A Way Out (Xbox One)
Cooperative play is a very popular addition to many types of games, but in most cases, it is essentially two or more players experiencing the same single-player story together. They might be given different skills than the other players and coordinating with each other can make moments easier, but only a few games try to truly provide different experiences for different players. A Way Out instead provides a two-player game where not only do both players play distinctive roles, but the game cannot even be played without another human serving as your partner. Not only does this make for a game where you literally have to rely on and communicate with each other much more, but it makes for a more interesting narrative where the two central characters have plenty of moments to contribute and show who they are as they do the same.
A Way Out is the story of Vincent and Leo, two prisoners who are aiming to break free and get back at the man who put them behind bars. Set in the 1970s, A Way Out does have feel like an older film at times, perhaps to the point of being a touch cliche with things like the main villain Harvey being an cartoonishly evil crime lord and the prison being pretty blind to both inmate on inmate violence and obvious escape routes. None of it is so distracting that it hurts the important part of the narrative, the game being primarily the story of Vincent and Leo’s great escape and how they form a friendship during it. Both men have distinct personalities, Vincent being a more heroic, down to earth man who tries to do the right thing while Leo grew up in poor circumstances and is rougher around the edges and quicker to joke around. We get to learn more about their home lives and history over the course of the game and meet the people they associate with, and with a human player filling the role of both characters, it can be pretty easy to slip into the roles, especially since the game is packed with fun ways to engage with each other outside of the main plot.
Along your journey to freedom there are many vital tasks to perform, but almost just as important are the many ways to mess around with your co-op partner. You can sit down and play a duet by way of a music minigame, you can compete in darts or a fictional arcade game, and you can mess around with many environmental objects or events that both give you a brief diversion from regular play and help to not only cement this growing friendship but gives the players interesting and often funny ways of interacting with each other. You can sit down and play Connect Four with each other as long as you like, you can repeatedly deface a portrait as Leo and then have the Vincent player come clean it up, and in some areas, there are even little moments both characters approach differently. A feuding couple, a hypochondriac, a girl breaking into a locked door… Leo and Vincent both react to them differently and give different advice, but this is only a small expression of the much larger devotion to not just giving them more moments to express themselves uniquely but also separating their actions during the main story line.
A Way Out is a third person action game, but it doesn’t stick to one style of action for too long. One moment you can be sneaking around guards or trying to dig a tunnel while the other person runs lookout, another you could be trying to solve small puzzles in the prison workshop or sewers that can have more than one solution, and then later you’ll find yourself in high octane car chases and gun fights. Slow story moments, open areas to explore for a bit, and scripted fist fights all crop up and aren’t stuck to for long, Hazelight Studios making sure you’re always moving into some new way to play even though once gunfights are added to the mix they do stick around the most. The gunfights are also one of the few times where it feels like the game isn’t splitting you and your partner into separate roles, although sometimes it may give one player a different vantage point or weapon to try and make the experience a bit asymmetrical. Usually to get something accomplished in the game involves coordinating pretty well with the other player, whether it be playing your roles in a puzzle, taking advantage of your different locations during a conflict, or playing entirely different roles than each other like one player driving and the other firing their weapon. Stealth and escape segments can essentially have you do the same thing as each other as well, but the game still tries to mix in moments where one player needs to perform an action to help the other. There are plenty of great moments of cooperation, one that stands out the most being when the two need to climb up a shaft and have to climb it back to back while using each other as supports. You need to find a good rhythm with your partner to succeed as messing up the pace will make the two slip up during their climb, and other moments like drawing fire with one character so the other can ambush the enemy make it feel like true cooperation is necessary to success.
There are a few moments where A Way Out can be a bit more difficult if one player is struggling with the gameplay style at the time, and there are definitely moments where only one character is required to truly solve a puzzle or complete a fight, but then there are brilliant moments that get very creative with the split character concept. One escape sequence involves the camera switching from Vincent to Leo off and on, the players making progress on their own and the camera swapping when the split partners nearly intersect. For every exciting action scene there is usually a more personal slow moment to follow, and even if the focus is on one character for that part, the other usually gets some activity to do before the cooperation begins again in earnest. Side activities and main actions can sometimes be a little weaker than you’d hope since they is no true core gameplay style that gets all the necessary attention it needs to shine, amusements like darts and horseshoes more about timing then aim and the gun play being very simple cover-based firefights with mostly automatics involved, but if there is one area where focus was definitely put it was in making the players feel like true partners.
Conversations and dependence on each other strengthen this growing bond and the characters don’t have any cheesy line where they acknowledge this steady growth, instead growing to trust each other and act more like friends as a result. In fact, the game is pretty good at following its story path without being too eager to show its hand, there being many small hints about there being more than just the path to revenge going on but the game never draws too much attention to them before its relevant. By the time you reach the end of A Way Out though, the game will have done enough work to increase your personal investment not just in the characters but in your partnership with the other player, the emotional beats hitting all the better for making this feel like both a story with two clearly understood main characters and a game where you and your partner were truly working together instead of just alongside each other.
THE VERDICT: A Way Out is built from the ground up to ensure that its cooperative play develops a true sense of partnership between the two players. Its action, puzzles, and even little side activities are based around playing different roles in the moment or interacting with the other player’s character, the game infusing every moment with a bit of personality from the disparate leads to better strengthen their identities. Not everything maintains the focus on making the duo feel like both members are necessary and the plot can be a little weak at times, but the lead characters make up for it with strongly defined personalities and the players benefit from being able to engage with the game world in separate ways. A Way Out is truly a coop game that focuses on cooperation, the story an excellent fit for exploring that mechanically and emotionally.
And so, I give A Way Out for Xbox One…
A GREAT rating. A Way Out’s stealth and action moments make up most of its exciting asymmetrical forms of playing together even if they don’t always maintain it perfectly, but these big important moments are helped along immensely by the smaller moments where you work together or just mess around. Like friends, Leo and Vincent can sit down together and watch T.V., they will work together for something as simple as finding food, and they’ll approach a problem in different ways, sometimes only one able to truly fix whatever small issue they’ve come across thanks to their unique perspective. It may not always make sense why the two have slowed down so much during their prison escape, but these moments help strengthen both a fictional and real bond, the lead characters and the players playing them working together better over time and gradually becoming better accustomed to the other’s ways and mannerisms. You and your co-op partner are given moments of freedom while also having pivotal moments where the correct actions must be taken to ensure your mutual survival, and as you get to learn more about Vincent and Leo, your emotional investment isn’t just formed from those key narrative points, but by the small interactions along the way.
A Way Out is not so much a game about the strength of what you are doing so much as the enjoyment of doing it together, and while your partner might grate on you if they can’t uphold their part at times, for the most part it’s a game that focuses on strengthening that bond and giving you interesting activities to do with them. It’s well designed for emotional investment and knows how to use its plot and mechanics to strengthen or test your cooperation even if its lack of focus impacts a moment here or there. Its many creative ideas for two player interaction make for a highly memorable and involved cooperative journey that executed its asymmetrical co-op excellently.