Co-op games are absolutely one of the types my wife and I enjoy playing together the most when they pop up, and though her preference is towards more wholesome action-oriented affairs like the LEGO games, she’ll try out just about anything. I’ll admit that so far she hasn’t tended to be as big a fan of asymmetric co-op titles, since they require independent work and a lot more communication in place of simply brainstorming what’s in front of us both, but they’re growing on her. 

While we both appreciated We Were Here, the issues with performance on the Switch we took turns using in handheld mode, and some other frustrations, made it tough to enjoy. The good news is that, by comparison, We Were Here Too seems to be a little more refined and plays better overall, but some of those concerns do still linger. The first key thing to know is that the handheld performance on the Switch is absolutely better than it was, losing the somewhat jittery quality when turning or moving around, but it still feels pained overall. 

There’s absolutely still a very escape room vibe to it all, except much more difficult. If you aren’t cheating and looking at each other’s screens, the reliance on communicating every detail is critical. The problem is, without both people seeing the same things at the same time, one person could easily dismiss something that’s critical, not noticing or thinking it’s important, and that could derail any efforts for quite some time. What can also get in the way is a mixture of the environments being pretty dark and murky, and then that they’re a little too large, with too much extraneous and useless detail that serves as a distraction.

I do think that the game could benefit either from a light hint system, an opening puzzle that somehow explains itself and how the game operates, or at least a beginner puzzle that gives you an easy win before ramping things up. The lack of any clear context or guidance most of the time, and a need to obsessively share details with one another to ensure success, really pulls the game out of being appropriate for anything resembling more casual co-op play. For this to work, both people need to be bringing their best efforts, and whether it’s easy to find someone to partner with who is down with that need, also needing to purchase their own copy, would be a fair question.