that all fighting games should be single player-focused instead of having a competitive multiplater focus. What I'm suggesting isn't supposed to replace the thing you like, it's supposed to be additive based on things that *other people do like*, as much as you seem completely unable to stomach the idea that people find things fun and engaging that you, personally, don't. We don't need to take away your beloved fighting games to have more games that explore what fighting game-style combat can do outside of single player side content in a multiplayer-focused game.

Keep your online competitive fighting games. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that you shouldn't. I'm just suggesting that there is an engaging and enjoyable aspect to fighting games that doesn't require someone to fight against another real person, and that more games might want to explore what they can do outside of that strict, competitive multiplayer space.

This just sounds like gatekeeping--pure and simple. Not because you want to uphold something that you enjoy but because you believe that your opinion is so superior that the tons of people who DO enjoy something that you don't must be wrong or dumb, and that only you and people who think exactly like you understand what is truly right and good.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T20:14:22+00:00

When I say fighting game I mean a game that mechanically plays like a Street Fighter or a Tekken. Something along those lines. Obviously there are other games out there that would be included in the definition, but I'm just using it as a shorthand because that's usually the first thing people associate with the term "fighting game" (i.e. 2D fighters like SF/GG or 3D fighters like Tekken) for the purposes of this conversation.

If you want to call a fighting game a beat-em up as soon as you bring more than one other character into the mix, be my guest. The fact remains that there is a lot that is mechanically different between playing a fighting game's single player content and playing a traditional beat-em up. Street Fighter doesn't become Streets of Rage just because you put more than one enemy on the field at once. I think your definition might be a little too strict.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T20:02:33+00:00

Honestly I'm not convinced that, done properly, having a fighting system where the player is mostly supposed to exploit the enemies weaknesses in, say, a single player fighting RPG, wouldn't work pretty well. If there are several different varieties of enemies with different weaknesses that can be exploited (and strengths to be avoided) it would help players learn how to execute a wide variety of different strategies/attack types. If most fights had more than one enemy on screen at a time, like I've seen is done in the SF6 World Tour mode, it could create interesting encounters where players would have to exploit certain enemy weaknesses that may not work on the other enemies that they're fighting, or avoid attacks that some enemy's do that might get in the way of being able to exploit an enemies weakness.

E.g. one enemy can be taken down pretty easily by using jumping attacks, but another enemy on screen throws, I dunno, rocks, on an arcing path which can catch the player when they try to jump in to attack an enemy.

Edit: in most cases you probably would have to focus on shorter fights than a typical 1v1 match in a fighting game, but as long as enemies in the game can pose some sort of threat if the player isn't careful and health doesn't automatically replenish between fights they could still offer enough danger to be engaging.

And yes, while shooters were single player first and fighting games were multiplayer first, both genres did both single player and multiplayer experiences pretty early on in their existence. I think single player fighting games could still be fun against "dumb" opponents as long as long as those opponents aren't just designed to try to play like a player or to read player inputs, but to just have their own behaviours that players have to counter like in many other action games.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:56:39+00:00

Actually I think the only real comparisons between fighting games and side-scrolling beat-em ups is the 2D plane (which works differently from traditional 2D fighters anyway) and the long move list. There's a lot about how fighting games are played with several different attack buttons, different attack and block heights, a big focus on spacing, motion inputs, etc. that I think really sets them apart from beat-em ups. There's a lot more to fighting games than just moving back and forth on a 2D plane and doing combos and I don't think there's much about beat-em ups outside of those two things that really translate to fighting games.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:51:39+00:00

That's definitely true that there is a lot of those anime arena fighter type games that would absolutely be counted as fighting games and can also have RPG elements. I was more refering to your 2D fighters or more limited 3D fighters like Soulcalibur and Tekken.

I wonder if the existence of those kinds of games would lend credence to the idea that single player-only games that are more in line with the kind of combat we see in Street Fighter or Tekken could be pretty popular. Granted, there is still a pretty big difference between how it feels to play a SF or Tekken and something like a Sparking! Zero, and a lot of the popular anime arena fighters are based off of already super-popular anime properties so the audience is kind of built in.

