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BioShock 2 has no LAN or dedicated servers

Published on 28th January 2010 by Joe Martin

BioShock 2's multiplayer will have no LAN or dedicated server support according to a new FAW.

2K Games has quietly revealed that BioShock 2 will have no support for dedicated servers or LAN gaming, much like Activision did with Modern Warfare 2.

The news was slyly revealed in a massive Multiplayer FAQ that's hosted over at the official site for the game, which tells that the multiplayer experience will be the same across consoles and PC.

"Do you support LAN play on consoles or PC? Do you support dedicated servers?" questioned the blog. "Short answer, no and no," came the reply.

"There is always a finite amount of time for the development of a game. Bringing multiplayer to BioShock was a daunting task between the tech (there was no multiplayer support in the codebase from the first game) and the expectations of the community," explained the FAQ.

"Either you try to do everything and so nothing feels finished or you focus your efforts to do a smaller number of things really well like an accessible online experience. We chose to spend the time we had creating a solid game foundation and unfortunately that did not include LAN play or dedicated servers."

The article also explains that there are no ranked or unranked matches either, though there is a "hybrid system" that allows for players to form parties of up to five players to enter the matchmaking system with. There's also an online leaderboard. Yay.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums and check out our BioShock 2 preview for more info on the game.

43 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

steveo_mcg 28th January 2010, 12:04

Cue angry ranting... Here we go again.

Psy-UK 28th January 2010, 12:10

Quote:

Bringing multiplayer to BioShock was a daunting task between the tech (there was no multiplayer support in the codebase from the first game)...

UE3 (which is what this game runs on) supports LAN and Dedi multiplay out of the box. So what exactly is the problem?

Hardware150 28th January 2010, 12:18

meh, i never played bioshock 1 online anyway, so this doesn't really affect me. However, if this has caught on to a lot of developers and the new games im actually interested in, then its a bad day for me.

Its been said before, but it seems to me that game developers are looking for anyway to save money, so they make an xbox 360 game, then add on the pc "extras" of keyboard and mouse support, as well as DRM to stop the pirates (then the game gets released by pirates the day it comes out in the store anyway). Also im not very coherent today, headache ftl.

Gunsmith 28th January 2010, 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hardware150
meh, i never played bioshock 1 online anyway,

please have a basic understanding of what the hell you are on about before you oepn your mouth. in future :|

bioshit 1 didnt have any kind of multiplayer whatsoever.

jesus christ i seem to be surrounded by retards today /rage

Elton 28th January 2010, 12:24

Well this is...odd, how can you not have dedis? Have they not seen the backlash that MW2 got for doing the same?

[PUNK] crompers 28th January 2010, 12:27

is anyone really that bothered? this MP will likely be poo anyway. and bioshock is a console game, let em have it.

Greentrident 28th January 2010, 12:34

I liked Bioshock but it was a singleplayer game only - not every game has to have multiplayer to be good - just as not every game has to have a single player side to be worth getting. What's the issue?

Bede 28th January 2010, 12:36

I can't think of much more rubbish than Bioshock MP anyway. The story and art design was great, the gameplay was fairly dubious. Multiplayer takes the story out, nerfs the art design to make things balanced for team deathmatch, and leaves you with mediocre gameplay with ooh-shiney lightning etc.

Thedarkrage 28th January 2010, 12:38

I'm not getting it anyway cus it uses the rubbish games for windows live! So I'm not touching it didn't really like the first one much i got bored after i killed Ryan.

[GAH] Cheesey 28th January 2010, 12:40

/epicfail

bob 28th January 2010, 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elton
Well this is...odd, how can you not have dedis? Have they not seen the backlash that MW2 got for doing the same?

MW2 made loads of money regardless; at the end of the day its the only thing that matters.

lacuna 28th January 2010, 12:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardware150
meh, i never played bioshock 1 online anyway,

please have a basic understanding of what the hell you are on about before you oepn your mouth. in future :|

bioshit 1 didnt have any kind of multiplayer whatsoever.

jesus christ i seem to be surrounded by retards today /rage

Saying he didn't play the non-existent MP makes no difference to the point of his post so how about you just chill out.

D3s3rt_F0x 28th January 2010, 12:48

So in short what hes said is we couldn't be arsed or we were told to stick to schedule.

I wouldn't mind if they didn't implement the MP, they didn't in the first and it didn't stop it being a great game for me. But if they are, they might as well do it properly.

hrp8600 28th January 2010, 12:54

Bioshock is a single player game any way realy who cares about online or Lan play ? no real problem here

As for MW2 making loads of money , wonder how much more it will make once BF BC2 comes out ?

