Last month during a Direct broadcast, Nintendo finally locked in a release date for Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, confirming the two-in-one title would be coming to Switch on 21st April 2023.
If you are worried about any last-minute setbacks (again), it seems the game is now officially in the all-clear. Nintendo’s Twitter account has reassured fans there’s now “just one month” to go until this classic series makes its grand return.
EVE Online developers CCP Games are working on a new game set within the EVE universe. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it will use blockchain technology, after CCP received $40 million (around £32.7 million) from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Playing as a scion of the hereafter fighting his way through the realms beneath in a roguelike graveyard shift might sound familiar. I also played Hades. But Have a Nice Death let me take control of your boy, Death himself, who runs a very different kind of quirky, new underworld order. Full of dark and dry workplace humor, this clerical reimagining of life after death as a soulless corporation forms the backdrop for some wicked hard, frantic, side-scrolling combat. And at its best, it’s a killer time, even if the progression systems don’t do the best job of providing ongoing motivation.
Slaying my way through randomized levels and laying the smackdown on the various, rank-and-file deadbeats was the highlight of this Stygian adventure, with fast and responsive combat featuring a lot of different techniques to master. A variety of swappable scythes with multiple special attacks each are just the beginning. You can also unalive the undead with magic spells and secondary weapons found randomly throughout the levels – from a big, beefy hammer to a sorcery that summons a flock of hungry crows. In addition to responsive jumps, dashes, and powerful “frenzy” finishers, no dust-up is lacking for variety.
Each chapter, based on a different method of death, from war to food poisoning, is distinct and full of new enemy types. One moment I was swatting away slimy seagulls who died in an oil spill, and the next I was doing aerial combat with bubble-headed nerds who suffocated on chewing gum. The designs, both visually and in terms of how they attack, are consistently creative and charming. And the excellent soundtrack compliments all of the mayhem very well.
These are some incredibly unforgiving fights.
Along the descent into darkness, you’ll be collecting red, green, and blue Curse cards, which sounds bad, but these are actually the main passive bonuses you can stack during a run, like adding bleed to your weapons or getting health back when you defeat a boss. And its in the offices of those brutal Thanagers and Sorrows that the difficulty really kicks in. These are some incredibly unforgiving fights, and given your very limited defensive options, they can be very frustrating. Memorizing patterns is essential, as the margin for error is too small to really get by winging it, which can be aggravating when your run ends to a miniboss you haven’t seen in a while due to the randomized floors.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
For capital D-Death, lowercase-d death isn’t that big of a deal, of course, as you’ll simply get sent back down to your office to live again and hopefully take revenge on your disobedient underlings. And you get to hear a catchy little jingle every time, too. The main issue I ran into is that the long-term progression systems don’t really give you a feeling of momentum that would have been quite welcome considering the steep difficulty curve. Almost everything you earn goes away as soon as you’re slain.
Let me put it like this: You can kind of break up the types of persistent upgrades you get in a roguelike into three categories. First, you have straight-up permanent increases to your stats. Second would be things like rerolls that don’t necessarily make you stronger directly, but increase your chances of having a good run with good items. Finally, you have unlocks that merely add more abilities or passives into the pool of available drops. Have A Nice Death focuses heavily on that last category, and there is very little meaningful power to earn in the other two. One of the level up perks gives you a whole one percent increased chance to find rare weapons. That just feels like a joke!
It took me over 100 runs to even see the final boss, and I was feeling worn down well before that.
I don’t mind really punishing games, usually. I like to be challenged, and I’ll always be a prisoner to my ambition. But at least in something like Hades or even Elden Ring, I feel like my many defeats are all building to something and I’ll eventually overcome the challenges before me by getting stronger little by little, alongside my skills improving. It takes the sting out of those lose-lose days when it seems like the first boss is just kicking my ass every time I see him. And without much of that persistent progression to look forward to, I found my enthusiasm to keep going in Have A Nice Death was often on a downward trajectory. It took me over 100 runs to even see the final boss, and I was feeling worn down well before that.
