My MP concerns.

[DJDiceZ]

How are the items shared? Is it first come first serve? Is it duplicated? Does the game add more loot so everyone can get an equal ammount of items? The best would probably be everyone having their own separate loot, and no notion of stealing being possible.

The screen transitions don't seem smooth, from videos i've seen, as in you just get stuck on the edge until your teammate joins you. Any way to give the host full power, or to just make it smoother, like maybe a prompt to change screen that stays active for a dozen seconds, and if the prompt is active for both players at the same time, then the screen changes to where they decided to go?

Respawn seems tied to progressing through a new stage, which can be frustrating, especially if there's a significant difference in skill between two players. Could you make revive affordable through currencies, health, free the first time/applying a debuff to both players after the first time, free but it makes you vulnerable and requires standing still for a while, or scattering some interactible structures for reviving teammates throughout out each level (one per level, or maybe more through metaprogression, in-run upgrades and whatnot if there are any).

The way hammerwatch did it is a decent system: You can revive someone once and instantly, but not only do you give away half of your current HP (not max), if either player dies again, both players die. Sometimes you can find a shrine that will remove this debuff and allow you to perform a revive again, at the same cost as it was originally.

I'm sure there's a few other details where the co-op design can be questioned and improved, but those are my biggest concerns right now.

[Kalafiorek]

Hi! Thanks for the post. Just to quickly mention, Fury Unleashed was primarily a single-player experience, but due to our players' feedback, we've added a (local) multiplayer mode, which we now improve upon as well as are adding the online part of it. This is important to point, as the multiplayer experience is an extension to the SP mode.

The main thing is the balance - we've tried for the two-player mode to be as close to the same difficulty as a solo experience. This means, while there aren't more enemies, they are usually tougher to kill, and players will have to cooperate with each other to win. The cooperation extends to things like the decision-making of who gets the item/equipment visible on the screen. In almost all cases, both players can interact with the items/NPC's, and they can always pass on the control, to let the other one decide/get the displayed item. There aren't two times the weapons, but there's more than enough for both players to share full sets of firearms, and from both our tests and observation, it seems that there is no issue in players obtaining the needed equipment, as long as they cooperate (wink, wink) with each other.

We will certainly further improve the on-screen prompts related to players' positions, and probably also their intent of actions. As of now, I'm not exactly sure how we'd be able to improve the screen transition, as introducing the countdown would probably annoy lots of players, who are used to our gameplay loop of rushing throughout the comic pages, and the player who waits for the other one to come closer to the exit should pay attention to the moves of the second player anyway, so they'll be able to tell when the transition will happen. Still, a very good point, and we'll discuss it internally if there's something to be done about it, as well as try to improve the way the map system works, especially the fast travel option.

Respawns shouldn't be a problem currently, as the dead player is always revived on the next comic book pages, and those aren't very time-consuming to complete. The living player can always just go straight to the next page, to revive their fallen partner almost instantly, so there's an additional layer of decision-making. Changes in how the respawn system works would break the difficulty balance of the game, which we believe should remain challenging on the Hard difficulty and later, but in case the players are of a different skill level, there's always the Easy mode, which can be freely customized in the pause menu and allows almost anyone to enjoy the game in their pace. It's important to try to survive together and share the health drops - we didn't want to trivialize the experience, and by extension make it less fun and unrewarding. Also, as an extension to the single-player mode, we didn't want to overcomplicate the system with additional technicalities on when, how many times, and in which way players can res each other - they simply do revive on each of the pages turns, so they can quickly continue to rain havoc on what stands in front of them. Still, we're also improving in this area, as the upcoming builds should make the last chapter of the game more fun for the sessions with players of varying skill levels.

By all means, do share all the feedback you might have with us, as we believe, that there are always things can we could still improve upon, and might do so with the things you've mentioned already - each voice is important to us, thanks! Feel free to give the game a chance, especially when we'll exit the beta stage (as there are still lots of things to be fixed in it), and let us know if any of the points listed above cause any problems for you, or your co-op partner.