Cooperative video game
Cooperative gameplay (often abbreviated as co-op) primarily refers to a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates with the absence of player-controlled competitors. Cooperative gameplay is usually built around the single player mode of a game, modified to allow additional players. Often the story is modified and the difficulty level ramped up depending on the number of players in the game. Players assist other teammates in many ways: passing weapons or items, healing, providing cover in a firefight.
Compared to competitive multiplayer, co-op gameplay has been less popular in video games, as replacing computer AI with the capability for superior human opponents has tended to take priority. Technical limitations also hindered the increased action or graphics required for simultaneous co-op play, notably on early-generation home consoles. As controller and networking technology has developed, allowing for more games to allow more than two players on PCs and consoles, cooperative games gained in popularity, especially in first-person shooters and sports games.
Since the internet boom, PC game developers have shifted away from cooperative campaigns, instead opting to concentrate on adding competitive and team-based multiplayer modes for online play.
More co-op games were initially developed for the arcade and consoles than for computers. This is mainly because it is quite difficult for two players to use a single mouse and keyboard, while two controllers can easily be connected to one console.
History
Arcades
The first video games to have a co-op mode were primarily arcade games in the beat 'em up genre. One of the earliest famous examples was 1985's Gauntlet, a top-down action game allowing four different players, each an individual class, to work through the game's dungeon together.
1989 saw the release of two very popular titles, Capcom's three-player cabinet, Final Fight, and Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which allowed four players to fight simultaneously. Upon the release of these titles, the multiplayer beat 'em up became a very popular arcade genre. Many of these games were commerical tie-ins to existing comic book and cartoon franchises.
Though other developers would attempt to cash in on the growing craze, both Capcom and Konami would be the forerunners, producing another arcade title almost every year. Capcom followed up their success with games such as Magic Sword, Captain Commando, and Aliens vs. Predator, their final title in the genre being 1996's Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara. Konami put out a sequel to their TMNT game, an oversized 6-player X-Men cabinet, and a 4-player beat 'em up based on The Simpsons, among others.
Data East was also a notable producer of co-op beat 'em ups such as Bad Dudes and Captain America and the Avengers.
Though popular for several years, cooperative beat 'em ups would eventually become less popular and mostly give way to the following arcade craze, fighting games such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. One of the last arcade beat 'em ups to be released was Sega's Zombie Revenge in 1999.
Cooperative scrolling shooters such as U.N. Squadron were also well known in arcades.
Sports games were also popular co-op games, as they were easily suited to have more than one player play together against the computer, or more often on 4-player cabinet setups for 2-on-2 play. NBA Jam was one of the most popular arcade sports titles of the early 1990s. Several WWF wrestling arcade games were also produced, as well as Capcom's Saturday Night Slam Masters. However, cooperative sports gameplay would not become more widespread until later generations of home consoles with multitaps and four controller ports became standard.
Home consoles
Though consoles from the second generation of video games onward typically had controller ports for two-player games, most systems did not have the computing or graphical power for simultaneous play, leading most games that billed "2-player gameplay" as feature to merely be the single player game, alternating players, with competitive multiplayer being less common.
Many arcade beat 'em ups, such as Double Dragon, were ported to home systems with worse graphics than the arcade original. Alternating play replaced the arcade's co-op play in the NES version. Most other titles featuring 2-player were head-to-head sports titles. Though most of the console beat 'em ups were arcade ports, original franchises such as Streets of Rage and River City Ransom also became popular.
The run and gun genre was also popular for co-op games. Contra, for instance, was far more successful in its NES incarnation than it was in the arcade, and is famous for being one of the most popular co-op games ever, and was followed up with several sequels. Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis and the Metal Slug series for the Neo Geo were also well-received titles.
Co-op games in the RPG genre have generally been less common on console systems. The 1993 action-RPG, Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo offered two- and three-player action, once the main character had acquired his party members. Final Fantasy VI offered a form of alternating co-op play for its battles, with the second player taking control of half of the characters in the party. Namco's Tales series allowed multiple players to take control of individual members in its real-time battles in some of the titles, such as Tales of Symphonia, while the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games replicated the Diablo formula for consoles, offering 4-player simultaneous play through the game's campaign.
Electronic Arts has arguably probably produced the most successful co-op titles in history, as their various sports franchises have been consistently best sellers worldwide for nearly over a decade. The original NHL Hockey and Madden NFL installments on the Sega Genesis were key games, allowing two players or more to play against the CPU. Installments of both series, among other official sports franchises developed by EA, are published annually.
