Co-op games are built around players working toward the same goal instead of against each other, whether that cooperation happens on one screen, across a local network or online. Steam applies this label as the umbrella term for cooperative play, so a game filed here might support two players through a full campaign, four players holding out in a horde mode, or an open world that friends drop into and out of as they please. The shared thread is design that assumes company: encounters laid out so one player draws attention while another flanks, puzzles with two switches and one pair of hands, downed states and revives that give a partner a reason to come back for you, and difficulty or loot that scales with the size of the group. Cooperative play spans nearly every genre. Shooters lean on covering fire and crossfire angles, survival games on splitting the labour of gathering, building and defending, role-playing games on parties whose classes cover each other's weaknesses, and puzzle games on the simple fact that two people look at the same problem differently. Some titles treat co-op as the main event and leave the solo mode feeling thin by comparison, while others let you play the entire story alone and simply open the door to a second player whenever you want one. Where a game supports a more specific arrangement, such as online co-op, split screen on a single television, LAN play on the same network, or a campaign playable start to finish as a team, it is filed under those collections as well. This is the place to browse when you care less about how the connection is made and more about having someone alongside you when things go wrong.
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