Hazelight Studios, the company behind story-focused Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out, the split-screen co-op game that had two inmates work together to escape from a maximum security prison, announced its latest project in June of 2020. It Takes Two continues Hazelight’s foray into innovative cooperative games, this time with a 3D action-adventure platformer.
Scheduled for release in March 2021, the game tells the story of Cody and May, a couple going through a divorce who find themselves transformed into two dolls created by their daughter Rose. Now the pair must work cooperatively in It Takes Two to return to their bodies, while undergoing a fantastical and likely transformative journey. Hazelight has stated that its number one priority during the game's development has been to truly merge story and gameplay in order to create an engaging and compelling experience.
And the studio is confident that it has accomplished its goal. Josef Fares, the outspoken director of It Takes Two, thinks that the melding of story and interesting game mechanics will make players not want to put the game down. “I’m really telling you,” he said in an interview with Game Informer, “that’s a guarantee. I know I sound very cocky all the time, but that’s a guarantee.” Fares is so confident in It Takes Two’s ability to hook players that he will give $1,000 to anyone who says they’ve tired of the game.
“You can put this as the headline,” Fares stated boldly in the interview. “One thousand bucks! I guarantee. I’ll give it to everyone who gets tired.” There is one caveat, though. “They have to be honest about it.” How that honesty will be gauged is not yet clear, but Fares’ confidence will likely have the intended effect: compelling people to grab a copy of It Takes Two when it launches in March.
One of the driving forces behind Fares’ $1,000 guarantee is that he truly wants players to finish the game and enjoy it the whole way through. That has been the goal throughout development and every aspect of the game, from sound design to mechanics, is aimed toward that end.
When A Way Out released in 2018, the game was praised for its originality and for daring to offer no single-player option. The game won awards and was nominated for many others but, for Fares, that wasn’t enough. According to the numbers, only 51 percent of players completed A Way Out. “It saddens me,” said Hazelight’s director. “That means that 49 percent of people didn’t finish it. It’s not something I should be happy about.”
According to Fares, it’s a shame that people are not finishing games. But the reason, at least in part, is because developers and publishers focus only on perfecting the beginning portions of games because that’s the part that people will play. But Hazelight doesn’t adjust its games to please players. The company creates the games they want and then entices people into liking them too by offering “highly varied and more directed linear experiences.” The result, hopefully, will be that It Takes Two becomes one of the few games that players finish. Hopefully, that is, for Fares’ wallet.
It Takes Two will release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on March 26, 2021.
Source: Game Informer, Hazelight
