Remember when Sonic Generations came out in 2011, and everyone loved it despite the obnoxious final boss battle? In the years since, Sega has stubbornly refused to make a sequel despite the obvious financial incentive to do so. That will finally change this fall when Sonic Superstars arrives on consoles and PC. It's not called "Sonic Generations 2," but this one clearly builds on the 2.5D visual style and gameplay of Generations. Even more excitingly, it will also feature 4-player local co-op!

June is upon us. Although E3 is once again not happening, the industry as a whole still seems to agree that it is a good month to flood the internet with new announcements. Hopefully we'll get a good amount of co-op fodder, too. We will, of course, keep you posted. Oh, and there is that thing incoming on June 6th called Diablo IV. You may have heard of it.

Welcome back to Beyond Co-Op Reviews, our critical look at games that don't feature co-op modes....

Are you a fan of statistics? No? Oh well, here are some numbers anyway. In April, we counted 38 new co-op-releases on PC, 19 for the Switch, 13 on PlayStation 4, nine on Xbox consoles, and eight that were specifically optimized for PlayStation 5. And our database was expanded by another 111 titles, including all the relevant games from the Knights of Valour beat 'em up-series which was mainly released in Chinese arcades.

Spring is here (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). The temperatures are rising, the birds are singing, and everyone is storming out the door to frolic outside. So, who is actually playing all those co-op titles that were released this month? Not our Database Manager, that's for sure. He's too busy adding and updating stuff resulting in around 150 new additions to the database this month. But who else is there? Well of course: you, the reader! You and your friends are the rebels that defy the norm and rejoice upon the chance to have a new experience in a virtual world! We salute you, brave people, and we see it as our duty to make sure you always know about your options.

We are all for choice here at Co-Optimus. Let the customer decide what they want we say! But to be perfectly honest? We do think ININ Games took it a bit too far this month with the various Ninja JaJaMaru compilations. Was it really necessary to offer so many versions with only slightly different content? Oh well, it is what it is. At least retro fans can finally enjoy the adventures of "Ninja Kid" on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. PC users, on the other hand, finally got the promised wave of Toaplan-Shoot'em-Up-Goodness courtesy of publisher Bitwave Games: Out Zone, Twin Cobra, Zero Wing and Truxton (no co-op) all hit the Steam store this month.

January was a bit on the quiet side in terms of co-op titles - at least compared to other months. So in the end there were still more than enough titles released to keep everyone and their friends occupied. A couple of examples: Shoot'em up fans got Wings Of Bluestar as well as Raiden IV x MIKADO remix, Monster Hunter Rise finally hit Microsoft and Sony consoles, retro gamers rejoiced upon the release of the Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection, the unique survival-platformer Rain World received a co-op DLC and strategy fans can now enjoy Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Xbox (both using a controller or connecting keyboard/mouse).

Fifteen years ago we embarked on a journey. Frustrated with the state of information about cooperative games in the renaissance of online gaming, we set out to catalog all of the important bits of information about non-competitive multiplayer. On January 28th, 2008 Co-Optimus was born. 

It is done. 2022 is over and we wish you a happy new year. 2023 is special to us because Co-Optimus celebrates its 15th Anniversary. On January 28th 2008, the site finally went public. But that's a topic for a different news item. We're instead here to talk about December 2022, a month our very own arcade aficionado, Paul Acevedo, enjoyed very much thanks to releases like New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, River City Girls 2, Jitsu Squad, and Bubble Bobble for Nintendo Switch. Otherwise, it was actually a rather quiet month with "only" around 42 new releases. So at least during the holidays we did have a bit of time to work on that dreaded backlog before the madness continues in the new year.

Welcome back to Beyond Co-Op Reviews, our critical look at games that don't feature co-op modes....

63 releases across all platforms and 107 new additions to our database - that's the TL;DR for November. Yes, we want to finish writing this news post as quickly as possible in order to continue playing Warhammer 40.000: Darktide. How can you blame us? It's really good, and not just compared to the sea of other Warhammer games releasing each second on Steam (only a slight exaggeration). It also holds its own and is well worth a look.

PlayStation 5-specific retail copies of games are a thing for some reason. Nobody wants a physical copy that says PlayStation 4 on it nowadays! Merge games knows this, and so they've just released new TMNT: Shredder's Revenge physical editions for PlayStation 5. Available in both standard and Signature editions, these PlayStation 5-specific versions of Shredder's Revenge can be ordered online or bought at retail in the UK and other international markets.