Hey Survivors!
Well, we certainly have a theme going here. After both Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak: Epidemic received local co-op, it's time for Outbreak to shine. That's right - 2 player local co-op is finally here for Steam (and coming later in 2020 to consoles!).
Co-op Overview
Outbreak supports 2-player splitscreen co-op in both the Campaign and Onslaught Modes. You can access local co-op through the "Local Game" menu (replacing the Single Player menu). On the lower left-side, there is a tickbox to enable local co-op and then a button to select the co-op player's character.
Just as with online co-op, everyone must select their own player. If you both select the same, it will automatically bump one of you to a different character. In addition, you can also choose to have AI teammates enabled - and this is huge - each player gets their own bot. Which means in a 2-player co-op game you can technically have 4 total players (2 human and 2 bot). This really ratchets up the action and allows you to more easily tackle the horrific Biohazard difficulty. You can of course choose to disable AI teammates if you want. Another cool thing is now (in both single-player and local co-op) your AI teammate will randomly select a weapon at the start of the match. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll bring a Magnum to the fight!
In addition, your special starting inventory items (that you randomly find during gameplay and are selected prior to the beginning of a new scenario) are applied to BOTH co-op players. So when you go in guns blazing with Magnums or Grenade Launchers, your friends will benefit from that consumable as well.
During gameplay, each human player has their own inventory and you can see everyone's items, health, etc.. from the lobby view. To help make co-op smoother, I've also added quick bindings to cycle through Handguns, Shotguns & Rifles, Power Weapons and Melee Weapons outside of the inventory (like in Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak: Epidemic). Make sure to bind these keys prior to playing oir reset your controls to defaults to pick them up.
In Onslaught Mode, both players share the same credits, so make sure to coordinate as you buy equipment and fight off the waves of the undead.
Local co-op is considered an experimental mode. You may encounter bugs or other issues. Please report them in the forums so I can fix them quickly! Steam Remote Play Together should also work fine in Outbreak (as well as Outbreak: The New Nightmare and Outbreak: Epidemic).
Have fun and stay tuned for the patch notes coming very soon with other great improvements for Outbreak! We're 3 and a half years into this nightmare and this title keeps getting better and better!!