No dedicated servers for BioShock 2

By Robert Purchese Published 28 January, 2010

Un/ranked matches not separated either.

2K Marin has revealed that BioShock 2 will not support dedicated nor LAN servers on PC.

"There is always a finite amount of time for the development of a game," explained the developer on the Cult of Rapture website. "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.

"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."

BioShock 2 will not separate online matches into ranked or unranked affairs, either. But you will be able to use a lobby area to invite friends into your four-man team, and the game's matchmaking system will keep you together and pit you against teams of similar leaderboard rank and connection speed.

You'll also be able to create private matches for you and your friends to practice in without the results being recorded. Private matches will be capped at 10 players.

"We felt like having just one giant place to meet players would be easier for getting better matches, and it is very important to us that we never split your parties. We want you to make friends, play with your friends, and compete with your friends," added the developer.

2K Marin has also decided not to implement a 'kick' option to boot unfriendly players and 'griefers' from matches.

"There is no kick option as we felt like it often leads to more unfair kicking than fair kicking. We hope that because there are a variety of player goals and a multitude of options for ranking up and killing, the player will always feel like he or she is gaining something in a match with mean people and griefers," explained the developer. "If you do get matched up with one of those people, please report it, leave that game, and we'll try to smooth out the online experience as best as we can."

BioShock 2 will be released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on 9th February - yes, a Tuesday.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (37) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • hello_fi #1 2 years ago

    Makes sense. Any self respecting gamer would be playing this on a console anyway.

  • hiddenranbir #2 2 years ago

    Play the single player and then get out.

  • b00n #3 2 years ago

    Why would you play it on a console when it's an FPS and looks better on PC? I will be playing it on the 360, but if I had a more powerful PC, would definitely play it on that.

    If they ran out of time for dedicated servers, then they shouldn't have bothered with multiplayer at all and should have focused on a great singleplayer, with replayability.

  • Salaminizer #4 2 years ago

    it's annoying but I don't think it's unexpected. at least they got rid of this ridiculous nonsense of ranked vs unranked matches.

  • TitusCrow #5 2 years ago

    piss on these clowns! I will avoid this like the bubonic plague!

  • Murton #6 2 years ago

    I get the feeling that the single player isn't going to be all it could be either. Generally speaking whenever a purely single player gets multiplayer bolted on it loses something. Uncharted 2 was a welcome exception to this but in my experience you can either have great singleplayer or great multiplayer, you never get both.

  • bad09 #7 2 years ago

    Well on the plus side at least it's over Live and not some god awful system of their own making which lags to the point the game was pretty much unplayable.

    Anyone up for a game of MW2 on PC? Nah I thought not.....

    (To be fair IWnet may have improved by now but it's too late for me to care)

  • altitude2k #8 2 years ago

    Is it last November, already?

  • Pulsar_t #9 2 years ago

    Let's hope they give us a decent ending this time.

  • metalmike25 #10 2 years ago

    They shouldn't have bothered with multiplayer. It also seems like they didn't really have much time or resources to actually make it good. Anybody remember multiplayer in The Darkness? It still gives me nightmares

  • ignatiusjreilly #11 2 years ago

    It's still a step backwards, which is a shame in gaming, but there's unlikely to be many clans or much of a multiplayer community for Bioshock 2, which I always thought was the worst thing about losing control of servers.

  • cianchristopher #12 2 years ago

    Modern Warfare 2 on PC may have been a disappointment with its lack of dedicated servers - but at least it's (pretty much) playable! They didn't cripple the game with GfWL, limited activations and SecuRom/StarForce/Tages...

    Just for that, I gave 'em a pass - and the game is a blast to play! Not perfect, no, but not malware either...

    This, on the other hand, has fuck all going for it on PC!!!

  • geeza2020 #13 2 years ago

    Surprise surprise, the Bioshock 2 multiplayer just feels more and more tacked on the more i hear about it. My hopes for this game have plummeted in the last couple of months. Everything i hear, regarding single or multiplayer just smacks of desperation from suits trying to chuck in as many features as possible to their "franchise" to get appeal to as broad a demographic as possible, despite the fact that as a result all the feature sound like they will be poor. IMO.

