Tuesday, December 29, 2015

2016 PC Coop Games

Welcome the definitive listing of all the cooperative oriented PC video games for 2016!
This list will be continuously updated throughout the year.

Coop list for a different year 

The games on this list, must meet the following criteria:

  • PvE - Player vs Environment
  • Online, no split screens
  • Available/announced for PC
  • Involve 2 or more human players
  • Players must work along a progressive storyline, campaign, or various goals
  • Generic RTS Skirmishes and Team based game types like CTF and Deathmatch are not included
  • No MMOs (game must have a conclusion or set goal)
  • Greenlight & Early Access games are generally not listed unless intent for release is stated
  • I'll be subjective with Survival/Horde modes as the genera has matured a bit. However, most are slapped-on after thoughts and not list worthy.

Shooter


Plant V Zombies 2: Garden Warfare
Metacritic - 82 ]
3rd person tower defense game similar to the last but more flushed out and perhaps less micro transactions.

Battleborn - 4 player - May
Metacritic - 69 | video ]
From the makers of Borderlands, its a 1st person PvE MOBA like game with a SP/coop story.


The Division - 4 player - March
Metacritic - 79 ]
Tom Clancy's open-world RPG shooter oriented around a pandemic in New York.


Killing Floor 2 - 6 player
Metacritic - 75 ]
Coop wave battles, with better graphics & more gore.  More sci-fi guns.

Shadow Warrior 2 - 4 player
Metacritic - 78 ]
I didn't play the original, but it looks a heck of a lot like a Painkiller game.

Homefront: The Revolution - 4 player
Metacritic - 54 ] 
A separate set of missions, separate from single player story. Picking from classes with different abilities, following little stories.

Gears of War 4 - 2 player
Metacritic - 86 ]
Action shooter bromance returns to PC. Oddly, coop is the big selling point for this series.

Space Hulk: Deathwing - 4 player
Metacritic - 58 ] 
Takes the Space Hulk concept of space marines wondering in a gothic space ships shooting space bugs, ala 1st person l4d.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - 2 player
Metacritic - 86 ]
DLC adds survival mode

RPG


Grim Dawn - aRPG
Metacritic - 83 ]
In developmeny forever, this will be released this year.

Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear - RPG - 6 player - Q1
Metacritic - 77 ]
An expansion for the Enhanced Baldurs Gate, takes place between 1 and 2 with option to carry over players from v1.ED.  25 hours of gameplay.

Moon Hunters - aRPG 4 player - Jan 2016
Metacritic - 62 ]
Procedurally generated pixalated Diablo clone.


Strategy

RollerCoaster Tycoon: World - 2 player - Q2
Metacritic - 43 ] 
Build a theme park with a friend. Details limited.

Plague Inc: Evolved
Metacritic - 80 ]
Work together as the Plague to wipe out humanity

Thea: The Awakening - 2 player
Metacritic - 73 ]
2015 game that recently added coop to the non-linear campaign.  A survival 4X RPG roguelike with crafting and card combat

Action


Enter The Gungeon - aRPG/shooter - 2 player
Cute cartoony Isometric shooty fest.  Second player limited to a single character.
Metacritic - 84 ]

Ultimate Alliance 2
BAD
Older Marvel superhero game that never made it to the PC.  Port has been reported a down right the worst in recent memory.

Super Dungeon Bros - Action
BAD
Looks like a fantasy version of BroForce.  Cross Device gameplay (Xbox & PC)

Cobalt - platformer - 2 player
Metacritic - 69 ]
Notable as its from Mojang

Ghostbusters
Metacritic - 38 ] 
Isometric shooter takes place after the new movies.

Necropolis - 4 player
[ Metacritic - 59 | video ]
Rouglelike dungeon crawler made by the Shadowrun Devs.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan - 4 player
Metacritic - 51 ] 
Continuing from the success of the retro transformers game using cell shading; We get a full campaign of TMNT as a throwback to the old coop arcade era.


Simulator


Trackmania Turbo - Driving Arcade - 2 player - Q1
Metacritic - 79 ]
2 players control same car.  Unclear if this is online or local only coop.

Survival

Don't Starve Together - Survival 4 player
Metacritic - 83 ]
Due to popular demand, developers add coop to the Don't Starve license.

Congo - Survival - 4 player
[ no review | video ]
Isometric survival game where you and friends scavenge for stuff in the jungle, fighting off demons that hate the light.

In the 2015 coop summary, I mentioned coop gaming was slipping into a slouch.  For 2016, the slip has become a landslide. AAA play it safe with well worked formulas (such as Gears of War 4, Grim Dawn, Baldur’s Gate expansion);  other AAA tack on Coop to a already srtong franchise (Tomb Raider); while the indies tire the field with 8 bit mundane crap.  Speaking of tired, I am damn tired of games stuck in early access, to the point I pulled about 10 of them from the list.  I'm done waiting one more year for these unfinished games that can not commit to a deadline. Needless to say, there was not much to get excited over coop gaming in 2016.  Hopefully this can only mean that we'll have less games, but of better quality for 2017.

9 Shooters avg 74.  A 2 point decrease, continuing the slide down.
4 RPGs, avg 70.  Breaks even with last year.
3 strategies, avg 65.  A drop of 15.

The Winners

Don't Starve Together
Indie dev Klei does the survival PvE genera proper.  Instead of tacking on a coop component that you could try and  play friendly, Don't Starve Together reinvents the original Don't Starve with strictly coop in mind.  The result, is a well thought out, clean, and wonderfully original feel to an otherwise washed out field of all the same.  It great to see that something that came by popular demand by their fans, were given such a warm response instead of a modded experience.  The other plus, the game gets regular enhancements after launch.

Plague Inc: Evolved
Running with the successes of the tablet game, Plague Inc for PC adds coop, where 2 viruses can work together to wipe out humanity.  Game adds additional gameplay elements to offset the extra player

Notables

Local Coop
When I started these lists, I had a strict online coop only requirement.  In part it was to exclude all those damn Lego games and help keep the list short.  The down side, I've missed out on some fantastic coop experiences.  True, couch coop tend to be platformers, but the genera has seen some really great content recently; thanks in part to indie developers.   Games like Child of Light, Never Alone, and Salt and Sanctuary are all artistic expressions of entertainment with all unique takes on the same genera.  Looking forward to more original local coop experiences.


The Losers

Nostalgic games based on movies
Ghostbusters - Ultimate Alliance 2
Crappy nostalgic movies will always make for crappy games.  Some place, some where, there is an executive that thinks that if you combine all that the right check boxes, such as a great IP , and coop, and explosion;. then you'll get a fantastic game.  Nope, you just get metacritc scores under 60.

EA Games - Gears of War 4
EA's insistance to keep games out of Steam, has left PC gamers wondering if the game ever came out.  Gear's was a fun series, and its great it returned to the PC.  But who knew?  Because it never showed up on the most popular PC marketplace.

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