It Takes Two still attracts nearly 4,000 concurrent players on Steam more than four years after its launch in March 2021. That’s impressive for a co-op-only title priced at $39.99, which holds a 95% positive rating from 57,675 Steam reviews. This ongoing interest highlights a key point: there’s a big, underserved audience eager for polished, narrative-driven co-op experiences.
Hazelight’s game scored an 88 on Metacritic and won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2021. Its two-player requirement—no solo play or default online matchmaking—didn’t hinder sales. By late 2023, EA reported over 10 million copies sold, showing that design constraints can actually work in favor of a game.
The co-op genre has mostly been filled with shooters and survival games. However, structured narrative co-op games—where both players play crucial roles in gameplay—are still rare. This is the specific niche that Game Rant highlights while looking at upcoming titles targeting the same audience.
Several studios are working on cooperative adventure games set for release in 2025 and 2026. Split Fiction, also from Hazelight, debuted in March 2025 and reached over 1 million sales in its first week, according to EA’s reports. This quick success indicates that the audience hasn’t shifted; they were just waiting for the next release from the studio that consistently delivers in this genre.
Beyond Hazelight’s projects, GameSpot’s roundup of co-op games to watch in 2026 points to a wave of smaller studios trying to replicate the formula. These developers face a challenge with mechanical variety. It Takes Two introduced a new core mechanic in nearly every level, which requires a significant budget and design discipline. Most co-op games tend to recycle two or three mechanics, making the gap between It Takes Two and its imitators clear to players.
| Metacritic Score | 88 |
| Steam Review Score | 95% positive |
| Total Steam Reviews | 57,675 |
| Current Steam Players | 3,947 |
| Current Price (Steam) | $39.99 |
Community feedback for It Takes Two remains strong years after its launch. One Steam reviewer called it the “best game for multiplayer,” a sentiment echoed in many recent reviews. This suggests that word-of-mouth from couples and friends discovering the game long after its release is working. If upcoming co-op titles want to succeed, they’ll need to capture that same long tail of discovery.
What To Watch
- Split Fiction’s sales trajectory: Hazelight’s follow-up launched in March 2025 with impressive initial numbers. Its retention data for the first month will reveal if the studio has another long-lasting title on its hands or if it will fade quickly.
- Mid-budget co-op entries in 2026: Rock Paper Shotgun’s co-op recommendations list is growing with indie and AA titles aimed at the narrative co-op space—keep an eye on which games manage to hold player counts beyond launch week.
- EA’s publishing strategy for co-op games: EA published both It Takes Two and Split Fiction under its EA Originals label. Whether EA continues to focus on co-op games through this label or treats Hazelight as a one-off experiment will impact how many resources go into this genre in the next three years.
