Despite the popularity of the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod, Just Cause 3 won't have a multiplayer mode. Just Cause 3 game director Ronald Lesterlin explains why.

Fans of Avalanche's Just Cause 2 wanted multiplayer in the game so badly that they actually built a multiplayer mod for it themselves, which has proven to be quite popular. Despite the popularity of the multiplayer mod for Just Cause 2, Avalanche previously stated that there will be no official multiplayer for Just Cause 3, a stance the company has now elaborated on.

Basically, Avalanche decided to focus on creating a high quality single player experience, as opposed to developing single player and multiplayer simultaneously. The studio felt that a robust social experience could still be accomplished in Just Cause 3 even without multiplayer, through things like the Twitch streaming functionality of the new-gen consoles, leaderboards, and with the numerous Challenge Modes that will be in the game.

Game director Ronald Lesterlin explained Avalanche's thought process behind not including multiplayer in Just Cause 3 as part of a recent interview with GameSpot:

"We did talk about [multiplayer] a lot. The modding community even created a multiplayer mod for Just Cause 2 that was super fun, really cool. The same way that Just Cause 2 was known as a beautiful sandbox in a giant open world, and it surprised many people that consoles could even do that, we wanted to have that same experience... with updated physics and player mechanics, and concentrate first and foremost in the main player."

Even though the multiplayer mod for Just Cause 2 has been a popular add-on for the game, it's probably wise for Avalanche to focus on the single player experience first. After all, the bread and butter of the franchise so far has been creating large open worlds for players to explore solo, so while multiplayer would be a nice addition, if the single player experience suffered due to multiplayer, fans wouldn't be happy.

Furthermore, multiplayer could be added to Just Cause 3 in the future. Avalanche has hinted that there's a possibility of an official multiplayer update or expansion down the road, but even if that doesn't come to fruition, there's always the modding community that introduced multiplayer to the series in the first place. And with PC mods coming to consoles at some point, there's a chance that even console players would be able to enjoy a hypothetical Just Cause 3 multiplayer mod as well.

Whether multiplayer winds up in Just Cause 3 or not, the game should please fans of the past two entries, judging by what we've seen so far. We don't have to wait much longer to see if Just Cause 3 can measure up to its predecessors, as the game will be available at the beginning of next month.

Just Cause 3 will be available on December 1st for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: GameSpot