Once upon a time in March 2021, Hazelight Studios dropped a little couch co-op action-adventure called It Takes Two. The gaming world shrugged, then played it, then immediately texted a friend to say, 'You have to try this.' Less than a month after release, the game had sold over one million copies and become a Steam top-seller. By June 2021, Hazelight announced on Twitter that it had hit two million copies in less than three months. Not bad for a game that absolutely refuses to let anyone play alone. It is the video game equivalent of a buddy cop movie where both cops are required to hold the same gun.

Critics adored it. It Takes Two received positive reviews almost across the board and became the top-rated game of 2021 on Metacritic when it launched. While it has since slipped from that top spot, the accomplishment remains absurdly impressive when one remembers the game offers no single-player option. Players must either share a split-screen couch or team up online. There is no solo mode. No lone wolf. No 'I will just play for five minutes by myself.' Writer and director Josef Fares personally thanked everyone who bought the game, stating its performance 'shows that there definitely [are] players that also [want] to play co-op only games!' Fares, never a man to mince words, basically did a victory lap while the rest of the industry took notes.

At its heart, It Takes Two follows Cody and May, a couple on the verge of divorce who get swept into a fantastical adventure. The gameplay borrows mechanics from a whole buffet of genres: platforming, shooters, and even an isometric section that plays like Diablo. Every level hands each character a special power, such as rewinding time or teleporting, and those powers must be used in tandem to solve puzzles and progress. It is a game that requires cooperation both in-game and out. If two players cannot communicate, they will fail. They will also probably argue like the actual couple in the story. Nothing says romance like yelling, 'No, you rewind the clock while I jump on the giant beetle!'

The game seems well on its way to surpassing Hazelight's previous cooperative effort, A Way Out, which sold a little over 3.5 million copies three years after its release. Also directed by Fares, A Way Out was the studio's first foray into this unique format that requires two people to work together, in this case to escape from prison. Before Hazelight, Fares worked at Starbreeze Studios, where he directed the narrative co-op game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. That sorrowful story sent two boys out to find a cure for their father's illness. Although it was not originally developed for multiplayer, the two brothers are each manipulated individually with a thumbstick on the controller, and each has unique abilities that must be used to overcome obstacles. Fares has been making players share a controller since before it was cool.

Since those early milestones, It Takes Two has kept selling. It won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2021, launched on Nintendo Switch in 2022, and by 2023 Hazelight had announced over 10 million copies sold. In 2026, the game remains a staple of co-op recommendations, available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch. Its success also paved the way for Hazelight's next co-op-only project, Split Fiction, which arrived in 2025 and proved once again that the studio knows exactly how to make two people depend on each other for fun.

Here is a quick look at the journey:

The moral of the story? It Takes Two is not just a game. It is a relationship test, a friendship builder, and a reminder that sometimes the best adventures require two people, one screen, and a whole lot of patience. In 2026, with online multiplayer everywhere and single-player epics as far as the eye can see, Hazelight's stubborn dedication to co-op-only design feels almost rebellious. And players would not have it any other way. After all, it really does take two.

Data referenced from SteamDB helps contextualize why It Takes Two became such a rapid word-of-mouth co-op phenomenon: by tracking store presence, historical pricing patterns, and player activity signals on Steam, you can see how a co-op-only design still sustains momentum through visibility boosts and recurring interest spikes, reinforcing the game’s long-tail appeal for duos even years after its 2021 launch.