Psytek 28th January 2010, 13:04

Why the **** does it even have multiplayer?

thEcat 28th January 2010, 13:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by D3s3rt_F0x
So in short what hes said is we couldn't be arsed or we were told to stick to schedule.

hum...

[QUOTE=Psy-UK]

Quote:

UE3 (which is what this game runs on) supports LAN and Dedi multiplay out of the box. So what exactly is the problem?

Ah...
If this is fact it sounds more like 'they' made a commercial decision to fall into line with the default mp support offered by Microsoft - it is after all 'the most popular mp system there is' - err, make that 'the most widely used' - err, make that 'the only option people have left these days because MS likes it that way' - wonder if they're thinking of ways to moneytorize it (again) some day?

Silver51 28th January 2010, 13:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elton
Well this is...odd, how can you not have dedis? Have they not seen the backlash that MW2 got for doing the same?

It seems to be the trend where games have been developed cross platform. It seems to work for consoles, but PCs... well, we're used to having dedicated servers. It's by no means a right, but in my experience it does make it more difficult to get an mp game working.

Borderlands was the last one we tried. Everyone on mics in Steam chat attempting to talk the non-techie friends through opening ports in their hardware firewalls. It wouldn't be a problem if people got their **** together and agreed on a standard set of ports for P2P games and had them pre-configured on home routers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
... jesus christ i seem to be surrounded by retards today /rage

Ha, ha, ha... moo!

do_it_anyway 28th January 2010, 13:26

Clever. Get the pre-orders in by announcing cheap deals and freebies, then announce this afterwards.
Am I really that bothered? I suppose not, but it definately shows the way PC gaming is going

Hardware150 28th January 2010, 13:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
please have a basic understanding of what the hell you are on about before you oepn your mouth. in future :|

bioshit 1 didnt have any kind of multiplayer whatsoever.

jesus christ i seem to be surrounded by retards today /rage

well that would explain why i didn't play it online then won't it O.o

bioshock was a meh game, but i bought it for single player (and couldn't have bought it for multiplayer), and i probably won't buy bioshock 2 anyway, and i was only commenting on the fact that this isn't a bad thing for me, but if it is introduced on some other games i actually play online, then it would be a bad thing.

So please, don't take your rage out on me and incinuate that i am a retard just because i assumed bioshock 1 had multiplayer, i own it and played through it once, and even if it had multiplayer i wouldn't have been in the slightest bit interested in it, so please shoot me for my insinuate statement.

Flame ftw.

Gunsmith 28th January 2010, 13:40

you think you got it bad, you should have seen the bollocking i gave my binmen this morning.

kingred 28th January 2010, 13:40

Hey guys.

I love bioshock 1 and will probably play bioshock 2 through different methods. I only pay for multi player experience and if its bad, i dont think so tim.

docodine 28th January 2010, 13:40

They probably saw MW2's sales along with the backlash. :-|

VaLkyR-Assassin 28th January 2010, 13:42

This news doesn't really bother me too much - I'd only want to give the MP a brief try anyway. I'm not all that interested in the MP side of this *particular* game, just the SP.

cyrilthefish 28th January 2010, 13:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elton
Well this is...odd, how can you not have dedis? Have they not seen the backlash that MW2 got for doing the same?

The same way they've added excessive DRM despite the backlash they got from doing it on Bioshock 1 i guess.

They do seem to be going out of their way to give me reasons not to buy the game

steveo_mcg 28th January 2010, 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrilthefish
The same way they've added excessive DRM despite the backlash they got from doing it on Bioshock 1 i guess.

They do seem to be going out of their way to give me reasons to buy on console

fixed that for you :)

Hardware150 28th January 2010, 14:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
you think you got it bad, you should have seen the bollocking i gave my binmen this morning.

Crysis 2 looks that bad huh?

Gunsmith 28th January 2010, 14:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hardware150
Crysis 2 looks that bad huh?

LMFAO have rep for making me genuinly laugh out loud. :):)

fodder 28th January 2010, 15:09

A lot of people I know ended up buying MW2 as COD4 had been so damn good and thought they would give IWnet a chance, just in case it was ok to use.

It's not, and never will be. We are all slowly migrating away from it back to COD4, especially as the 'lag' is getting slowly worse and the 'party closed, or whatever it is, is getting so frequent that joining a game can take more than 15 mins at times.

So, 2K games is stating that they didn't have time to create a dedi and lan based MP, yet IW say that the IWfail took a lot of effort and development to get the matchmaking etc running.

