Making a Case for Co-Op Multiplayer Mystery Games
Examining why so few mystery games feature co-op and what needs to change to make them more common.
Today marks the beginning of Steam's Couch Co-Op Fest, which showcases a wide variety of games that can be played locally in a cooperative way.
Though Steam's criteria for this fest seem to be quite lenient, since it was actually a struggle for me to find truly local co-op mystery games — most results were either online multiplayer or flat-out single-player games (like Firewatch).
I can’t really blame them too much, since most multiplayer games these days are made with online play in mind (rather than local), but I hesitate to say that pure backseat-theorycrafting counts as multiplayer.
So today’s article will focus on co-op mystery games in general — games in which multiple players work together in order to solve a mystery — and we'll talk about other variations like competitive multiplayer some other time.
How many co-op mystery games are on Steam?
There are approximately 2,800 games on Steam tagged "Detective", but when you filter by the "Co-Op" feature, only 190 results remain. Filtering again by Steam's "Remote Play Together" (a feature where only one person needs a copy of the game for all to play) only 17 results remain.
(Note: Steam tags are crowdsourced and therefore are not always accurate, and sometimes even the "Detective" tag includes non-mystery games — it is just a quick litmus test.)
This is very sad, as many of my fondest memories of games growing up came from couch co-op multiplayer experiences with friends and family. Whether it was 2D platformers, strategy games, sports games, party games, or first-person shooters, I was always happy when a friend or family member could join a game with me.
I'd also like to quickly point out that I've had plenty of enjoyable nights with friends and family, sitting on a couch and binge-watching a wide variety of mystery TV shows and movies. There is no shortage of high quality examples there (whether fictional, true crime, or hybrid), so it begs the question of why traditional mystery games have rarely been taken seriously as an experience designed for multiple people.
I suspect that to some degree, it has to do with narrative control. In a movie, the mystery is solved by a single detective (or as Van Dine would say, "one protagonist of deduction") — or at the very least, the narrative thread unfolds based on the whims of a single movie director.
But in games, when you give control over to the player, then that means each player will investigate just a bit differently, and will theorize just a bit differently, from each other.
As it is hard enough already to write a mystery where the player matches the wits of the in-game detective, it’s even harder to balance multiple players at the same time.
And so that is likely reason enough for many developers to simply ignore trying it.
But I disagree. At a time when mystery content is more popular than ever, and when multiplayer games are more popular than ever, there couldn't be a better combination.
The evolution of co-op mystery games
Historically, mystery games have been single-player experiences that primarily require the player to read and interpret a lot of text. Whether it's an point-and-click adventure or visual novel, these were highly linear games that were closer to reading a book than watching a movie.
And I'm sure that's because these games initially took inspiration from mystery books more than they did mystery movies. After all, games made in the 80s and 90s were being made before some of the best movies of all time had even been conceived.
I personally love reading books, but it's not something that I would consider a group activity. It's much easier to sit down to watch a mystery movie with a group of friends than to sit down at a table and read a mystery book together.
The same applies to watching YouTube videos instead of reading blog posts, which is why video platforms have become so popular. Most people would always opt for the video lesson over the blog post because the information is just easier for our human brains to absorb.
However, as technology has improved, games can more easily leverage video and audio to create more cinematic experiences. And those experiences can more closely leverage the lessons that cinema has learned in the past several decades. Gameplay itself is also leveraged more, to create experiences that guide and teach the player with minimal text prompts.
Internet connections have also rapidly evolved from the early days of gaming. Not only can games run more cinematic experiences, but those experiences can be shared nearly instantly with anyone across the world.
So of course, online games have become much more popular in general, which has led to a small but substantial increase in the number of online multiplayer mystery games.
I can't think of any truly multiplayer mystery games before 2010, and if someone can, please let me know. I tried to research it and came up with nothing substantial.
I've always loved the mystery genre, but if I wanted to share a mystery game with friends or family, it would always devolve into me playing the game while everyone else just watched. Maybe at best we would take turns or make theories, but that was it.
The 2010s saw a growth in escape room games and social deduction games, which are often designed with co-op experiences in mind. These video games were modeled after their real-life counterparts (physical escape rooms and social deduction board games) and brought a lot of their mechanics into the world of video games.
