So there’s this foolish new co-op recreation you have to take a look at. You and your mates play as a bunch of little guys sporting outsized helmets. It’s a must to rescue a princess. By the best way, it’s 2008, this recreation is named Citadel Crashers, and life is sweet. #yolo!
Wait, I’m so sorry, I’ve a few of these particulars mistaken… It’s truly 2025, this recreation is named Massive Helmet Heroes, and life is [Ed note: adjective redacted]. We’re not saying “yolo” anymore, are we?
You’ll hopefully perceive my mistake. Massive Helmet Heroes, launched final month for Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X, is functionally a high-fidelity spin on Citadel Crashers, a well-liked 2008 beat-’em-up by developer The Behemoth that helped pave the best way for an indie recreation revolution within the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Picture: Exalted Studio/Expensive Villagers
This comparability will not be an exaggeration, by the best way, neither is it a put-down. However the similarities are simple. It’s not simply the princess-saving or the medieval vibes or the whimsically anachronistic music. Even the primary main boss crashes by a gate in the identical method as Citadel Crashers’ first boss.
That mentioned, there are a handful of features that would depend as variations on a technicality. Massive Helmet Heroes eschews the cartoonish look of Citadel Crashers for an artwork type that resembles, or not less than goals for, photorealism. In Citadel Crashers, you might stage up heroes individually, they usually every wielded distinctive weapons. Massive Helmet Heroes stars 29 characters, and whereas all of them put on comically outsized helmets, you possibly can’t stage them up. All of them neatly fall into one in every of 4 weapon archetypes: sword, workers, daggers, or large hammer.
To unlock extra characters past your beginning roster, it’s worthwhile to scour hidden corners in every of the sport’s ranges. These different unlockable characters aren’t too different, though every one comes with a unique particular capacity. And a few of these talents are game-changers: One freezes all close by enemies, whereas one other creates a localized zone of bullet time, whereas yet one more immerses all close by enemies in bubbles, as they flail helplessly whereas floating off display. (Others are much less useful: One capacity floods the display with sheep.)
As such, a lot of the enjoyable in Massive Helmet Heroes comes not simply from beating ranges however from exploring every one to search for new little guys (with large helmets). However the very best half? You may play your entire recreation with a good friend whereas — and that is a very powerful — sitting subsequent to that good friend. Such is the state of the video games trade the place, if a recreation has sofa co-op, I’m gonna test it out for not less than a bit bit.
Picture: Exalted Studio/Expensive Villagers
It’s no secret that sofa co-op has slipped from a welcome function to at least one that’s barely current within the greatest video games. And within the uncommon circumstances the place it does exist, it feels tacked on. Save for some Nintendo video games, getting an area foyer in Name of Responsibility or Gears of Struggle or no matter virtually requires a consumer guide. Even the Halo sequence, which just about minted the Mountain Dew-fueled pastime of “sitting on the sofa with your mates and taking pictures make-believe aliens,” forwent native marketing campaign co-op a decade in the past. (You may nonetheless play aggressive multiplayer regionally.)
But Massive Helmet Heroes carries the flame, and additional heralds a robust 12 months for sofa co-op video games. The shooters Revenge of the Savage Planet and Borderlands 4 will embrace native co-op after they launch in Could and September respectively. The hack-and-slash Towerborne will assist as much as 4 gamers regionally when it exits early entry and lands on Xbox later this 12 months. Simply subsequent month, Cut up Fiction, the subsequent recreation from It Takes Two developer Hazelight Studios, launches with multi-genre-verse gameplay that not solely helps however actively encourages enjoying aspect by aspect with a good friend, although you’ll additionally have the option play with that good friend on-line.
No, a Citadel Crashers non secular successor isn’t the hero (with large helmets) that we deserve. It’s the one we would have liked.
Massive Helmet Heroes was launched Feb. 6 on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X. The sport was reviewed on Xbox Sequence X utilizing a obtain code supplied by Exalted Studio. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media could earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You will discover extra details about gamexplore’s ethics coverage right here.
