January was a bit on the quiet side in terms of co-op titles - at least compared to other months. So in the end there were still more than enough titles released to keep everyone and their friends occupied. A couple of examples: Shoot'em up fans got Wings Of Bluestar as well as Raiden IV x MIKADO remix, Monster Hunter Rise finally hit Microsoft and Sony consoles, retro gamers rejoiced upon the release of the Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection, the unique survival-platformer Rain World received a co-op DLC and strategy fans can now enjoy Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Xbox (both using a controller or connecting keyboard/mouse).

Fifteen years ago we embarked on a journey. Frustrated with the state of information about cooperative games in the renaissance of online gaming, we set out to catalog all of the important bits of information about non-competitive multiplayer. On January 28th, 2008 Co-Optimus was born. 

VooDolls is an upcoming Steam game from French developer SideRift and Tate Multimedia in which a team of living voodoo dolls must work together to protect their puppet master from hordes of angry demons. The full game is scheduled to arrive on Steam in April, but the Voodolls closed beta runs from January 1-23. We've go...

Tower defense games are fun enough, but things really heat up when players get to hop into the action instead of just commanding from the sidelines. We'll be seeing plenty of action in VooDolls, an upcoming Steam game from French developer SideRift and Tate Multimedia. Up to four online players will team up as voodoo dolls who have to defend a ...

It's always fun to ride a mount in games. Indie studio Moving Pieces Interactive knows this, and so they've build a whole game around it called Shoulders of Giants. In this third-person shooter/Roguelike, gamers get to play as gun-wielding frogs who ride around on the shoulders of giant mechs. It's a promising premise, especially since ...

A couple of years ago, Blowfish Studios released a charming action platformer called Infinite - Beyond the Mind. Infinite features an attractive 16-bit style, fast-paced gameplay focused on melee combat, and 2-player local co-op. Now that the digital version has been out for a while on all platforms, Strictly Limited Games is gracing Infinite with physical editions for PlayStation and Switch. What's more, these editions will be offered with two different covers: one featuring each of the game's heroines.

In 2021, Resolution Games released Demeo, a VR game, to Steam Early Access. The game soon received a non-VR edition called Demeo: PC Edition which finally graduated from Early Access (and received a new campaign) in December. Demeo is a "cross platform cooperative adventure" that looks and plays like a fantasy-themed board game. Now that the full game has been released, I jumped at the chance to try it out in both 2-player and 4-player online co-op.

Sports games are competitive in nature, but that doesn't mean they can't be cooperative as well. The upcoming Volley Pals, from indie developer NAISU (maker of Mokoko X and several upcoming games), adapts the sport of volleyball while also allowing two local players to compete against an AI team. That's how you do it, folks! Preorders for the Xbox version of Volley Pals opened up this week, and Switch preorders are soon to follow.

WayForward's Spidersaurs is a charming run-and-gun shooter that launched digitally last year. The game combines the excitement and challenge of Contra with a colorful Saturday morning cartoon style. It also features 2-player local co-op, a helpful feature when blasting away at hordes of dinosaur/spider hybrids. Collectors will soon have a chance to join in the fun now that Limited Run Games has opened preorders for both standard and collector's editions of Spidersaurs.

It is done. 2022 is over and we wish you a happy new year. 2023 is special to us because Co-Optimus celebrates its 15th Anniversary. On January 28th 2008, the site finally went public. But that's a topic for a different news item. We're instead here to talk about December 2022, a month our very own arcade aficionado, Paul Acevedo, enjoyed very much thanks to releases like New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, River City Girls 2, Jitsu Squad, and Bubble Bobble for Nintendo Switch. Otherwise, it was actually a rather quiet month with "only" around 42 new releases. So at least during the holidays we did have a bit of time to work on that dreaded backlog before the madness continues in the new year.

Welcome back to Beyond Co-Op Reviews, our critical look at games that don't feature co-op modes....

Despite a few gaps in releases now and then, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a gaming mainstay for over 30 years. It started with Konami’s first NES game in 1989, and then things really blew up with the arrival of the arcade game that same year. TMNT: The Arcade Game showed the world that the Ninja Turtles and co-op go together lik...