CURSED NIGHT
You can eventually unlock elevators that let you skip a lot of normal stages and go directly to some of the big bosses, but this ends up hurting more than it helps as you miss out on all the currency and upgrades you would have earned on those floors. So it’s not really a way of building momentum, but rather another way to make everything more challenging. That said, every elevator does give you a choice of which type of level to visit next, with the exception of the ones that lead to area bosses, which can have a major impact on how well kitted-out you’ll be for the tougher challenges. Knowing which floors are more valuable in which situations, thus, becomes a huge help. And I definitely appreciated that extra bit of control over each run’s progression.
If you’re really feeling stuck, you can activate an optional “Self-Fulfillment Mode” that gives you some extra healing items and slightly nerfs normal enemies, but it doesn’t change the boss fights at all and I found it to not be that much help. It’s definitely not an “Easy Mode.”
Even when I was feeling stuck, at least I was always being rewarded with new lore. The afterlife’s various departments are in turmoil, and as you seek out lowly ghosts and dissident department heads to make them afraid of you again, you’ll unlock entertaining snippets about how this postmortem corporate bureaucracy works. Similar to Hades, you’ll also get new dialogue with the various friendly characters like your pumpkin-headed receptionist. Some of them even have humorous long-term storylines to follow.
These made me chuckle more than once, and at the heart of it all is a powerful conspiracy to uncover. Some of the jokes can feel a bit tired, like they’ve been used in every workplace comedy ever. They even directly reference the stapler in jello gag from The Office. But the off-beat setting and quirky tone keep things interesting.
Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom and all its DLC are available via Xbox Game Pass. Level-5’s JRPG is set long after the events of the first game, has a new cast of characters, changes up combat a lot, and adds a sizeable kingdom management element to the game. I know people who like it and people who hate it, which in itself makes it interesting.
There are also a bunch of games leaving Game Pass at the end of the month, including Chinatown Detective Agency.
Hello there, fellow Agents! It’s been a long time coming, but I’m incredibly excited to announce that Deceive Inc. – my studio’s brand new social stealth PvP extraction shooter – is out now on Xbox Series X|S!
As Deceive Inc. Agents, you’ll be dropped into exotic locales – tasked with remaining undercover, gathering intel, and competing with rival Agents to thwart each respective evil villain’s plan for world domination. Secret agent caper? Nah! Just another day at the office.
Deceive Inc. is not your typical multiplayer game. One of the shining examples of this is in how we approach map design. Each map in Deceive Inc. effectively serves as its own tiny open world. Crawling with NPCs, secret corridors, a VIP villain, and more, the maps we’ve designed at Sweet Bandits Studios are purpose-built to feel uniquely alive and full of discovery.
To prepare you for your new life as a secret agent, I threw together this summary of all four maps available at launch. Just don’t tell IRIS, they may get mad at me.
Hard Sell
In the regal home of information broker-turned-supervillain, Sebastian Garcia, Agents must infiltrate an auction to steal the Bull’s Eye: an art piece containing a hard drive full of secret government data.
In operation Hard Sell, you’ll find yourself navigating Garcia’s Super-Villa as attendees and party-goers await a high-profile auction. As a tried-and-true super villain, Sebastian Garcia has retrofitted his mansion with loads of corridors and secret passageways to discover.
Silver Reef
As two disruptors in the world of high-fashion bulletproof fabric, the Evensen Twins know how to show up in style. Which is why they’ve booked the luxurious Frozen Coral Hotel for the unveiling of a brand new prototype. Fashion is serious business. Especially for Deceive Inc.! Which is why the Agents have been tasked with preventing this prototype from hitting the market.
