Making the Team: Examining What Makes Team Based Games Unique

What makes games that require cooperation and teamwork fun and unique.

If you’re a gamer like me, then you probably have some friends who aren’t gamers like you. They don’t necessarily enjoy the competitive nature of some games and would rather not have to always being fighting “the best” person on the block at Smash Bros. or Soul Calibur. Or even if they do, they still just might not be as good as you and after a while, beating them to a smear on the ground might have you guys sharing the laughter, but the lack of a dynamic playing experience can become dull. That is why I have a special place in my heart for cooperative games. Now I’m not talking about games that have a multiplayer mode where players run around shooting anything that moves that has a red name over their character’s heads. I’m talking about games that are designed around the idea that you and either friends or random strangers cooperate to overcome opposing forces. At first, some people might think I’m talking about games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but even that game has its flaws when the later levels become one players completely the levels and everyone else just trying to keep up and not die. Or even games like MAG where the system just seemed to rigid to feel like you and your teammates were really making decisions on your own.

However, there are a few games that have managed to create a true team experience by following a few simple rules. The first one is giving the player a lot of options for what jobs they want to perform, but keeping roles well defined. While a game that has every player doing the same action (killing opponents, capturing objects or areas, etc.) can remain fun, it is mainly an isolated experience. A true team experience requires players to perform specific jobs, but to maintain its fun, it needs to be an open experience for the players to choose to do their job and not be forced into it. Let’s take an example: Battlefield 2142, a futuristic shooter of the popular Battlefield series, gives the players classes that each provide specific roles, such as the assault class that is both light infantry and medic, recon which are snipers and demolition, engineer classes repair vehicles as well as destroy enemy vehicles, and support class offers just what it says, support for other classes with powerful weapons, deployable shields and sentry turrets. While shooters of the time were trying a bunch of different ways to give players weapons and the current generation of shooters wanting to provide players with making their own class and getting better weapons as they advance through the ranks, games quickly devolved into running around and hoping your opponent doesn’t have a shotgun. Also through this method, the classes must be balanced with clear advantages and disadvantages. In 2142, assault classes can’t really deal with tanks, and recon have very little to deal with short range combat. If it all maintains balance, then players can play the way they prefer, and still want to be with a team to cover their weakspots.

Another golden rule is to give a clear objective, but being just vague enough to where players have to think about how they’re going to pull it off. If we take another one of my favorite team based games, Monster Hunter Tri, the objective is usually very simple, take down or capture the monster (for big hunts, the main attraction of the game). However, if the players want to fulfill their task effectively, they’ll need to pick the right kind of weapons, the right kind of armor, have the right kind of abilities, and have the right items on them. Will you utilize traps or will you try and wear it out? Should you use the weapon that the monster is elementally weak to or what that induces status effects? In a lot of co-op games, objectives are usually so well-defined that players are not given the opportunity to think about how to pull it off. For example, the Invasion mode of Halo Reach has such specific task such as protect these areas and protect the core, that players don’t really need to have any kind of team skills to survive or succeed, it is just as isolated as the rest of the game. A lot of co-op games also keep a well-defined goal, where multiple players just have to get to the end fighting off whatever the developers throw at them. Again, very little actual team work is needed, and most of the time the game can be beaten relying on the best player while the other players just try and survive. The co-op arena in Uncharted 2 is very much like that. When I play that game, my team mates mainly do the same thing, just fighting waves after waves of enemies only relying on each other to revive one another when one of us has fallen or to free us when we are grabbed. The cooperation to complete the goal is forced otherwise ignored. Of course, I’m not saying that those games are bad or not fun, far from it, just stating that in terms of creating a sensation of working as a team to achieve a goal, these games contain examples of how to not do it.

Of course, the secret to any good team game is a good community. Developers need to encourage this but ultimately, it just depends what kind of people pick up the game. Fortunately, games like Battlefield 2142 and Monster Hunter Tri have those kinds of communities, where players regularly help others either increase their skills, learn the tricks of the game, which all ultimately forms into a natural and interchangeable team experience that can be experiences on every play through.