In 1985, Sunsoft released a Japanese arcade game called Ikki. Many years later, a sequel has arrived in the form of Ikki Unite. The game depicts a feudal farming village that rises up to overthrow its evil overlords. Up to 16 players can team up online in the Steam version of Ikki Unite. Nintendo players will soon be able to join in the feudal fun when the Switch version arrives on April 18 courtesy of Sunsoft and Plug In Digital.

What's up with the gaming industry ? Seems like most of the hyped up releases in the last year hit the streets and got immediately dumped in the "Mixed" (at best) reviews category for everyone to soon forget. We won't name any names, but it is sad to see - especially for co-op titles that depend so much on an active player base.

Shoot 'em ups come in many shapes and sizes. One of those is Crystal Comet, an upcoming Steam-exclusive shooter from a new developer called Rewdan Sprites. This one will feature 4-player local co-op, AI teammates, a story mode with full voice acting, and a very indie art style. The freshly released demo shows off all these features and more.

Not long ago, Secret Base and Modus Games announced that Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons will be getting a free update with online co-op and three new characters on April 4. They didn't announce the identities of all three characters at that time, however. Now we know: Yagyu Ranzou, Chin Seimei, and Sonny Lee from Double Dragon 3 are the free DLC characters. I called it!

While we do our best around here to play nothing but cooperative games, from time to time, a non-co-op title slips in. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes from developer Rabbit & Bear Studios and publisher 505 Games is a JRPG that's too exciting to overlook. It was directed and produced by Yoshitaka Murayama, the creator of Suikoden series, who sadly died in February. The game promises to be a spiritual successor to Murayama's beloved series.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons from Secret Base and Modus Games was one of the best beat 'em ups to come along in 2023, featuring nonlinear game design, a variety of unlockable characters, and an excellent soundtrack. The only missing element was online co-op. That will finally change, thankfully, when the much-requested online multiplayer update arrives on April 4, along with three new characters and more. Double Dragon fans are in for a treat!

When there are islands in the sky, somebody's got to explore them and go on adventures - nothing else will do. That's where Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure from Snowcastle Games and Jetpack Collective comes in. Following the release of the Steam version last fall, Ikonei Island is finally about to arrive on consoles. With 4-player online co-op and a helping of fresh content, this will be a great time to set foot on the island.

Make me farm by myself, and I'm not having any fun. Let me farm with friends, and things get much livelier. The developers at Untold Tales realized this, and so they've just added online co-op to their 3D farming adventure, Everdream Valley. At last, a team up of up to four friends and get down and dirty together - in a colorful, family-friendly way, of course. The co-op update has arrived on Steam ahead of the console versions, but they'll be getting multiplayer in the future as well.

In the early 2000s, the Star Wars: Battlefront series captivated gamers with its combination of ground and air/space battles and large-scale multiplayer. Some years after that, EA confusingly released two new games with the same titles. Adding words to subtitles is hard! Thankfully, the newly released Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection from Aspyr Media has its own distinctive words to let us know that it's a collection of the first two Battlefronts in one convenient package. The collection is out now on consoles and Steam.

Bunnyhug and Coatsink's Moonglow Bay is a charming voxel-based fishing adventure that arrived on Xbox and Steam a few years ago. Soon, the moon will be glowing on PlayStation and Switch as well. That's good news on its own, but the existing versions will also get a big update that adds a camera mode, new quests, and other content. Everybody wins!

The Contra series of run-and-gun shooters has persisted since the debut of the original arcade game in 1986. Naturally, this includes some ups and downs, with 2019’s Contra: Rogue Corps recently failing to win over critics and fans. This led some to question whether Contra: Operation Galuga, developed by WayForward and published by Konami, wo...

Jeff Minter is known for his love of llamas and also his creation of the Tempest video game series. Now, thanks to the preservation efforts of Digital Eclipse, players can experience a huge volume of Minter's work via Llamasoft: the Jeff Minter Story. This retro collection features 42 classic games, hours of documentary material, and much more. Luckily for us, four of the included games have 2-player local co-op!