Recent and highly successful examples include Among Us (2018) and Escape Simulator (2021).
How can co-op detective games work?
That said, co-op games in the core detective genre are still sorely lacking. But if you study how the other genres do it, I really believe there's a lot of room for innovation.
A truly multiplayer co-op mystery game experience is simply one where all players work together to solve a mystery. As long as you abide by that principle, you can be as creative as you want.
Phasmophobia (2020) is one such game, which has since inspired an entire ghost-hunting subgenre. On the surface it looks like and describes itself as a ghost-hunting game, but when you actually play the game, you realize the mechanics are all about deduction. Players must work together, using various equipment to find clues and deduce the identity of the ghost haunting each location.
If you replace the concept of a ghost with a human culprit, it wouldn't be a stretch to call Phasmophobia a detective simulator.
On a similar note, I think a co-op multiplayer game where each player takes on a different role (lead officer, interrogator, forensic analyst, and so on) would be very fun. Phasmophobia technically does this with its equipment mechanics, which allow the roles to dynamically change during the course of play. But you could further separate out the roles so that the interrogation gameplay is vastly different from the forensic analysis gameplay, and for the mystery to be totally solved, each player would have to be the best at their individual job, and learn to cooperate with each other (not unlike a recent murder mystery visual novel).
Asymmetric multiplayer games are games exactly like that, where the mechanics are different for each player. The Past Within (2022) is a popular example, where the two players are in two different interactive environments and shown different information, and must communicate what they see to each other in order to solve each puzzle.
Asymmetric multiplayer is an entire subgenre on its own, and whether you prefer symmetry or not is entirely personal preference. But I have to wonder if mystery games would strongly benefit from asymmetry more than other games.
Imagine that a group of friends comes over to your place, and you want to pick out a multiplayer game to play. Maybe not all of your friends are deeply into detective games, and maybe they'd prefer to just play more action-oriented shooter games instead. So what game do you pick?
Well, wouldn't it be neat if there was a mystery game where one player was the lead investigator, piecing things together, while the other players had more action-focused roles, like fighting off monsters and exploring the unknown? Different players can take on different roles depending on their interest in the mystery genre, and the game can still be a mystery game, but it can also take advantage of mechanics that people love in other genres.
This is not even total speculation, as I can find at least one game that already does something like that. BROK the InvestiGator (2022) is a 2D action-sidescroller with multiplayer mechanics designed for fans of the beat-‘em-up genre, but the game itself focused on investigating and solving a mystery in a point-and-click way.
Going back to my earlier point about mystery TV shows and movies, I have often wondered if most people just want the shocking twists and turns explained to them, rather than being forced to figure everything out themselves. That is, they see detective-work as a chore rather than as a fun exercise. Or maybe they just don't believe they are smart enough to be a real detective, so they don’t bother trying.
You can then basically categorize mystery gamers into two types: the Detectives and the Watsons. The Detectives want to actively solve the puzzle, while the Watsons just want to watch and be amazed.
If you use those two types as bases for more specific and more complex player-classes, you should be able to make a mystery game that appeals to any random group of people. Let each player pick their preferred play-style, and let them have fun!
Should you make a co-op mystery game?
Whether it’s online or in-person, multiplayer games hold incredible potential for the mystery genre, and it’s not just me saying it. You can see the proof in major sales numbers and millions of satisfied players. People want to be connected more than ever, and mystery is more popular than ever before. I know I already said that, but it’s such an important point.
If you are trying to make a popular game, you need to look at the current state of the market. I don’t want to discourage anyone from making games in genres that aren’t trendy, but the simplest piece of business advice I can give is to make the kind of games that people are really hungry to play.
That’s why I spend so much time trying to learn from other genres, and leveraging those insights, to help many of the struggling developers making mystery games right now.
Lastly, I admit that I'm personally motivated to encourage more multiplayer mystery games, because I run a community where people want to get their mystery fix but want some social connection at the same time.
If you are looking for someone to play a mystery game with, you should join our Mystery Gamedev Discord server.
And if you are looking for a list of multiplayer games to try out, I'll once again direct you to the Steam Couch Co-Op Fest for some time-limited discounts!
Thanks for reading!
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