Super Mario Kart, developed for Super Nintendo Entertainment System, was released in 1992 and allowed 2 players to play together. GoldenEye 007, an FPS released for Nintendo 64 in 1997, had a split-screen multiplayer mode for up to 4 players. It’s now hard to determine which one of the first split screen console games was the most important, although many people point to GoldenEye 007 and Super Mario Kart. Coop games became more popular with time, especially in the 1990’s. One player was steering the truck, while the other was controlling the rear wheels’ tiller. It was an arcade game about driving a truck through traffic to go as far as possible.

GamesRadar calls Fire Truck (1978) the first two-player co-op game ever. Since consoles didn’t have access to the internet until the 2000’s, split screen was a great alternative for classic coop games. Co op was usually an option in coin-op games, allowing two players to compete or cooperate. Local co op with a shared screen goes back to arcade games of 1980’s. Local coop is often dubbed couch co-op, since it conveys the image of people sitting next to each other while playing. With local co op, people can play together on one computer or console, split screen or not. Yes, there were times when some platforms couldn’t access the internet or arcade games were the only option. Local co op is basically a multiplayer mode… offline. Giving players the possibility to play with friends or strangers, online co-op is something that most people are looking forward to when waiting for a new game.īut there’s more than online co-op. Yeah, single player is great too, but what’s better than some shared fun from time to time?

There’s no doubt that cooperation, often shortened to co-op or coop, is a vital part of gaming.

I wanna be the coop