Every gamer has a story of sitting down with a couch co-op game and playing with friends for hours, and many players bond with their partner through a co-op experience. Co-op games can make a good game even better, but they can also ruin a game that isn't designed for co-op. While there are countless games that have been improved by co-op, there are just as many that have been ruined by unnecessary co-op.
Games like The Last of Us are designed with a rich, story-focused, single-player experience in mind. For games like this, a co-op mode would completely ruin the intended experience. There have been incredible single-player games tarnished by the inclusion of co-op modes and design that were never needed for the game.
10 New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Technically, Mario has featured co-op since the original Mario Bros. However, it wasn't until 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii that players were able to play through a Mario level on the same screen at the same time. The co-op mode doesn't make New Super Mario Bros. Wii a bad game, but it makes each level more frustrating than necessary.
Mario levels are typically easy to clear but difficult to master. The addition of 3 other players on screen during a level makes the game much more chaotic. Obstacles and pits that are usually easy to traverse are made much more difficult by the other players. It may be fun to play a level or two with friends for how funny the frantic chaos can be, but after that, players will want to return to solo play to make any substantial progress.
9 Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 5's co-op mode is actually the best way to play Resident Evil 5. The single-player mode in RE5 is not enjoyable, and players have to contend with the difficult A.I. partner. However, co-op changes RE5 from a survival horror game to a third-person, action shooter. The inventory management, difficult foes, and scares typically found in the Resident Evil series are barely present in co-op, and it is an all-around easier experience as well.
It is a fun co-op experience, but it basically trades everything that made it a survival horror game for a co-op mode. Resident Evil 6is the most obvious example of Resident Evil's switch to action over horror, but it begins with Resident Evil 5. While it is enjoyable, co-op wasn't a necessary addition to Resident Evil, and it pushed the series even further into the action genre which has largely been regarded as a mistake for the Resident Evil series.
8 Call of Juarez: The Cartel
The Call of Juarez series developed a bit of a cult following for its arcade-like shooter approach and its wild-west storytelling. While not as in-depth or revolutionary as Red Dead Redemption, Call of Juarez provided quick, action-packed levels with great gunplay tied together with a decent story. Unfortunately, the third entry in the series, The Cartel, dropped the ball in almost every way. That includes its 3-player co-op mode.
The Cartel is a dull and uninteresting game overall. A great co-op mode could have saved the bland gameplay, but it is as dull as single-player mode. In some cases, it is even worse due to bugs and glitches. The game feels rushed overall, and it should have focused on polishing the game instead of adding in a co-op campaign. Fortunately, the sequel did just that, but it doesn't change the miserable co-op of The Cartel.
7 Gotham Knights
Gotham Knights was designed from the ground up to be a co-op experience. Playing with friends as the Bat Family to explore Gotham and defeat a famous rogues' gallery should have made for a fantastic modern beat-'em-up. However, Gotham Knights abandoned its potential for a loot-based game in the vein of Destiny or Diablo. Combat in the game is repetitive, and every character plays, more or less, the same.
While exploring Gotham with friends can be fun, that only goes so far. This is also coming from WB Games Montréal who made the fantastic Batman: Arkham Origins. It makes one wonder if Gotham Knights would have been better as a single-player follow-up to the Arkham series rather than a co-op loot fest.
6 Crackdown 3
Crackdown 3 had a troubled development, and it launched in an undesirable state. However, Crackdown 3 was supposed to take the amazing, superhuman mayhem from previous games and include destructible environments. Players were supposed to be able to team up with friends in co-op and go on building-leveling rampages or take out a specific target by leveling a building on top of them. That is not what fans got, however.
Crackdown 3 launched without any destructible environments in the main campaign. Plus, Crackdown 3 was unpolished, and it was largely just a repeat of the previous 2 games. Co-op was included, but, again, it felt the same as previous games. Crackdown 3 was supposed to have an unprecedented co-op experience, but it ended up being, at best, a repeat of the original games, which already felt dated.
5 Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic is no stranger to bad games, and there is a lot of debate about which games are good and which are bad. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 largely improves upon the formula the first game established except in one key area: its two-player co-op. In Sonic 2, the second player gets to control Tails. While this sounds like a fun way to add in another player to the Sonic series, the camera will only focus on Sonic. This leads to all kinds of problems in the game.
There are several moments where Sonic will fly past Tails—and the camera with it. This leaves whoever is playing as Tails to wait until the game brings them back to Sonic's side, only for the camera to quickly leave Tails in the dust again. The only place Tails is remotely useful is in boss fights because he can't die. That means Sonic just has to dodge projectiles while Tails does all the damage, which still doesn't make it a fun experience.
4 F.E.A.R. 3
F.E.A.R. was a niche horror/first-person shooter game. It had revolutionary enemy A.I. great gameplay, and some fantastic scares. The second game in the series continued what made the first game great, but it did lose some of its charm and scares. With the third game in the series, however, it went off the rails. It was directionless, and it added a co-op mode that was completely unnecessary.
The co-op mode partnered Point Man from the first game with his ghost brother and was meant to make players feel paranoid and distrustful of each other. However, it just made the game painfully easy, and it took all the fear from the game. While the ghostly partner made for some novel gameplay options, the game lost what made it interesting to begin with.
3 Marvel's Avengers
A large portion of Marvel's Avengers revolves around co-op missions like Destiny. However, players could eventually play the main campaign together, but they probably wouldn't want to. The game was incredibly buggy at launch, and it remained full of bugs throughout its life. Plus, the enemies and levels all felt incredibly similar, and the missions were repetitive.
That is a shame because the story and main campaign of Marvel'sAvengers are really engaging and interesting. Unfortunately, its focus on "looter-shooter" gameplay and the live-service model completely outshine the positive aspects of the game. The game could have been a great story-driven beat-'em-up, but the forced live-service, multiplayer model ruined an otherwise fun superhero game.
2 Redfall
To begin with, Redfall is not a great game. It is a buggy mess with terrible A.I. Plus, Redfall had an uninteresting world and repetitive gameplay. The co-op aspect is just the icing on the cake of all of Redfall's problems. When people think of Arkane, they tend to think of deep, single-player immersive-sims with near infinite replayablility. Despite this, the idea of playing an Arkane immersive-sim with friends sounds promising. That wasn't the case.
Co-op in Redfall can be fun, but the game doesn't offer anything much. There are moments that make the game feel like the immersive-sims Arkane is known for, but they are few and far between. If multiplayer hadn't been included in the game, players may have gotten a fantastic new immersive-sim with a unique setting and take on the genre.
1 Dead Space 3
The first Dead Space was a fantastic new survival horror game with a lot of promise. Its sequel, Dead Space 2, greatly improved on the first game. Unfortunately, the third Dead Space entry doubles down on action and throws in a co-op mode, which is completely antithetical to the premise of the previous games. The isolation of space and the fear of being alone with an alien threat are all but eliminated with co-op.
To make matters worse, the second player won't even appear in some cutscenes. It is clear that the game was meant to tense solo journey to face more terrifying necromorphs, but co-op was forced in at the last minute. There are moments where Dead Space 3 shines, but they are never a result of the co-op mode.