Game review: A Way Out is a sign co-op games are making a comeback

In A Way Out, you'll play as either Vincent or Leo, and you'll need to work together to break out of prison.

If you've ever tried shimmying up a shaft back-to-back with a friend, you'll know how hard it is. You'll have to master the art if you want to play A Way Out.

You'll have to master a lot of things. The game, which has been lost amidst the buzz of some very big titles out this month, requires you to join forces with a friend. Not an online bot, an actual friend sitting on the couch next to you. In person.

It's been a long time since a game offered that kind of two-player, co-op experience. A Way Out, which casts the pair of you as imprisoned tough dudes Vincent and Leo and asks you to break out of prison, isn't perfect, but it's a sign things are improving.

To succeed, you'll need to work together. That means one of you keeping watch while the other chisels away at a cell wall with a knife. Or one distracting a guard while the other steals sheets to make a rope. Or working together and timing your ascent back-to-back through that shaft.

As the game splits into two screens often, you'll frequently find yourself watching from the viewpoint of the other character. As some reviewers have pointed out, that view is incredibly masculine. The game is full of blokes. It is, after all, set in a male prison.

Vincent and Leo are definitely stereotypes, some of the dialogue is pretty ropey, and the game asks you to do some pretty blokey things. At one point, you'll get involved in a prison-yard brawl. At another, you'll get attacked in a prison kitchen and throw frying pans at other inmates

But A Way Out makes up for it by providing an exhilarating co-op experience, and an incredible twist ending. You'll want to stick together until the end when the game flips the script in a way in which I won't spoil here. Let's hear it for the return of two-player games. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.

A Way Out

Platform: Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC
Rating: R16
Verdict: Is this a sign co-op games are making a comeback?