A shining example of the extravagance and excess of high fashion, Silver Reef is a hotel resort designed to be pure spectacle, but it also serves another purpose. This map is the only one to feature two VIP characters, the Evensen twins. Having two VIP characters to disguise yourself as makes it twice as hard for players to sus out who could be a player, and who is the NPC. Use this tactic to your advantage.
Diamond Spire
Jati bin Teh is a force to be reckoned with. As a business mogul, actor, musician, and athlete; his sphere of influence has inflated to an incredibly dangerous level. His Aspire by Jati Tower contains a R&D Laboratory where they have reportedly synthesized a highly addictive secret ingredient for the entrepreneur’s new sports drink. Jati has become big enough. It’s up to Deceive Inc. to balance the market.
Diamond Spire is the Deceive Inc. map with the most verticality. How you approach exploring the map’s many levels will determine your success during the insertion phase. Choose your gadgets wisely, and you may find that the increase in mobility will help you sweep through this skyscraper quicker than your rival agents.
Fragrant Shore
For this mission, Deceive Inc. is sending you to San Flores – a gorgeous tropical port city in the Caribbean. Intel suggests that this quaint island getaway is also where fragrance maven Luana is synthesizing her new eau de parfum. Not only will it make you smell amazing, it will also give her complete control over your mind. If you don’t mind, follow the scent, and extract this toxin, agents. We’re counting on you.
Fragrant Shore takes place primarily outdoors. There are tons of alleyways to take cover in if you find yourself overwhelmed in a firefight. Once it comes time to infiltrate the vault, you’ll find that there are less places to hide, and you may come across a bottleneck that brings you face to face with your rival agents. Make sure you explore all of your options for entering the vault, as the most obvious option may not be the best one.
Stay up to date on Deceive Inc. by following @PlayDeceiveInc on Twitter and Instagram, and also make sure to join the top-tier agents over on our Discord! Most importantly, play Decieve, Inc.on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One today!
Go undercover as the world’s greatest secret agents in this multiplayer game of social stealth and subterfuge. Disguise yourself as anyone to blend into the crowd, deploy high-tech gadgets to gain the upper hand, and extract the package before the competition takes it for themselves! No trick is too dirty when you work for DECEIVE INC.
Game Features:
MEET THE SPIES – Pick your play style with a roster of diverse agents, each with their own customizable weapon and skillset. From world-renowned burglars to up-and-coming espionage sensations, DECEIVE INC. prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer.
GEAR UP – Create your loadout from a plethora of highly versatile gadgets. With agent’s favorites like the Inflatable mat, holo-mimic, and bulletproof umbrella, our world-class R&D department has you covered. Literally.
MASTER YOUR DISGUISE – Use your trusty holographic watch to avoid detection and infiltrate restricted areas by disguising yourself as one of the various types of NPCs. Or equip the holo-mimic gadget to fully blend in by taking the form of inanimate objects like toilets, chairs, plants, and more!
VISIT EXOTIC LOCALES – While working for DECEIVE INC., you’ll visit many locations all over the globe. Teeming with sophisticated NPCs and full of secrets for you to discover, every map comes to life the minute you load into a match.
CHOOSE YOUR MODE – Squad up with other agents and craft the perfect heist in Teams mode, or squash the competition as a lone wolf in Solos.
DECEIVE INC. also features support for gaming in 4K HDR at 60 FPS on Xbox Series X|S
Want to get a taste of what it’s like to work at DECEIVE INC.? From November 11th to November 13th come join us for an invite-only Closed Alpha Internship! (Unpaid and potentially unsafe, of course)
Tony Todd, the voice actor behind Venom in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, revealed that the game will release sometime in September. It was previously only revealed that it would drop Fall 2023.
On Twitter, Todd posted a picture of himself working with motion capture. When someone exclaimed that they couldn’t wait for more details about Spider-Man 2, Todd responded with, “Looks like September! Massive publicity coming in august. Commercials start dropping in august so I’m told. Hold on to your … and hold breath! Gonna be necessary.”
