Comic for Friday 4/14 (Early High Res) (Patreon)

I've become so numb to the hype words/descriptors that publishers use to try and sell/quantify their games. At this point it's just noise; words that have been blurred together and smoothed out, had all of their corners and meaning sanded away.

But for me there is still one word that manages to cut through the noise. That jumps off the screen when browsing Steam/trailers/reviews/whatever and grabs my attention every time. "Co-op." I'm always on the look out for a good game to play alongside friends or family, so if I see "co-op" attached to a game, I have to take a look.

We have no shortage of single player games, and certainly mountains of team-based competitive titles that let you play alongside friends, but the true cooperative "us-versus-the-game" games I still find to be a bit of a rarity. Or at least rarer than I'd like them to be. And couch co-op is practically an endangered species.

I don't even know what "immersive" is supposed to mean when it comes to a video game anymore. I don't ever want to hear "soulslike" again. But you tell me a game has co-op, and I'm all ears.