When the Neo Geo Mini arrived in 2018, it kicked off a wave of miniature arcade cabinets that continues to this day. Although the unit featured a fairly good built-in arcade stick and buttons, the optional controllers were widely criticized for their lack of microswitches and inauthentic button layout. Five years later, 8Bitdo will finally offer a much better control option with its upcoming 8Bitdo NEOGEO Wireless Controller. The new controller will work with the NeoGeo Mini, PC, and mobile.

River City Ransom (known in Japan as Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari) is a highly influential beat 'em up RPG from 1989 that has seen numerous ports and remakes over the years. I'm partial to the PC Engine version, myself! Back in 2017, an enhanced remake of Ransom was released on 3DS called River City: Rival Showdown. That game is now heading to PlayStation, Switch, and Steam in October with both local and online co-op!

Update: After our story went live, Funbox informed us that the PlayStation store listing had incorrectly listed the game as being single-player. The PlayStation version does have 4-player local co-op, and its store page has now been updated! The Steam version really is limited to single-player due to the PC version only having mouse controls, the publisher explained.

Demeo is a cooperative fantasy-themed board game from Resolution Games. After enjoying a period of early access on PC and VR platforms, the game fully launched on Steam and PlayStation 5 this year. Demeo’s appeal is clear, combining the depth and challenge of a modern board game with RPG-lite mechanics and feel, a high degree of immersion, an...

Baldur's Gate 3 is the long-awaited sequel to one of the most beloved Dungeons & Dragons video games of all time. Actually, the Steam Early Access version has been around since 2020, but the full Steam release and console versions will be launching soon. How soon? Why, the Steam version has been bumped up a bit to arrive on August 3, whereas the PlayStation 5 version will now debut on September 6. The Xbox Series S|X versions are still coming but have no firm release date yet.

Oh boy, what a month! The eyes of our Database Master are strained from watching all those showcases, and his fingers are sore from entering everything relevant into our database. The result is a stunning increase of 271 new entries. For comparison: June 2021 only saw an addition of 179 entries. So the amount of co-op fodder announced definitely increased this year, even if we factor out the "normal" releases we are adding each month.

While Darius is Taito's number one shoot 'em up series, the "Ray'z" series is a close second. Made up of three vertically-scrolling arcade shmups released from 1994-1998, the Ray'z games still command a loyal following. Now PlayStation and Switch gamers can own the entire series (or just the two newest games) via two freshly-released collections: RayStorm X RayCrisis HD Collection and Ray'z Arcade Chronology. Both collections are similar, so we'll outline what each one contains.

If you stop and think about it, managing traffic signals requires a lot of planning and observation. Many real-world tasks and careers have provided inspiration for video games over the years. However, rather than taking the dry simulation approach as many of their contemporaries would, Polish developer Baltoro made a cooperative puzzle game instea...

July will be a banner month for beat 'em up fans thanks to the impending release of Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons from Secret Base Games and Modus Games. With the game drawing nearer to launch, the publisher has just released a new trailer that provides lots of details about how the beat 'em up Roguelike will play. Even more excitingly, it also reveals four of the game's 9 unlockable characters!

You can count on summer for two things: horribly inhumane temperatures and the Steam Summer Sale. When the Summer Sale comes 'round every year, Steam slashes prices on hundreds of PC games. This year's sale includes steep discounts on  games like Starship Troopers: Extinction, Sea of Thieves 2023 Edition, Monster Hunter Rise, and many more. To make things easier for cooperatively-minded gamers, we've assembled this list of co-op highlights from the sale.

Taito Milestones 2 is a Switch-exclusive collection of 10 arcade classics from Taito. The collection will feature a quality assortment of games, including three co-op shoot 'em ups: Darius II, Gun Frontier, and Metal Black. The first Taito Milestones didn't have as strong a games lineup, but collectors might still want to own them both. Hence, Strictly Limited Games has opened preorders for a bundle with physical editions of both games. For even more physical goodness, a new collectors edition and an upgrade for owners of the Taito Milestones 1 collectors edition are also up for grabs.

A couple of years ago,  Finnish developer 10tons released DYSMANTLE, an action RPG with mild survival elements set in a zombie apocalypse. The studio is following up with DYSPLACED, a similar game in a new setting. This one sees players transported and displaced to a mysterious new world where they will battle Fortnite: Save the World-like mon...