Looks like September! Massive publicity coming in august. Commercials start dropping in august so I’m told. Hold on to your … and hold breath! Gonna be necessary
Sony did not respond to IGN’s request for comment.
While this is far from a confirmation since Insomniac itself didn’t officially announce a release date, having the information coming from someone who is directly working on the game is worth noting.
Spider-Man 2 will follow Peter Parker and Miles Morales on their most epic-single player adventure yet. Both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales are available now on PC, PS4, and PS5.
In IGN’s Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales review, we said, “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fantastic follow-up, telling a wonderful story while improving upon the fundamentals of the first game.”
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey
For the month before the 3DS and Wii U eShops close for new purchases on 27th March, each day we’re going to highlight a specific eShop game for one of those consoles and give a short pitch as to why we think it deserves your love and attention — before it’s too late. The chance to add these to your library will be gone for good soon and, for one reason or another, these eShop-exclusives are close to our hearts.
Today, Gavin squeezes two tools into one non-game post…
After the destruction of the Antonov An-225 “Mriya,” the team behind Microsoft Flight Simulatorendeavored to recreate it in-game and begin the process of helping rebuild it in real-life.
We spoke to Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann to learn how this ambitious project got off the ground.
Available in the in-game store, you can fly the Antonov An-225 “Mriya” today in Microsoft Flight Simulator on both console and PC.
I’m a big fan of airplanes. Large ones, small ones, medium sized… Each one is extraordinary in their own way when you take a step back and consider how incredible it is that these manmade machines can conquer the sky. There have been thousands of unique aircraft designs that have taken flight; the SR-71 “Blackbird” for its otherworldly look, the P-38 “Lightning” with its unique H-shaped design, and the iconic B-17 “Flying Fortress” which lives up to its namesake as a literal fortification in the sky, are some personal favorites. But none have been quite as impressive as the Antonov An-225, affectionately known as “Mriya.”
Designated as the An-225, since it could carry up to a colossal 225 tons of cargo, the Mriya (which translates to “dream” in Ukrainian) was the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world. Originally created to transport the Buran-class orbiters in the 1980s before being retrofitted to carry oversized payloads, it housed six turbofan engines across its immense wingspan, two large vertical stabilizers, and a 32-wheel landing gear assembly — there was truly nothing like it.
Needless to say, it was upsetting when news broke in early 2022 that the only existing Mriya was destroyed during the Battle of Antonov Airport, at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
So, when I first heard the news the team behind Microsoft Flight Simulatorwas moving forward with an ambitious goal of not only recreating the aircraft for everyone to enjoy in their world-class flight simulator, but equally determined to bring the real Mriya back to life, I had to learn more. I managed to catch up with Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, shortly after the announcement of the aircraft’s launch in Microsoft Flight Simulator, to discover more about this amazing project.
“There was an outcry in the flight sim community that day [February 27, 2022] and all of us were really affected by the news,” Jorg recounts upon first hearing of Mriya’s destruction. “In our team meeting, there was an outpouring of sadness and shock. Personally, it struck me deeply as the Mriya had also been a symbol of mankind’s ingenuity… it was in that meeting that I quite emotionally said we need to preserve the memory of this great aircraft in our sim.”
“Personally, it struck me deeply as the Mriya had also been a symbol of mankind’s ingenuity.”
After the meeting, Jorg contacted Chief Pilot for Antonov Airlines Dmytro Antonov via LinkedIn and reached out to their Microsoft office in Ukraine. At that time, no one in Ukraine was able to talk to about digital preservation of the An-225, but one key contact, Alexander Matsko, embraced the idea of bringing Mriya into Microsoft Flight Simulator.
“It was delightful news for us, considering the high professional level of the Microsoft team and their high international reputation,” described Deputy General Director for Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines Viktor Avdieiev, upon hearing the news that Microsoft was trying to bring the An-225 back in a flight simulator. “This aircraft occupied a special place in global aviation history; no such other plane exists… Thanks to this product, many people get to know this powerful bird and will love it as we do.”
