Single-player

In computer games and video games, single player mode is when there is only one person playing the game alone (as in non-cooperative or non-networked play).

The opposite is multiplayer mode.

Most computer games were single-player in their beginning, and the majority of games produced today have at least some single player aspect. Two-player games appeared with the first personal computers, and soon in the early 1990s there were games which utilised LAN networks and null modems for multiplayer mode. Today most multiplayer games are played over the Internet. While single player mode was the main selling point of early compuer games, robust multiplayer gaming modes have become integral to the popularity of modern compuer games. So important have multiplayer modes become that many modern games are primarily or even exclusively multiplayer. Examples include first-person shooters such as Counterstrike and real-time strategy games (RTS) such as Starcraft or Warcraft.

With the introduction of mobile phones, single-player games had a revival since the low performance of mobile phones didn't allow the game producers to incorporate multiplayer mode in their games. However, today most mobile phones have enough power to handle multiplayer mode, and hence such games are starting to appear in the market.

Certain game genres are inherently oriented towards single player in their design. Such genres include puzzle games such as Tetris, and plot-based computer role-playing games (CRPGs) such as the Final Fantasy series. Recent additions to these genres, such as the Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) Everquest or online multiplayer versions of Tetris are serving to undo this trend.

The vast majority of console games and arcade games are designed so that they can be played by a single player; although many of these games have modes that allow two or more players to play (not necessarily simultaneously), very few actually require more than one player for the game to be played.