Hazelight Studios has built a reputation for creating unique co-op only adventures, with the award-winning A Way Out setting the stage for the studio's next ambitious co-op project, It Takes Two. Set to launch next month, It Takes Two is a co-op only adventure game that looks like it will have a ton of gameplay variety, with game director Josef Fares recently showing off that variety in a new trailer.
The new It Takes Two gameplay trailer first sets the stage by explaining the story. In this game, one player takes on the role of Cody and the other players as May. Cody and May are a married couple who are going to divorce, which upsets their daughter Rose. Through some kind of unexplained magical phenomenon, Cody and May transform into two dolls that their daughter made. The two then must complete a variety of platforming and other challenges, all the while guided by a talking Book of Love.
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"The amount of variation is insane," Josef Fares says in the gameplay trailer. "Every scenario is unique." What this means is that each level in It Takes Two will feature new gameplay mechanics and be completely different than what came before. Fares gives some examples in the video, showing more traditional 3D platforming gameplay in one clip, then what appears to be top-down dungeon-crawling gameplay in the next. In another stage, Cody and May find themselves in the middle of a war between squirrels and wasps, and the game transitions to a third-person shooter.
The gameplay mechanics will oftentimes reflect the conflict between Cody and May. In another example, Cody and May are arguing about never having time for each other, with May saying that she can't clone herself. This results in a gameplay sequence where Cody is able to rewind time to solve puzzles, while May can make a clone of herself to solve different kinds of puzzles in the same area.
Fares says in the trailer that Cody and May will often have completely different gameplay mechanics available to them in each level. This could go a long way in giving It Takes Two some major replay value, as there would be a compelling reason to go back through the game playing as the other character. Replay value will also be found through the mini-games that players can find in the game world, though don't expect random collectibles or "shiny s***" as Fares puts it.
The trailer ends with Fares promoting the It Takes Two Friends Pass, which means players only need to buy one copy of the game to play with their friends online. Overall, it sounds as though Fares is highly confident about It Takes Two living up to the hype, though fans may have already gotten that impression when Fares offered $1,000 to anyone who gets bored of the game.
It Takes Two launches March 26 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.