“We kept in touch over the tumultuous months,” Jorg described. “[Matsko] later introduced us to Antonov Company and really was instrumental in making this happen. On our side, I contacted Ubaid, the head of iniBuilds, a close partner of ours that had just completed an excellent rendition of the Airbus A310-300. He and his team of experts were equally enthusiastic, and work began shortly thereafter.”
It was that team of 17 at iniBuilds that brought the An-225 to life in Microsoft Flight Simulator. You can really get a sense of the passion they poured into the finished product because it’s such an extremely hyper-detailed recreation of the Antonov An-225, and players can now experience it on both Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC.
“This aircraft occupied a special place in global aviation history; no such other plane exists.”
“They [iniBuilds] did lots of online research initially, and collected open questions in a detailed list that was then sent to Antonov,” Jorg told me. “Antonov filled in all the blanks, which is why we were able to reach such a high degree of authenticity.”
“The specialists had the opportunity to visit Mr. Antonov and several other Antonov Company engineers in Leipzig, where they flew the digital plane together,” Avdieiev describes. “Antonov Company provided the original recordings of the An-225, and An-124’s engines were recorded to make digital Mriya sound realistic.”
iniBuilds had the full support of the Antonov Company and Mr. Dmitry Antonov, the Chief pilot of the An-225. Mr. Antonov also made a video series with lots of incredible detail that helped Jorg and his team to initially get going on the digital re-creation. Other details were filled in when the team met him and other Antonov pilots for a test session in Leipzig.
“It was truly an enlightening experience talking to the pilots who flew the Antonov An-225,” Jorg said. “The most unique point we learned was understanding the handling characteristics of such a unique large aircraft! Their feedback allowed us to make the aircraft fly as close to reality in Microsoft Flight Simulator.”
The pilots of Antonov gave the team real insight into the various areas of the plane and the uses they had. For example, they advised that being such a unique aircraft, the Antonov An-225 carried its own towbar to maneuver safely out of any airport it flew to around the world. One was specially modelled just like it for the simulator and can be seen in the cargo bay of the version found in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
“What if they could bring Mriya… back to life?”
But the team at Microsoft Flight Simulator were not merely satisfied with a digital recreation of the aircraft. What if they could bring Mriya… back to life? That’s when discussions with the Antonov Company went deeper on how they could find a way to help contribute to the rebuilding of this aircraft.
“We decided to give 100% of the gross receipts from the sale of the digital An-225 for one year after launch directly to Antonov Company so the money could be used to rebuild the An-225.” Jorg said. “If Antonov determines that rebuilding isn’t feasible, then the funds can alternatively be used to create a memorial to the plane.”
Proceeds from the in-game DLC will go toward rebuilding the An-225 and currently this is the only method through which the sim and gaming community can contribute to this effort. Still, it’s a lofty goal and if it doesn’t come to fruition, there are plans to find other ways to honor the aircraft’s legacy.
“We did not set a minimum donation but instead opted to give Antonov all the money we receive. We feel strongly that we want to help restore a national treasure to its former glory and highlight the resilience of Ukraine. So far, we’re thrilled with the reaction from the simmer community.”
“We feel strongly that we want to help restore a national treasure to its former glory and highlight the resilience of Ukraine.”
Asking Jorg what he hopes simmers take away from the experience of piloting this incredibly unique aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorg was insightful in his response.
“The Mriya is not just the world’s heaviest plane that broke, and still holds, a large amount of aviation records. Like much of [the aviation community], to me, it stands as a monument for what we as humans can achieve. The dream of flight goes back a very long time, and it was realized over centuries by brilliant minds around the world. The Mriya was, and is, a significant milestone in that aviation history and in the history of human ingenuity. I hope simmers will appreciate the engineering marvel of this aircraft and dream that the Mriya will one day fly in our skies again.”
