Let's face it: The big thing in August was Baldur's Gate III. There is no way to sugarcoat it. This month saw 30XX finally leaving Early Access on Steam, the surprise releases of the QUAKE II-Remaster and Age of Empires IV for Xbox, the addition of local co-op to the founder of a new genre (Vampire Survivors) and even the long-awaited (?) return of a much beloved (citation needed) German video game icon (TM). But none could overshadow the (fully earned) success of Larian's juggernaut CRPG. Considering how stacked this month was, not just in terms of co-op titles, that's quite a feat.

Ah, July... such a calm month compared to the "Not-E3-craziness" of June. The database master "only" added 98 new entries to the database, many of which were older titles we were still missing, like all the shoot'em ups by famed Japanese developer Triangle Service.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Hey, you! Yes, you over there! You need to stop that! Another month down the drain and we once again didn't have nearly enough time to play even a fraction of all those sweet new releases this month. So either stop publishing new stuff or stop time itself. Doesn't matter as long as the result is us having more chances to play games with our friends. All those survival horror games hitting the Steam Store don't play themselves after all and now we need to switch over to the Christmas events starting up in our favorite titles. So even less time to enjoy that barrage of new games still coming.

What a month... Almost 240 new entries made their way into our database - mostly new and upcoming games thanks to all the announcements during TGS and several other publisher showcase events. On top of that, 54 titles across all platforms are listed on our release calendar for the month, and it will only get "worse" with everyone starting to fire all cylinders in preparation for Christmas.