I know there will be some more organic titles like Helldivers 2 getting popular and of course the much loved Deep Rock Galactic. I wonder though if we're going to see more and more co-op based stuff being pushed as devs seem completely uninterested in trying to solve the issues of multiplayer games if they can't retain control of the playerbase. The co-op genre by itself I don't have a problem with, I'm just not that interested in it.
Seems that the next logical conclusion for these bastards is to start making a push for catering to casuals and console players a lot more and pump out boring online only co-op scenarios that aren't remotely challenging and then proceed to spam microtransactions in peoples' faces. My reasoning for this is that it gives players something 'new' to try and they don't even have to worry about all of the problematic stuff like balance or hacking that often comes with more competitive based titles.
This makes sense to me, but it's so damn cringe because it's the safe and easy option and bores me to death. More and more it's becoming clear that AAA studios are simply not interested in catering to gamers who want to be challenged because it's too much of a challenge for them to make something good.
TLDR: Smol pp AAA studios are pussying out of the overall gaming market to cater to normie console peasants by trying to normalise co-op gaming and avoid all other genres.
Not artificial, just cyclical. There have been several popular co-op games recently and the industry follows trends.
But you're missing the elephant in the room. Streaming. Co-op games are ripe for streamer cross-pollination. Streamers are incentivized to play together because it potentially grows their individual followings. By giving them a game to do that within, you can pull a lot of eyes to your game. Friendly fire fits with the theme of Helldivers 2, but it also creates fertile ground for clipable and memeable moments which spreads awareness of the game. It's free marketing.
It's not unique to co-op. Party games and social competitive stuff like Among Us also can target this niche.
Another thing too is that coop games, when successful, can lead to (very loosely) 4x profits simply because you can get entire groups of friends buying a game in bunches.
I feel like Borderlands set the trend for this, given how they ended up selling Steam-bundles based on that idea.
Arghh yes that explains the push for 4 players and why they seem to refuse to cater to more 2 player content.
Maybe. But if you've ever tried to get a group of > 4 friends together to play a game, you know that is gets exponentially difficult to find open windows. If you want an 8-man co-op, you basically need a static group with scheduled playing times. 3-4 you can manage with a "anyone want to play?"
Even with 3 - 4 people it can be a struggle, I do miss the old days of local gaming where it was just a matter of getting 4 friends on a couch. I feel like online 2 player would be a much better experience. Faster to do matchmaking and it's less of an issue if the gameplay is based around 2 players or they at least design scenarios to work for bother.