Adventure · 2017 · Larian Studios · local · online
Divinity: Original Sin 2
A turn-based role-playing game where the scenery is deadlier than any weapon — and where you are allowed to double-cross each other.
What it is about
You wash up on an island as prisoners, because you command a magic that is outlawed there. What comes of that is largely up to you: each character has their own backstory, their own goals and their own reasons to cross the other.
Combat is turn-based on a grid, and the real appeal lies in the surroundings. Oil burns, water conducts electricity, rain puts out fire, poison turns into an explosion. Almost every fight can be won along several completely different routes.
With two, each of you controls your own character, and you can split up: one negotiates in town while the other clears out a camp. In conversations the game rolls between you to see whose view counts — it expects you to disagree.
Our verdict for couples
A room full of barrels, and one of you has just set a fire: that is not an accident, that is the combat system. Oil burns, water conducts electricity, poison goes up, and whoever thinks it through first wins the turn. Because both of you can take your own quests and go separate ways, one of you can ruin a storyline for the other before they even hear about it — the game considers that entirely fair. Anyone arriving from Baldur's Gate 3 should know this one forgives noticeably less: the armour system cannot be talked round, and a hundred hours remain a hundred hours.
Pros
- Huge campaign playable entirely in co-op
- ‚Lone Wolf‘ is built expressly for two
- You can go your separate ways
Cons
- Needs many long evenings
- The armour system forgives little
- One of you can spoil the other's quests
Suitable from
Gamer
- Conflict potential
- Heated
- Cosiness
- Mixed
- When you can stop
- Only after an hour or more
- How long it lasts
- Over 40 hours
What other co-op fans say
The community currently sees this game through Baldur's Gate 3: a great many people arrive from there, and the verdict almost always lands the same way — the same handwriting, rougher-edged, more demanding tactically. What gets praised most is the freedom in building a character and fights in which the surroundings matter more than the weapon. The objections circle the sheer size, and the fact that the world rewards conflict where you might not want to look for it.
- “This game makes you really think about the area you are in. You will want to utilize your surroundings and elements to take advantage of the situation.”
- “lone wolf co-op runs are honestly some of my favorite to do in this game”
- “this game leans into the murder-hobo side of DnD way too much”
Summarised by machine from 60 Steam reviews, not written by our editors. The quotes appear verbatim in those reviews.
If you like this one
Runs on the same devices as this game.
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Terraria
Dig out a two-dimensional world, build it up, and clear its bosses one at a time.
Valheim
Make a Viking world habitable as a pair: fell trees, raise a hall, put out to sea.
Related in the magazine
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Two hours, that's it
How long a game is tells you almost nothing about whether you can start it on a Tuesday night. The question that matters is a different one — and it leads to surprising picks.
- Guide
When you're both good at this
Almost every co-op recommendation is written for uneven couples — including our last one. For two experienced players the problem inverts: difficulty isn't what's missing. Needing each other is.