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A couple of weeks ago I played a new Escape the Room experience which blew my mind a little bit - where, part-way through, we were suddenly introduced to another, separate room to explore. The sudden change in gameplay forced our team to behave differently - coordinating to solve situations from different perspectives at the same time. It's a frantic feeling of fun I found again today, thousands of miles away, playing A Way Out - another game where two points of view unfold simultaneously, where players must communicate to progress.Mixed in amongst the polished teasers and preening Let's Plays, A Way Out was an oddball standout from EA's press conference. Exclusively co-op, this early 2018 release is the next game from Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons writer and director Josef Fares. We've known of the project's existence since the end of last year, but after playing and loving the devastatingly emotional and understated Brothers, seeing A Way Out's brash and grizzled gameplay debut today was a genuine shock. Gone was the previous game's fantasy pastoral setting, replaced by dirty, urban 1970s scenes. Brothers 2, this was not.
Where Brothers' core gameplay conceit was that you controlled two characters with one controller, A Way Out inverts this by forcing two people to each pick up a pad. You can play in local co-op with someone in the same room, or alternatively by connecting online with a friend. But there is no online matchmaking, Fares confirmed at EA's post-event showcase today. "It's cocky," the excitable Fares told me. "But the experience is made to be co-op. This is the game."
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