Jeez, at least get your industry BS consistent boys, that way we may believe you for more than a few seconds.

ZERO <ibis> 28th January 2010, 15:30

lagg on servers that are owned by the maker of the game instead of private dedicated servers, never! I mean I am sure that they are just so motivated to provide high quality servers that even private groups competing for donations or profits would never be able to be so motivated.

DarkLord7854 28th January 2010, 15:37

Well, if the MP's gameplay won't ensure the death of Bioshock 2 MP, laggy p2p games certainly will.

Pretty annoying how lately all games have been announcing no dedi servers. I'm really getting tired of this.

flaming_goat 28th January 2010, 17:40

It just takes one big game to pave the way. I think we will see lots more games without dedicated servers in the future. Most of their customers don't know or care about dedicated servers.

I dont see what they get out of it. Dedicated support cant be hard - practically all older games have it. I guess the just spend their time on matchmaking for console gamers instead.

bahgger 28th January 2010, 18:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunsmith
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardware150
meh, i never played bioshock 1 online anyway,

please have a basic understanding of what the hell you are on about before you oepn your mouth. in future :|

bioshit 1 didnt have any kind of multiplayer whatsoever.

jesus christ i seem to be surrounded by retards today /rage

Haha, this!

Ficky Pucker 28th January 2010, 18:07

i can't see why anyone would buy this game, especially for MP, but its worrying to see "everyone" making crippled MP on pc games.

Mentai 28th January 2010, 20:20

I don't think a major title has appealed to me less than Bioshock 2, and it keeps looking worse and worse. I wish they wouldn't tell such bold faced lies about it though, dedi and lan support is piss easy. This "we didn't have time, we were too busy creating something to live up to the communities expectations!" is utter crap. Especially considering that they failed the community before they even started by forcing P2P on them. I get the feeling that by the time I get through my back catalog of games and come back to MP there will only be P2P :(

Maybe it'll at least be functional by then?

wuyanxu 28th January 2010, 20:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by docodine
They probably saw MW2's sales along with the backlash. :-|

same thought exactly. just getting more publicity for its sequel.

but i sure hope the host migration works. unlike MW2, since 1.0.175, i am almost guaranteed to get lost connection or migration failed message on 2nd or 3rd game. and don't get me started on the horrible lag spikes.

1ad7 29th January 2010, 06:24

****ing epic bullshit, now comes the time to see if I can hold out. I will for sure not buy this now until its $10 or under, just like the last. Im sick and tired of this crap. LAN is a staple of PC gaming, ****ing MW2 has set a precedent.

impar 29th January 2010, 10:43

Greetings!

Well, at least they dont hide it is a console port.

Digi 29th January 2010, 11:03

Despite the no-dedi's thing in MW2 a few hundred thousand people a night still play it and enjoy it. I am not saying that's a good thing, but companies know if they release a good product then eventually people will PROBABLY buy it. Especially if all their mates have given it in.

The small % that would complain are acceptable loses when making this kind of money.

PureSilver 29th January 2010, 11:20

Why and how would you want to play multiplayer Bioshock? Bioshock is a long, lonely single player with a strong storyline. There's no story justification - in fact you'd have to bend the story like a banana to create co-op play. If it's just free for all last-man-standing, then there are surely better games with more appropriate settings...?

Krayzie_B.o.n.e. 30th January 2010, 04:14

I really don't see Bioshock as a Multiplayer game. I don't remember congress passing a law that says every game has to have a multiplayer mode.
Bioshock is a great single player experience and it should stay that way.

Just because MW2 made crazy money doesn't mean everyone should follow it's format. MW2 is all hype and hot dog filler for No0bs and kiddies.

Bioshock should stick to what made it great and it will do fine.

M_D_K 1st February 2010, 07:36

+1 console gamer,

Meh don't care, didn't care about MW2 non dedicated servers.

It's monday, Get over it.

Pay for the story like you did with Bioshock 1.

gavomatic57 1st February 2010, 08:43

I'm not buying it for multiplayer, so I don't care. As long as the single player game is good, I'm happy.

drathjon 7th February 2010, 18:25

"is anyone really that bothered? this MP will likely be poo anyway. and bioshock is a console game, let em have it."
What are you talknig about? Bioshock wasn't a console game, it was for pc and xbox360. There getting lazy again and man i hope they dont have as many problems as cod mw2. That matchmaking system was broken beyond belief. BF BC 2 got it right? Why is everyone having so much trouble making dedicated servers? Its so easy, Stop being lazy.