Co-op

Short for cooperative play, co-op asks two or more players to collaborate rather than compete against one another. Cooperation can form the main campaign, a separate mission set, a survival mode, or a feature layered into an open world. Local co-op shares one device or screen; online co-op connects players over a network. Some games support drop-in and drop-out participation without restarting a session. Teams may share resources and progress or retain separate inventories, so co-op describes the relationship between players, not one fixed set of rules.