A lot of people play Solitaire while in a voice chat with others (myself included, occasionally), does that mean Solitaire needs a multiplayer mode? Because the second you add multiplayer to solitaire, it literally becomes a different game. Is that game better than the original? It doesn't matter, because it's already different and thus not the intended vision. Obviously, you already agree with me that adding voice chat effects the games atmosphere like you said. But you admitted to playing the game in voice chat all the time, so clearly the actual games atmosphere is not your priority here—it's messing around with friends. That's totally fine! There's tons of games like that already for messing around with friends. Not EVERY game needs to be developed so you can mess around with friends.
The question here is if the game itself get IMPROVED from multiplayer, or just pushed into being something it wasn't intended to be? I believe that is what would happen, and this game is so unique and special I would be truly bummed if it got multiplayer slapped onto it and became the next "wacky zany streamer game". Fans aren't always right. I don't need a partner in the mountains. Keep it solitary, please. If the game isn't fun enough for you without multiplayer, maybe you just don't actually like the game that is being developed as much as you think you do.
*sorry about all the edits i wrote this before coffee. added another edit to type this lmao