Starbound is an upcoming indie sandbox game designed to be something of a spiritual successor to Terraria. It's filled with all the exploration, building, crafting and character customization features you could ever want, but the real kicker is the addition of randomly generated planets you can inhabit! It's a good thing, too, as your home world was just destroyed by something evil, so you'll need all the space and resources you can get to construct a gigantic death laser of revenge.

Here we are at Episode 105 and we're knee deep in shtacko! It's all about Defiance this episode, well not totally, but we certainly dive deep into the co-op game and TV show. Plenty of co-op news to discuss as well including some up and coming DLC and Dark Souls 2. Finally we wrap up with some hefty discussion about franchises and wearing themselves to thin.

Sacred Citadel is out NOW! I know it's not Sacred 3, but after we played a little bit of the beat'em up I can say it's more than a pleasant distraction. The combat seemed a little dull for the first few minutes, but then we quickly unlocked some combos that added depth to the beat downs. 

A huge new patch dropped for Defiance today. Well, it's currently dropping, being dropped, in the sate of falling, whatever. I'm guessing Trion is trying to hook anyone who might decide to dive in after watching last night's television series debut. (I thought the show had some flaws, but I'd watch another episode.) To do this they'll need to fix some very rough spots in the game. Patch 1.010 went live this morning, caused some problems, and then it was pulled. According to the Defiance twitter feed it's back up now. Looks like the game was down for about 6-7 hours. Ouch.

Good news for Monster Hunter fans today. The Wii U version of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate has been patched today to include off-screen play and cross-region support. Players will be able to take their monster hunting skills with them on the go with the Wii U Gamepad. Whether this will be a better experience than playing on the 3DS will remain up to the player.

The Soul Sacrifice demo hits the PlayStation Store later today. Prepare to tear yourself apart in order to bring ruin to your enemies. The dark fantasy action RPG will force players to sacrifice themselves (and their co-op partners) to unlock powerful magic. Just look at that header image. I'm not an expert on spell casting, but I think I'd prefer a magical staff or a wand over this particular technique. To each their own.  

While Sanctum developer Coffee Stain Studios is busy trumpeting Sanctum 2, the IndieFort Spring Bundle would like to remind us that the original game is still around and is still awesome. Featured as part of a five game package, Sanctum fuses first person shooting and tower defense into one seamless experience. And yes, the four player online co-op is as good as you want it to be.

We had a chance to play through and review BattleBlock Theater, and then we tried to convince you to play it using our written words. Our feline captors said the show must go on, so we were forced to create a video performance for your viewing pleasure.

Continuing through the newly released Capcom Arcade Cabinet bundles, we have returned once again to the year 1985 for another dose of retro gaming. Since the first “1985” pack didn’t seem to be enough, the “1985-II Pack” will add Commando, The Speed Rumbler, and Savage Bees to our library of classic Capcom titles. If anyone hasn't experienced any of them before in their lifetime, try out their demos before making any investment.

Are you ready for another week of cooperative hacking, slashing, and shooting? Of course you are! 

Here's something you don't see every day: a browser game with online co-op support! Ninja Kiwi has taken the ever-popular Bloons TD 5 and included a two player online co-op mode, complete with loot sharing and four new levels. At its core, Bloons TD 5 is a casual tower defense game, only instead of towers shooting arrows and creeps running around, it's all about invading balloons and monkeys throwing darts.

It's been quite sometime since we've posted a round-up of our staff's Beyond Co-Op Reviews, but rest assured over the months we've continued to post reviews in the User Blogs section of this site. We've rounded up some of the biggest games from this Spring in this special issue of Beyond Co-Op including such titles as Bioshock Infinite and StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm.