Single-player games are not dying.
Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Hades, God of War — these are not niche releases. They sell millions of copies to an audience that specifically wants this format. The format is fine.
What is actually declining is the mid-budget single-player game. The $50-60 release from a studio of 50 people, 12-hour campaign, no multiplayer component, shipped and done. That specific tier is being squeezed. Production costs have gone up significantly. Indie tooling has improved to the point where small teams can produce work that competes. The middle ground is uncomfortable.
The live-service argument — that games with indefinite update cycles are more profitable and therefore single-player is economically unviable — has been tested fairly thoroughly by now. There are enough failed live-service games in the graveyard that publishers are measurably more cautious. Every live-service launch is a bet that your game will be one of the ten that survives, not one of the fifty that gets shut down 18 months after launch. Single-player games do not carry that risk. They release, sell, and are complete.
What does change is that the economics reward scale. Studios that consistently make good single-player games tend to be either very large or very small. The studios in the middle are the ones making uncomfortable decisions about what they can still afford to build.
None of this changes the actual value proposition. Single-player games are places. You inhabit them. That is a different kind of value from multiplayer — not comparable, not lesser.
The format is not fading. It is concentrating.