  • muscleblade #14 2 years ago

    I wont be finished with ME2 when BS2 comes out so i guess my next game will be AVP (i have high hopes for this).

  • jellyhead #15 2 years ago

    I'm waiting for the SP reviews first, no launch day purchase for me.

  • Zomoniac #16 2 years ago

    in my experience you can either have great singleplayer or great multiplayer, you never get both.

    Halo, Half-Life, GoldenEye and Call Of Duty 2 disagree. But generally, yes.

  • cianchristopher #17 2 years ago

    Actually, Zomoniac, I don't think Half-Life ever really had a great multiplayer mode. Sure, there was Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress - but they're not Half-Life, per se.

    I'd add CoD4, CoD:WaW and MW2 to that list! (What, I enjoyed WaW and MW2 - did anyone else?)...

  • captain_Carl #18 2 years ago

    Uhhhh i really wish they had just never bothered making this sequel.

  • Bulbatron #19 2 years ago

    I very rarely even bother with multiplayer, but I'm thinking of giving the BioShock 2 multiplayer a go - I think the setup for it sounds quite good.

  • metalangel #20 2 years ago

    I'm sure Bioshock 2 multiplayer will be the surprise mp favourite of 2010; and not a rough, ropey spamfest of fire and ice plasmids or players circling each other emptying tommy guns into their opponent until whoever fired first wins.

  • MasterNameless #21 2 years ago

    You're all a bunch a moaning, miserable bastards. Cheer the fuck up, people! Ironically, I posted this because all the negativity really gets me down, and no doubt I'll be neg'd through the roof for this post!

    I, for one, can't bloody wait for this game, loved the first one.

    You can all carry on moaning now. Don't forget to neg me, and be miserable and pissed off about pretty much anything.
    Edited by 1 at 28/01/10 @ 13:56

  • [TR] #22 2 years ago

    MrParker: "Multiplayer games feel more hassle than they're worth lately."

    Developers sure seem to think so!
    For a while there I actually thought MP was going to become more than just a bullet point on the back of the box for many SP focused games, but it seems determined to stay that way.
    And I'd imagine that LAN play shouldn't be much different than online MP. Just a lot faster and more reliable for those that can/care to have a few PC's connected to a LAN. No idea why it would be that great of a technical difficulty.
    I mean, the developers must have used a LAN environment at some point while testing the game, right?

  • muscleblade #23 2 years ago

    A friend is reviewing the game. He tells me that the multiplayer is the best part of the game. Believe it or not.

  • muscleblade #24 2 years ago

    @metalangel

    Im sure you are right. The singleplayer is lacking though according to my friend.

  • jellyhead #25 2 years ago

    and as i'm a predominantly single player gamer who couldn't care less about MP the news of the SP game being a bit disappointing is, well... disappointing.

  • Machiavellian #26 2 years ago

    The multiplayer for BS2 actually is not something that is tacked on. There are two teams working on the game. One is doing the single player and another is doing the multiplaye(Digital Extremes)r. From what I have read, both teams have been working on the game since development.

  • GamesConnoisseur #27 2 years ago

    The earlier posts seem to give a consensus that the MP game was unnecessary tacked on, but the later posts and seem to believe that the reviews will say otherwise. That MP is actually a game in its own right.

    So if that is the CASE, would we expect a same level of anger and disappointments that was given to MW2 MP? That would be a fair assessment but another question is would future games be more reliance on peer MP support?

    Are publishers tired of having the responsibility to support dedicated games in the age of second hand market where they take zero profit for hosting matches other than an initial sale?

    Suppose a better happy medium in the future is where games are downloaded directly and gamers subscribes a bit for dedicated servers? Just posing questions as there is another 'AAA' game that takes the same route as IW.

  • mintycabbage #28 2 years ago

    How about you smooth out the experience by adding dedicated servers?