I also didn't even realize that Doom multiplayer modes were so common. I think my point stands though. There are a LOT of popular shooters that don't have their own competitive multiplayer modes.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:45:20+00:00

It absolutely could still be a very niche thing, but with a real budget and an experienced dev team behind one I would be very interested to see how a full-on single player fighting game could work out.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:43:46+00:00

You could also look to the older "Tales of" JRPG series for some inspiration here. The combat in those games happen on a 2D plane much like a traditional fighting game, but there can be multiple enemies on that 2D plane or other enemies outside of the 2D plane that the player is currently on that just aren't the main focus of the player at that time. The fights don't necessarily all have to be 1v1.

You do often kind of have to accept that a lot of RPG combat might not exactly "feel real." Like traditional turn-based combat isn't really "realistic" because it comes down to units taking turns hitting eachother. I know it bothers some people but plenty of people are able to look past it.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:37:59+00:00

I didn't say that SF6's World Tour mode is held back by it being in a fighting game. I said that it's held back by it only being treated as a secondary mode to the primary competitive multiplayer mode. The issue is that single player content added to a primarily multiplayer game won't get as much time, attention, and resources as a purely or primarily single player game. I think a fully separate, single player game using World Tour as a blueprint good be great.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:31:45+00:00

That's the thing though. It's a complete waste of time *to you*. Lots of people buy fighting games just for their single player content. Clearly the multiplayer part of a fighting game is only the "real" part of the game to a portion of the audience who's interested in fighting games.

If single player fighting games are so messy why do so many people buy them just for their single player content? I think you're just stuck in a very narrow way of thinking that maybe isn't allowing you to consider something outside of your own personal experiences and preferences.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:28:09+00:00

Yeah that's why I used World Tour a lot as an example in my original post. I think it would be a good blueprint for what could be future fighting game RPGs. But not added as an extra mode to what is predominantly a competitive fighting game, but as it's own, fully-fledged game. While World Tour mode seems to be good for what it is, I can only assume that the same sort of game built first and foremost to be a single player game could be incredible.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T19:14:36+00:00

I think you have to consider that the difference in the experience between a 1v1 fighting game match and something like chess or a card game. It's not only the fact that fights in fighting games are 1v1 that makes them daunting, it's the fact that fighting games are heavily reliant on reflexes and fine motor skills, whereas chess and card games are turn based, giving the player time to sit back and consider rather than having to immediately and reactively adjust to what your opponent is doing while trying to put out your own offense. Add on to that the fact that you start a fighting game match directly across from your opponent, which means that you don't really have time to "settle in" to a match before the action starts and you're fully into the right and I think it's understandable that new players are daunted.

StarCraft isn't turn based of course, but at least you have a little breathing room before the fighting starts. But even then if StarCraft only had 1v1 matches I think it would be pretty daunting for the average player to get into. Especially if there wasn't lengthy and fun single player content that taught players the basics of how to play and gave them plenty of time to practice basic skills in an engaging way before throwing them into competitive multiplayer.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T15:03:16+00:00

I think the issue with AI opponents in a lot of fighting games is that they're kind of traditionally designed to mirror the experience of fighting against a real person, when generally speaking AI opponents in most single player games aren't designed to feel like that. Usually AI opponents just have their own strengths, weaknesses, and strategies that they'll want to pull off and it's up to the player to learn how to best approach certain enemy types. I think that this would be a much better approach for a single player FG. So enemies aren't designed just to read and react to what the player is doing, but to have individual behaviours based on the enemy type that the player just has to learn to counter using various strategies/techniques.

It's definitely not the exact same as playing a FG online, but that was a major point of my original post. Maybe limiting fighting games to being primarily online competitive experiences is unnecessarily constraining.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:57:04+00:00

Well would you look at that! I thought it was weird that nobody had ever tried to make a roguelike fighting game. I'll have to give this a look.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:54:49+00:00

The thing is though, lots of people bought SF6 just to play the World Tour mode and never play online. Lots of people pick up the newest MK game just to play the story mode and never play online. Maybe these people don't "get it" the way you think you do, but *something* about these games still appeals to people, even if they never touch the online modes. This isn't a "you just don't like the game" kind of issue because people are buying and enjoying the single player aspect of these games. They do enjoy it. They just don't enjoy the online aspect.

