Whenever any healing item is used (except for the eggs), both characters get healed if they're standing close to each other. All The ExtrasĪ great example of something that's conducive to cooperative play is RE5's shared-healing mechanic. With that said, scripted gateways serve to differentiate the gameplay and ensure that each player feels like part of the team.Īll of these co-op elements are present in RE5, but there are many more as well. While these sound good on paper, such statically-defined activities are rarely as satisfying as letting the players come up with their own strategy for traversing a level.

In addition to resuscitating nearly-defeated partners, RE5 also lets one player save the other from various health-draining, potentially-lethal grappling encounters.įorcing gameplay-cooperation at specific script-points is common as well, e.g., having one player boost another to higher ground in order to proceed. This in turn fosters a reciprocal relationship facilitated by special indicators that display the location and status of everyone else in the group. Letting a partner die diminishes the chance of success - or can even result in a game-over screen - so all members of a team can usually depend on friendly aid.

Healing a defenseless comrade is another common mechanic that ensures players try to help each other out. To achieve this, friendly-fire and other possible sources of griefing are diminished or removed, enemies are tweaked to take on the firepower of multiple players, and player-goals are designed around non-competitive challenges, e.g., everyone gets an achievement for defeating the boss instead of one person getting an achievement for the most kills. Most action games encourage players to work together by turning a Prisoner's Dilemma into a Trust Dilemma, i.e., making it so that helping each other out is always the most beneficial course of action for everyone involved. For all its faults, Resident Evil 5 has some very high production values.

How to play coop on resident evil 5