Just Cause 3's Probably-Not-Maybe Multiplayer

Will Just Cause 3 have multiplayer? Just Cause 2's wonky-but-ace Multiplayer Mod showed that - surprise surprise - running and driving and flying and grappling-hooking and exploding all around an open world with your chums can be pretty fun. An actual, proper, made-with-access-to-the-source-code multiplayer mode could be something special. But Just Cause 3 won't have one, Avalanche Studios have said. Probably. At this point of the game's marketing campaign, it's hard to tell how much of this is a firm declaration, how much is uncertainty, and how much is The Official Marketing Line. Don't get your hopes up, in short. But maybe don't be surprised. Oh, I don't know!

Thanking the fans who made JC2 MP for helping keep the game alive, Avalanche co-founder Christofer Sundberg told Game Informer: "We don't expect the fans to make the multiplayer for Just Cause 3, but at some point you have to make a choice on where your focus is. Our strength is the sandbox experience, and we want to deliver a great Just Cause 3 experience."

And then he teased, "Maybe sometime down the line, we'll take Rico into the modern world of multiplaying." Okay, good. Now is that "maybe we'll make multiplayer" in the way that I'm thinking "maybe I'll have soup for lunch" (I have a pot of chunky vegetable soup in the fridge), or in the way that I'm thinking "maybe I'll run a marathon one year" (I have never run farther than 5 miles and am bad at long-term planning)?

And then there's this: Square Enix's cloud computing arm Shinra Technologies has a few folks in Avalanche's offices, and told GI they are working on "a possible future collaboration" with 'em. Of course, they wouldn't go into any details about anything specific. When pressed, they conceded that it would "make sense" for hypothetical Just Cause 3 multiplayer to do all its physics in a magical technocloud. But they're not talking about any specific game or project, just ideas.

In conclusion, video games.