In its latest submission to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, Microsoft responded to Sony’s concerns that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard would sabotage the PlayStation version of future Call of Duty titles. In its filing, Microsoft referenced a new remedy proposal that addresses Sony’s concerns of a “worse version of CoD titles on PlayStation consoles”.
Microsoft claimed that its current proposal would would actually encourage the Call of Duty developers and publishers to create a PlayStation version that’s optimized for the platform.
“As Microsoft will be shipping CoD on PlayStation in compliance with its remedy commitments… Microsoft will have every incentive to develop games with optimised support for PS5 features, such as haptics, and future consoles in order to maximise sales on the platform.”
Elsewhere in the document, Microsoft also wrote about the length of its proposed 10-year deal to Sony, saying, “Microsoft considers that a period of 10 years is sufficient for Sony, as a leading publisher and console platform, to develop alternatives to CoD.”
Earlier this month, a separate document submitted to the UK’s CMA included comments from Sony voicing concerns about the future of Call of Duty. The company was concerned that Microsoft could raise the price of Call of Duty on PlayStation, prioritize the Xbox version, or release a buggy build of the games on PlayStation.
Call of Duty has been the main point of contention during Microsoft and Sony’s battle over the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Sony has said the proposed 10-year Call of Duty offer will “irreparably harm competition”, while Microsoft has signed agreement after agreement to bring Call of Duty to nearly every platform under the sun, including Nintendo Switch. Sony has also said Battlefield can’t keep up with Call of Duty and claimed that “Game Pass leads PlayStation Plus significantly.”
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Many of the best board games are competitive contests, with players trying to one-up everyone else for glory and bragging rights. But not everyone has a competitive spirit. Not everyone wants to trounce their friends and family in their free time. Isn’t it better, at least sometimes, to set aside your differences and work towards a common goal? With the cooperative board games below, you can do just that on game night.
Co-op board games come in a wide variety of themes, with levels of complexity that you can find one for players of all ages. Below, we’ve hand-picked our favorites on the market. For more game night ideas, check out our other roundups, including the best board games for kids and the best two-player board games.
To call Gloomhaven a fantasy adventure game is technically accurate, but a bit reductive. It tells the story of mercenaries chasing different goals in a changing world, and the legacy they leave behind. Gloomhaven takes the legacy system from Pandemic Legacy and weaves it into an epic fantasy campaign that takes place over generations.
Each hero comes with a personal goal that, when completed, sends the hero into retirement and unlocks new classes and story elements. Upon retiring a hero, you will take control of another, which results in an impressive sense of time progression. The game includes several sealed boxes that are only opened upon reaching certain milestones, which makes Gloomhaven a game with a grand scale that is unmatched in the board game medium.
Exit: The Game (Series)
An escape room in a box, the Exit series of games does a surprisingly good job of simulating the real thing. Players work together to find clues and solve riddles in real time in an effort to complete the scenario. Each scenario tells you to bring some pens and a pair of scissors because you’ll be permanently modifying your game throughout the session, making these games a one-and-done experience.
There are many different scenarios available for purchase, with titles like The Secret Lab, The Abandoned Cabin, The Sinister Mansion, The Forgotten Island, The Mysterious Museum, and a lot more. Priced at around $15 each (and usually cheaper on Amazon), the Exit series is an ideal replacement for a night at the movies.
Paleo
At first glance, this game of stone-age survival doesn’t look anything special. You create a deck of cards for the scenario you want to play and distribute them between the players. Then you take it in turns to flip a card from your pile and face the challenges thereon with the skills and stone tools available to your tiny tribe. The magic happens when tribes come together, pooling their resources to overcome one tough encounter, but doing so loses them the chance to interact with the other tribe’s card. All at once, this mirrors a real slice of stone-age life, agonizing over passing up opportunities in order to secure an important prize, while giving players real emergent cooperation in how much they choose to aid each other. The survival narrative and variety of scenarios are just the icing on the rock cake.
