10 Cruel Tricks Video Games Played On Co-Op Players

As much as we all love a great single-player game, there's nothing quite like sitting down with a couple of friends for some co-operative play. If games are meant to bring us together, what could be better than that?

While co-op is typically intended to be a joyous, uniting experience, that isn't always the case, and sometimes developers decide to think a little outside the box, to challenge our preconceptions of what co-op play is and basically reinvent the wheel.

These 10 video games, all of them featuring co-op multiplayer in one way or another, clearly relished toying with player expectations and turning the co-op experience into a bit of a cruel joke.

Whether forcing players to battle one another at a pivotal moment, making them team up to do something truly horribly, or simply giving them the opportunity to thoroughly troll each other, these co-op modes are all absolutely soaked in playfully mischievous intent.

In some cases these cruel sleights of hand left us all thoroughly pissed off, while in others it was tough not to respect the creativity - harsh though it was...

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is just one of several Josef Fares-directed games on this list, and that's because the guy sure knows how to create co-op games that thoroughly press the player's buttons.

Though Brothers was originally conceived as a single-player game in which the player controlled two brothers - using a different thumbstick for each brother - there was nothing stopping two people playing the game together by handling a side of the controller each.

The 2019 Nintendo Switch version, however, did finally introduce official multiplayer support.

The game is focused around two brothers co-operating in order to complete puzzles and advance their journey to find a cure for their father's illness. The older brother, Naia, is the stronger of the two while the younger, Naiee, is smaller and more agile.

Yet near the end of the game, the rug is well and truly pulled out when Naia is mortally wounded by a giant spider and dies.

For the remainder of the story, Naiee is naturally the only playable character, and worse still, you're saddled with the task of dragging his corpse around and burying him.

As a single-player experience this was absolutely devastating, and in co-op, it forces the player controlling Naia to awkwardly sit around for the final 20 minutes of the game while their friend finishes it. Or for true dramatic effect, just leave the room.