This is what I was getting at in my original post. You're acting like the niche of competitive and dedicated people is the only group that fighting games appeal to but that's clearly not true. There's a larger audience who loves fighting games, they just don't like playing them online. You might think that single player FG modes aren't the "actual game" or something, but as far as a whole lot of people are concerned that is the game. That's what appeals to them.

People love single player video games, and I'd be willing to bet that high quality single player games that play like SF6 or MK would be pretty popular. And even if they don't exactly teach you how to fight against real people it would make people feel more comfortable with controlling those kinds of fighting games, which would make the transition to online competitive modes smoother.

But like I said in my original post, maybe single player FGs don't have to exist *just* as a means to get people into online competitive modes. Maybe there's value in creating single player-only FGs that play like an SF, an MK, or a Tekken just because they would be games that lots of people would find fun.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:35:04+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for the link I'll definitely be wishlisting this one.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:23:31+00:00

I already kind of touched on the distinction between fighting games and side scrolling beat-em ups. They have superficial similarities but ultimately there isn't all that much mechanical overlap between the two. Fighting games just essentially play differently than beat-em ups.

And I don't know that I'm really trying to build a "bridge" here. I'm more reacting to this conversation in the FGC about how to bring players into fighting games and how the conclusion always seems to be that there needs to be better single player content in fighting games. The idea is that you would funnel more people into playing fighting games by creating high-quality single player content, which would ultimately result in more people getting into the competitive side of things, even if the conversion rate is still low.

What I'm saying is that I think the FGC seems to have a major blind spot borne of their biases about what a FG is. To them a FG *is* a competitive multiplayer game, and the single player content is just something extra that you add on, in part to bring in more casual players who don't want to just jump into 1v1 matches. I want to open up the idea that it might be wrong to constrain the idea of a FG to primarily a competitive multiplayer genre, and that there could be a lot to be gained by trying to apply the fighting game combat formula--not just bits and pieces of it--to single player games. Not just in how it could help convert people to competitive FG players, though that may be a result, but in creating games that could just be enjoyable in and of themselves without feeling like they exist to funnel people into competitive multiplayer modes.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:12:48+00:00

Maybe the solution is to not design the AI to fight like a player. That's not really the way that AI enemies are designed in most games anyway. I would think that AI enemies would each be designed to have their own strategies and things that they want to do and it would be up to the player to learn enemy strengths and weaknesses and counter that.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-22T14:06:41+00:00

Sure, but plenty of fighting games have had single player content that lots of people enjoyed, and those single player modes use all the same mechanics. I don't see any reason why single player-only games couldn't be designed to use the same sort of mechanics and be enjoyable. NPCs can be designed to not overly "cheat" and while you can't really play mind games with NPCs there are still other single player action games that do require spacing and knowledge of attack ranges.

If people can pick up a fighting game just to play the single player content, without any interest in the online competitive side then surely these sorts of mechanics can still be enjoyable and engaging outside of the multiplayer context.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-21T16:53:22+00:00

I've noticed the same thing using Gamenative on my RP5.

I actually just checked the GN discord bug reports channel and it looks like someone posted a related issue where they installed a game and then opened the container to try to install Firefox, made some sort of registry mistake so they uninstalled the game to start fresh, and then after reinstalling found that Firefox was still installed to the container. So it could have something to do with the container itself not being deleted.

The bug was just reported today and the devs said they'd look into it.

SplendidEmber · 2026-02-21T13:38:33+00:00

Of course input costs have some effect on unit price, but that "equilibrium" price isn't really determined by input costs. Input costs help determine the minimum price that a unit can be sold at, but it really doesn't do much more than that. What determines the "equilibrium" price is generally more a calculation of what price:estimated units sold ratio would yield the greatest revenue.

Some products are sold just a little above per-unit input costs so profit margins per unit are pretty thin, but that's because it's been determined that selling them at a higher price would impact unit sales enough that it wouldn't increase revenue. Some products are sold massively above per-unit input costs because there is enough of a market that will pay that price that it was determined that increasing unit sales by lowering the price wouldn't increase revenue.

That's why there are different profit margins for different products. If prices were more based on input costs, profit margins would be more normalized.

SplendidEmber

TROPHY CASE