Like karaoke, escape rooms, and showering, some things are just more fun with friends. The same goes for games: solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles can turn beating a game into a true collaboration, and that’s a feeling you just can’t get when playing solo.
But every so often, a co-op game comes along that feels like it’s designed to end your friendships rather than strengthen them. (Overcooked: I’m looking at you.) The latest entry in that category is called Chained Together, a brutally punishing multiplayer platformer where you’re literally connected at the waist to your co-op partners by a chain.
Chained Together: The Brutally Punishing Co-op Game
You and your pal or pals (it supports up to four players) find yourselves in the depths of hell, and the only way out is up. Way up. Climb a massive tower of moving platforms, narrow ledges, spinning traps, and other hazards to escape.
But watch your step! Your fates are linked because your bodies are, so if one of you makes a poorly timed leap, the rest of you will suffer the consequences, which is usually a long, tumbling fall back to the bottom of the giant tower you just spent the last hour painstakingly climbing.
I haven’t played it myself yet (weirdly, there is a solo mode, too), but it’s one of those games that’s as much fun to watch people succeed at as it is to watch them horribly fail:
- There are three different modes, the right one for you depending on how many screaming matches you want to have with your soon-to-be former friends.
- If you fall in beginner mode, you can resume at the highest point you previously reached, which is nice and forgiving.
- In normal mode, there’s no safety net, so if you fall, you start over from the beginning. Ouch.
- In lava mode, the level is steadily being consumed by liquid hot magma. You’ve gotta climb quickly to stay ahead of the heat, which makes your reckless jumps even more perilous.