Pandemic Legacy
Pandemic put cooperative games on the map, and for good reason. Much of the genre’s hallmark mechanics originated here, from action point allocation to player roles with unique abilities. It also spawned a bevy of expansions and spinoffs, but Pandemic Legacy is the best and more revolutionary take on the virus-eradicating co-op game.
It takes the core rules of Pandemic and stretches them into a campaign-length adventure played out over several sessions as you race to cure disease and prevent epidemics. This version introduces permanence as a mechanic, as the rules force you to rip up cards, sticker the board and alter the physical components in other ways as things (inevitably) don’t go your way. The only potential drawback is that you must play with the same players each session, but because the game is so good everyone will be eager to jump back in.
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is a daunting and dark game, but players willing to wade through the sea of iconography, hefty rulebook and stifling theme will be rewarded with a satisfying survival simulation that rewards communication and teamwork. Based on the 1719 novel, players take on the role of survivors of a shipwreck that are must work together to gather food, build shelters, stave off attacks and explore the island. The combination of different scenarios and player characters ensure good replayability, while the survival mechanics do a fantastic job of selling the theme.
Just One
A lot of games on this list are, to a greater or lesser extent, strategy affairs. But cooperation is a great mechanic to use in party games too, and Just One tops the list. All the players bar one get to see a clue, and they have to write down a word related to that clue. Then all the clues get revealed to the remaining player who has to guess the original word. Sounds too simple, except the catch is that if any of the clues are the same they get wiped, leaving the guesser far less to work with. It’s an ingenious idea that leaves players caught in an uncertain vice over just how obscure they cant get away with being, while still being worried they might be the victim of doublethink.
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
This is a “Living Card Game”, which means it’s kind of collectable, like Magic: The Gathering, but there’s no random element. You just buy sets and expansions knowing what cards are in each. And unlike a lot of LCG’s, deck building is easy because it’s modular, seeing players pick fixed sets of cards to create decks for their hero and the villain you’re all working against. The meat of play features some classic concepts like dual-use cards alongside novel ideas like each player being able to flip from their hero to their alter-ego, with different abilities and hand sizes. This sets up some really interesting combo-based play where you pull off cinematic moves as you work together to thwart the villain’s schemes and save the day.
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
You likely know trick-taking games from long time classics like Whist and Bridge. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea cleverly repurposes the concept into a cooperative game through the use of missions, demanding that certain players win tricks of particular types. So you might have to win a trick containing a yellow one, for example, or two consecutive tricks or even no tricks at all. This would be easy if you could show each other your cards, so your communication is limited to one card for the entire hand, recasting the game as a strategic puzzle with plenty of tension as you wait to see whether having to follow suit will tease out a critical card or fail the mission. Fast, fun and with fifty varied undersea missions, this is a pearl of a design. This game earned a spot on our best family board games list as well.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most enduring fictional characters of all time, and for good reason. Watching him solve a seemingly impossible mystery with all the confidence and bravado of a stage actor has been a favorite pastime of generations of book readers and television watchers.
With Consulting Detective, you finally get the chance to step into the shoes of Holmes and test your own deduction skills in a series of nonlinear mysteries. What makes the game great is how it refuses to hold your hand; each mystery presents a short setup and then sets you loose on London, leaving you to visit notable locations, interview suspects, and make educated accusations. Be warned, however, that these mysteries are tough, and may make you question your intelligence on more than one occasion.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
If your co-op group could use an eldritch touch, get Arkham Horror: The Card Game to the table. In this cooperative card game, players take on the role of detectives who are investigating various supernatural occurrences within HP Lovecraft’s world of cosmic horror. It’s a scenario-based experience with each mission at the mercy of an arcane Mythos, a set of conditions that must be met lest the investigators succumb to insanity.
