Good cooperative games have seemed to fade out into near extinction. It seems like back six or seven years ago there were a lot more games to play alongside your friends for the entire game.

There are always games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty Zombies, but either is a game that we could pick up and play start to finish through the campaign together. Although, there is a few. Dead Island is a pretty good game that you can play start to finish co-op, aside from the prologue or tutorial.

However, Dead Island is an older game remastered on next gen. consoles. A newer example of a fun co-op game is Far Cry 4, which is a ridiculously open world shooter game. Unfortunately, you can’t play the main story together, only the side quests, which seems like kind of a half-hearted attempt to make a game co-op.

The games that are co-op, nowadays, seem to be all the same. If you find a game that is co-op and it has good ratings, it’s probably a zombie survival game or an overhead role playing game.

Why has cooperative play gone out of style?

It could have something to do with the trend that started about four or five years ago where games would sell out and add gameplay that drove microtransaction for companies to make more money.

Microtransactions are a more recent invention in the gaming world. The gaming companies try to sell content that can be bought buy for 99 cents or a couple of bucks on top of the money you paid for the game itself.

It’s more likely a combination of the rise of microtransactions and the fact that people would rather be competitive with their friends rather than play with them. That burst of joy of triumphing over your friends is just so much sweeter than killing the computer with them.

Maybe we are heading in the right direction as Far Cry 5 has been announced to be totally co-op throughout the entire game. Also, Destiny and games of that type have begun to pick up a lot of traction. 

There are fairly anticipated titles coming to the market that will include co-op like State of Decay, which is a zombie survival game, Battlefront 2 and Anthem. This seems like a promising step towards cooperative inclusivity.

Hopefully, in the next few years, there will be a large push by the gaming community for more cooperative games. If there is one thing most gaming companies are good at it, it is listening to their fans. If enough gamers say they want more co-op, big game companies are bound to deliver. 

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