Couple Gaming: Playing the 2021 Game of the Year “It Takes Two”

It Takes Two is an action-adventure game developed for a split-screen cooperative multiplayer gaming experience (couch co-op), where it needs two players to play through local or online connection. One of the things we truly enjoyed as a couple, and even before when we were only friends, was playing video games together (in fact, that’s how we met.). And now that we’re married, one of our first agendas was finding a game we could play side-by-side because it would definitely be much more fun. It’s the perfect couple date idea for introverts and homebodies like us.

Surprisingly, I first heard about Hazelight Studio’s It Takes Two game from WIRED’s segment “Answered the Web’s Most Search Question” featuring BTS. My bias, V, mentioned the game. I checked the game out, found the gameplay interesting, and asked Dane to play it with me.

We purchased the It Takes Two video game for PC from Steam as we mainly play on PC It’s still currently on sale for only P719.60 from P1,799 until Jan 6, 2023. But it’s also available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, XBox Series X|S, and most recently available for Nintendo Switch.

The good news is, only one person needs to purchase the full copy and the second player is free to join in.

Dane and I have played a lot of games, mostly Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) and Gacha Games where teamwork is essential, but this is the first time we played a couch co-op game—players looking at the same screen and have the same goal.

It Takes Two is a story about May and Cody, a married couple who always fights and are nearing divorce (not a good premise to start our married life but whatever), who magically turn into dolls created by their daughter. To get back to their real bodies, they are guided by a cheesy relationship book, Dr. Hakim, to fix their relationship through a series of story-driven tasks with varying mechanics that needs both of them to complete. It’s actually what we like best about It Takes Two. There’s so much variety in the gameplay mechanics that make playing the game a unique experience every time.

For example, in the below screenshot, Cody (right) shoots saps, while May fires a gun that makes the saps explode.

While on this next screenshot, Dane and I are looking at the same screen through our respective devices and control our respective characters accordingly. Each with a unique skill or equipment to help us collaborate and complete tasks in the game to unlock the next part of the story.

The graphics are amazing and the cutscenes are well thought of. It’s also not a very difficult game, making it a chill bonding experience for us that involves lots of laughs for all the comedic lines and sometimes gaming stupidity of one of us. But it’s also not a very easy game that you simply go through each in two seconds flat. It involves some thinking and strategy, a tad bit of dexterity, a huge lot of communication, and two people who want to have fun.

We haven’t finished the game yet as of writing, but playing It Takes Two as a couple so far has been an exciting at-home, quiet, inexpensive date for us. And since the story is also focused on a relationship, a good bonus is the tips we pick up along the way.