A co-op game that makes players fight each other

A closer look

Spending ten hours watching your partner's back just makes the knife slide in that much easier at the end. Josef Fares designed A Way Out entirely around a mandatory split-screen co-op experience, forcing two players to explicitly rely on each other to break out of prison and survive. Every mechanic, from synchronizing takedowns to catching each other from falling, builds deep, unspoken trust between the players on the couch. This makes the game's finale—where the narrative demands the two players suddenly fight to the death in a brutal shootout—one of the most devastating cooperative betrayal mechanics in history. The game doesn't just break the characters' bond; it shatters the actual trust sitting in your living room.