Many console games support split screen displays in order to show 2 or more players in different regions of the game. Split screen displays would usually split the main screen into either 2 or 4 sub-regions so that 2-4 players could roam freely within the game world. Many first-person and third-person shooter games use this technique when played in multiplayer co-op mode, such as the console versions of games in the Rainbow Six series.
With the the Nintendo 64, having four controller ports started to become a standard feature in consoles, as the Dreamcast, GameCube and Xbox all featured them. As larger multiplayer games became feasable, cooperative gameplay also became more available. The latest generation of video game consoles all feature wireless controllers, removing the past local player limits. However, its effect on multiplayer is probably less pronounced than the advancements of console internet capabilities.
PC
The release of Doom in 1994 was a breakthrough in network gaming. Though arguably deathmatch was both the most influential and most popular mode, Doom's co-op gameplay was also significant. Up to four players could travel through the entire game together, playing on separate computers over a LAN. Unlike many co-op games, the game's campaign mode was designed primarily for single-player, but the difficulty was tweaked to compensate for extra human players. The following four games produced by id Software (Doom II, Quake and Quake II) all featured co-op modes.
Since around the year 2000, most FPS developers have forsaken co-op campaign play, opting to focus more purely on either a more detailed and in-depth single player experience or a purely multiplayer game. Epic's Unreal Tournament series has practically eschewed single-player altogether, and the most significant releases of Doom III, Quake IV, and both Half-Life titles shipped without cooperative gameplay modes. The modability of these titles has enabled fan-created add-ons which enable co-op play in many of these cases, though.
Co-op still exists in the form of competitive teamplay, which has generally overtaken deathmatch as the dominant form of online FPS multiplayer, with realism-based titles such as Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 and Medal of Honor gaining dominance in the early to mid-2000s.
Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo was immensely successful, largely due to being the flagship title of Blizzard's online matchmaking service, battle.net. Though local network play was an option, the game's popularity came from its internet play, allowing many players to fight through the entire single player campaign together.
Most early computer role-playing games were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, but restricted to single player due to technical restrictions. The earliest RPGs featuring co-op were MUDs which would eventually became the MMOG genre, though it is debatable and variable if and how much these online worlds are designed around cooperative gameplay, depending on the rules of the virtual space.
Later PC RPGs became more powerful and flexible in simulating the shared real life RPG experience, allowing players to collaborate in games over the internet. The D&D-sanctioned Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games allowed up to 6 players to play through the campaign mode over network.
2000's Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption was the earliest CRPG to feature an online mode where a "storyteller" controlled a campaign much like a Dungeon Master, shaping and altering the game world against a party of human-controlled players. Atari's Neverwinter Nights was an official and comprehensive D&D simulator, featuring even more robust game-creation tools and developing a sizable online community. Besides an active modding community providing many fan-developed campaigns, the game was officially followed up with several commerical expansion packs.
Gameplay characteristics
Resource management
Platform games
In cooperative platform games or games that use similar elements, both players occupy the same screen and must coordinate their actions, particularly in respect of the scrolling. If the scrolling is limited to forward directions only, players can potentially cause the death of each other. For example, one player lagging behind could cause problems for his partner, as the screen will not scroll onward. A slow player could be fatal to his partner's attempt to complete a jump over a chasm, if say the chasm appeared on the screen but the ending surface however did not. In the vertical levels, one player can scroll up far too quickly and inadvertantly kill the other player in the process, as the other player would literally have the ground beneath him disappear.
Sports games
Local & Network Co-op mode
Co-op video games feature a multiplayer co-op mode which allow multiple local or network players to team up while playing the single player story. Local players either share input devices or use multiple controllers connected to a single console. Network co-op players join an existing game running on a game server via a computer network. These networks can vary from local area networks to wide area networks.
Due to the complexity of video game coding, co-op games rarely allowed network players and local players from mixing. If there were 2 local players playing a co-op game, a network player would not be able to join that game in progress.
Game Ending
Many co-op games feature a different ending when completed with multiple players. These games would sometimes not show the full ending, but rather a subset or short ending. The player would be required to complete the game in single player mode to view the complete ending.
Some co-op games even feature a new ending when completed in co-op mode. This new ending is unlocked only when players work as a team to complete the game. This ending is sometimes customised to suit the characters which were used to complete the game. This increases the replay value of the game. Many Beat 'em up games on console employ this method to increase replay value.
Video games with Co-op mode
Popular co-op games include Serious Sam and its sequel Serious Sam II, as well as Halo: Combat Evolved (only the Xbox-version supports co-op), and Sven Co-op, a free mod for Half-Life/Half-Life 2.
Other co-op games: