It Takes Two is Josef Fares’ last attempt to show the power of cooperative games

Josef Fares has strong opinions. The director of Hazelight Studio – whose latest cooperative game, Two, was released today – it gained prominence at The Game Awards in 2017 with an impromptu and passionate speech about the joys of interactive video games that culminated in his worthy meme “Fuck the Oscars!” line.

Years later, Fares (who, ironically, started out as a filmmaker) still maintains his pro-game stance. “Look, my training is a filmmaker. The whole ‘fuck Oscar’ thing was actually kind of special, ”he says The Verge. “Um, you have to remember when I was there on the set, everyone was saying, ‘Oh, this is like Oscar, it’s like Oscar.’ And I said, ‘Fuck Oscar!’ because I was actually saying ‘Fuck Oscar – because we should celebrate the game now.’ It’s not that I have anything personal about Oscar. “

Two is the third Fares game, following Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and An outlet. The latest Hazelight game follows an approach similar to An outletin particular: it is an exclusively cooperative game that you cannot experience unless you are willing to play with a friend or partner (beside you on the couch or over the Internet). According to Fares, the studio never thought of adding any type of AI companion.

“They are designed from the start like this, so you have to communicate with someone,” he says. “It is not possible to play with a random [person]. It is not a matching game in which you are connected only at random. If you want to play with someone you don’t know, you must have the ability to speak because if you are not speaking, you cannot progress.

Communication is an adequate basis for Two, which shows a husband and wife on the brink of divorce who are magically transformed into a pair of Pixar dolls and forced by a magical talking book to resolve their differences.

A Way Out offered a thematically compelling narrative taken from a detective novel that was disappointed by monotonous gameplay that actually didn’t do much to take advantage of the game’s cooperative nature. Two inverts the script: it offers a bizarre, almost meaningless story brought up by ingenious cooperative mechanics. Each of the two characters tends to divide their abilities between levels. For example, a starting level gives players a pair of weapons – one character can fire sap while the other lights up.

The most diverse gameplay is not an accident. “We have become better at finding cooperative cold mechanics that can be combined,” says Fares. “So you really feel the need to cooperate. Also, I talked a lot about marrying the story and the gameplay … we tried to connect the skills to the character as well. With May, for example – it’s her toolbox, so she has the hammer. “

The result, however, is that Two it’s a much more complex game than An outlet. To begin with, it’s a platform game. And while it doesn’t require the perfect pixel skills kind of like heavenly or Spelunky, is a game more difficult to enter than the relatively simple An outlet. Add the new mechanics (admittedly more interesting) that change from level to level, and the game risks overloading younger or less experienced players.

Still, the resulting game is unique, despite the uneven narrative. As Fares rightly comments, there is almost no one out there playing this type of game. “Of course, there are cooperative games out there that have their campaign and their add-on cooperative campaign and so on, but none are really designing, writing everything from the beginning, as we do at Hazelight.”

“I think it opens up … both creatively, but also the dynamics between the characters you’re playing, that you’re using different skills, how you can cooperate and also what’s going on on the couch,” says Fares. “I think there is a lot to explore there.” He sees the experience as similar to watching a movie or TV show: it is something you do together. “So, why not enjoy a story together in a game?”

And it is this level of interaction that helps games stand out from the film for Fares. “The idea is to understand that making the experience interactive [for a game is] totally different from a passive experience like a movie, ”he says. “So, sometimes I hear when they talk about ‘We should bring more people from the cinema [to make games]. ‘Sure, we can get inspired by how they tell stories and so on, but we need to find our own way of telling stories interactively. “

And while Fares doesn’t give much details about what Hazelight’s next project will look like or whether it will be another cooperative experience, he definitely thinks there is more space for other developers to participate in – and not just with optional cooperative experiences, such as survival games or snipers like Borderlands or areola.

“We should have our narratives for a player; I love that. But I think there is a market here, and I think people really appreciate that kind of game, you know. Play something with someone you love or a friend or a father or a mother or whatever – just experience something together and not just a shooting game, you know what I mean?

Two is now available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S.