  • jellyhead #29 2 years ago

    Dedicated servers on the PC side of things are usually rented by the clans so there's little publisher involvement at all for most dedi games.

  • Katsumoto #30 2 years ago

    Gutting. No Hamachi then. At least there's the option for private games, but I do wonder if devs enjoy all this negative publicity they know theyll get by making such a decision. All publicity is... etc.

  • hahayou #31 2 years ago

    Bioshock 2: sloppy, rushed, inexplicable DRM, missing features, and apparently designed by people who don't actually play games... I mean, you can't kick AFKers? What the hell is that?

    I loved Bioshock :(

  • M4RV #32 2 years ago

    Quite honestly, I always forget this game will actually have a multiplayer component... Either way, this trend is saddening nonetheless. :\

  • Pablo2k5 #33 2 years ago

    @ cianchristopher "This, on the other hand, has fuck all going for it on PC!!!"

    What? apart from better graphics and control scheme?

    @ hello_fi "Makes sense. Any self respecting gamer would be playing this on a console anyway."

    If I remember rightly the PS3 version ran like a dog with it testicles caught in a door.

    The PC was the superior version.
    Edited by 1 at 28/01/10 @ 19:37

  • metalangel #34 2 years ago

    @muscleblade: When the tacked on multiplayer is the best part, you have to worry. I can't honestly say that this game has looked good at any stage of its development, in any of the previews I've read of it over the last year or so.

    This isn't because I'm disappointed that a proper prequel isn't being made. It's because this seems like it could well become the new textbook definition of a cynical corporate cash-in sequel. I enjoyed Bioshock, but it was wearing very thin towards the end, as a story, as a gameplay mechanic (splicers taking entire clips of fully modded machinegun ammo to go down). A sequel promising 'more of the same' with a bunch of retcons (locations the metro never even offered to take you to, characters never mentioned before) to justify it forcing itself into the fiction doesn't wash with me. Hell, just like System Shock 2 (which, like it or not, Bioshock was nothing more than an art deco, dumbed-down retread of) it completely lost its way in the final third and they couldn't come up with an ending to do it justice.

    Cynical/hater/it's out yet? Can you honestly tell me, from what you've seen, that this is going to rock your gaming world as hard? Nobody makes a fuss over their second kiss.

  • Skurmedel #35 2 years ago

    At least they have a seemingly honest and valid reason. If they don't have time then they don't, but I wonder, can't it be patched in later?

    Also, it's not entirely true that dedicated servers needs no support from the developers. In general they need to supply a master server which the servers can register too and clients can query for servers. Like a repository of servers. It's not a must though, but omitting it means that players will have to find server IPs themselves which hampers the user experience.

    They will certainly need to provide one in this case, because I assume it's some kind of P2P solution with matchmaking. For 360 maybe Microsoft provides one, but I doubt they will for PC.

    I agree though, no dedicated servers on a PC game is mostly disappointing.
    Edited by 4 at 28/01/10 @ 23:48

  • modernwelfare #36 2 years ago

    what i dont get is when i look around these articles on games its the same opinions that people are never happy with what theyre paying for or theres too much of one thing and too little of another

    they dont realise theres no such thing as a perfect game and this is no example i think the one game i can credit in sayin thats its both as fun offline as it is on is the last 3 call of duty series
    now theres probably lots of world of warcraft nerds crawlin round here so ill be delicate but its a solid series of games consistently being brought out and modern warfare 2 has fully lived to the name and its length in gameplay anyonewho plays it will know that i mean its made not just video game history but entertainment history and for all u haters how can over 10 million people be wrong for buying it but some sad little bitches sitting criticising it be right?

    one expression diff horses for diff courses

  • Quak #37 2 years ago

    The necessary libraries for dedicated server support will already exist in over a dozen formats and would require nothing more than tweaking and appropriate graphics for the GUI. This guy suggesting that they don't have the time to code it from scratch is a bit ridiculous.
    Edited by 1 at 29/01/10 @ 10:09