It Takes Two

It Takes Two, released 26 March 2021, went on to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2021 and, per the developer's own sales announcements, has since sold more than 23 million copies — genuinely rare territory for a co-op-only, no-single-player-mode game. Overwhelmingly Positive across more than 266,000 Steam reviews five years later, the reception is built on real, specific, sustained enthusiasm — and on one recurring, worth-understanding caveat this review sets out to cover honestly.

A genuinely unmatched density of ideas

The review sample's core praise for It Takes Two centres on a specific structural achievement: nearly every level introduces mechanics that exist nowhere else in the game. "The gameplay and design of this game is honestly so amazing. You can have a real good time playing this with a lot of different puzzle games and mechanics," one review states, a sentiment echoed constantly throughout the sample regardless of overall verdict. Even reviewers with real reservations about other elements consistently credit this specific achievement: "In terms of gameplay, this is a good game. The platforming is tight, the environments are nice," one otherwise critical review concedes before detailing separate concerns — a pattern that recurs often enough to treat the game's mechanical density as its clearest, most consistently verified strength.

A genuine relationship experience, described sincerely and often

What distinguishes It Takes Two's reception from typical co-op praise is how personally and sincerely reviewers describe playing it with real partners, spouses, children and friends. "Started playing this today with my daughter, we couldn't stop and played for 3.5 hours straight... Only once every couple of years, a beautiful and brilliant story-driven couch co-op like this one is made," one review states. Another, more personally invested still: "I finished this game with my wife... I really feel more connected to my wife after that. The world needs more of these creative games made with love." This isn't an isolated sentiment — it recurs across dozens of independent reviews describing the game specifically as a tool for genuine connection, a distinctive pattern worth treating as real evidence of the game's emotional design succeeding as intended, alongside the more common (and often more bittersweet) reviews from players whose relationships didn't survive the game's themes of reconciliation.

A real, recurring complaint about a specific dark sequence

What keeps this review from treating the reception as uncomplicated is a real, specific, recurring complaint concerning a particular late-game sequence. "The princess cutie torture scene is absolutely untenable... when we learned that you HAVE to kill Princess Cutie we decided to stop playing," one review states, describing a moment several other reviewers independently corroborate with striking consistency: "It was an amazing game to play with my girlfriend, until that [sequence] where you have to murder a plush elephant that's begging you to stop," another states, while a third frames the tonal whiplash directly: "This game has so much going for it, it's too bad you have to literally mutilate and murder a cute, innocent elephant-child as she screams in agony and begs for mercy. It's not funny, it's not 'artistically challenging,' it's just vile." One reviewer notes that "the director of the game defends it as 'dark comedy'" — a characterisation this review can report as stated by that reviewer without independently verifying the specific quote. Several reviews specifically warn other parents directly: "DO NOT PLAY THE ELEPHANT LEVEL WITH A CHILD, EVER!" one states in capital letters, noting the sequence comes late enough that "there is a lot of gameplay to be had before that" for families considering the game. This is a real, specific, independently-corroborated complaint worth taking seriously as a genuine content warning rather than dismissing as isolated squeamishness.

A related, smaller complaint concerns the two protagonists themselves: "Cody and May are shallow, uninteresting people and bad parents. I can't think of a real redeeming quality between the two of them," one detailed review states, a criticism echoed by others who found the couple's constant bickering genuinely unpleasant to spend a full campaign with rather than charming.

A real, dateable connectivity fix

Separate from tone and story, this review can confirm a real, specific technical complaint that recurs heavily in reviews dated 2021 through early 2024: friction from the game's mandatory EA Launcher requirement. "The game is great, but @#$% Origin and @#$% EA desktop and EA in general. Every time I want to start the game I need to manually close EA desktop from registry," one representative review states. This review can confirm, directly from the developer's own patch communications, that Electronic Arts addressed this complaint directly: an update dated 29 May 2024 explicitly removed the mandatory EA Launcher requirement, adding native Steam Friends integration and Steam Deck Verified status. The large majority of this review's EA-launcher complaints predate that fix. Notably, one review dated after the fix, in August 2024, still describes real friction — in that case from Epic Games account linking rather than the EA Launcher specifically — suggesting some online setup friction persisted in a different form even after the confirmed fix, worth flagging honestly rather than declaring the issue fully resolved.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$49.95, discounted to roughly $15 at the time of writing, It Takes Two delivers a genuinely extraordinary, independently celebrated co-op experience — its mechanical creativity and its real, sincerely documented power as a shared experience for couples, families and friends are borne out repeatedly and specifically throughout this review's sample, backed by a Game of the Year award and verified sales past 23 million copies. The honest, necessary caveat concerns a real, specific, dark sequence late in the story that a meaningful minority of reviewers describe in vivid, consistent terms as genuinely upsetting, especially for players considering the game for younger children — worth knowing about in advance rather than discovering unexpectedly. A real, historical connectivity complaint about the EA Launcher has been substantially, though perhaps not entirely, addressed as of May 2024. Couples, families and friends looking for one of the most inventive co-op experiences available are very likely to find exactly what this review's sample describes so consistently — just go in aware of what's coming late in the story.