Arkham Horror features customizable decks that are built around each investigator’s special abilities, and most scenarios can play out over a handful of sessions, lending a feeling of progression to the game. As you investigate new location cards, gather clues, and fight monsters, your detective will amass weaknesses that can hinder future games which, thematically, illustrate the mental toll of dealing with arcane horrors.
Spirit Island
Protect your island from a vicious mob of colonizers in this heavy co-op experience. Players are spirits of the land, and must use their unique powers to fend off settlers. Every turn, you’ll play a card from your deck of powers. Matching a card’s element with the element of the spirit usually grants a bonus effect, meaning that careful planning is necessary.
As the game goes on, the colonists will inevitably spread and ravage the land, making Spirit Island a race against the clock. They’re predictable, though, and if you plan efficiently you can head them off before they do too much damage. Players’ cards combo off of each other nicely, too, and there are few things in tabletop gaming as satisfying as eliminating a host of settlers in one fell swoop. Spirit Island is substantially more complex than other games of this style (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, etc.), making it an ideal choice for those seeking a meatier co-op experience. This game can also be found on our list of the best board games for adults.
The Mind
How well do you know your friends? The Mind asks this very question, and forces you to answer without a word. In this mind-bending experimental game, players must play cards from their hands to a common pile in ascending order, from smallest to largest. The deck contains the numbers 1 to 100, and the cards are dealt randomly each round. So, if you carry a 12 and another player has a 34, you must play your card to the center of the table before they do. The trick, though, is that nobody is allowed to talk.
The Mind is a tense game about body language and eye contact. Communicating what numbers are in your hand without speaking is as difficult as it sounds, and inevitably you’ll miss your window more than once. Your hand gets larger the longer the game goes on, too, and soon you’ll be sweating as you wait for the opportune moment to slap down that 52 or 71. It’s a bold design, and a game experience that you won’t soon forget.
Hanabi
Hanabi is a cooperative card game where players attempt to build a magnificent fireworks display by playing cards in rows numbered 1 through 5 in matching colors. The hook is that you cannot see the cards in your hand, but the other players can. On your turn, you can either play a card from your hand in hopes that it’s the proper number and color, or you can give a clue to another player about the cards in their hand. Cooperative in every sense of the word, Hanabi relies almost entirely on your communication and memory skills, which can be rewarding or frustrating depending on your outlook. Just be prepared for arguments when you inevitably play the incorrect card from your hand even after you’ve been explicitly (or so your partners claim) told what you’re holding.
Zombicide: Black Plague
Who doesn’t like to bond over some good old fashioned zombie slaying? Zombicide is a cooperative survival game where players work together to complete scenarios. The Black Plague version puts a fantastical spin on the original game, and drops players into the role of paladins, magicians, and knights to take down the evil necromancers responsible for the zombie outbreak.
You’ll pick up new weapons like crossbows and swords, explore a citadel crawling with the undead, and take on several missions in this dungeon-crawling adventure. It’s a tense and thematically-refreshing take on the tried and true zombie formula with surprisingly easy-to-learn rules.
Cthulhu: Death May Die
Cooperative games where you try and save the world from some deranged monstrosity out of the work of arch-racist HP Lovecraft are ten a penny. What makes Cthulhu: Death May Die stand out isn’t just the beautifully horrible miniatures in the box but the way it integrates help and harm. In order to gain new skills, your characters have to also lose some of their sanity, resulting in a clever balance of tactical trade-offs while encouraging you to come up with daring gameplay plans that deliberately expose yourselves to danger. The resulting reel of cinematic action-horror moments doesn’t feel much like Lovecraft but it is a ton of fun.
EVE Online developers CCP Games are working on a new game set within the EVE universe. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it will use blockchain technology, after CCP received $40 million (around £32.7 million) from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom and all its DLC are available via Xbox Game Pass. Level-5’s JRPG is set long after the events of the first game, has a new cast of characters, changes up combat a lot, and adds a sizeable kingdom management element to the game. I know people who like it and people who hate it, which in itself makes it interesting.
