Volcanoids was released back in January 2019 on Steam in Early Access and since then, developer Volcanoid has been working on the game to make it better and add tons of new features to the game. Their latest major update adds a much-requested feature to the game as co-op is now part of the game and players can now team up with their friends to drive massive drillships, look for resources and fight off the annoying robot enemies inhabiting the island. Since co-op is just out, this is our Early Access review of Volcanoids Co-Op update in which we join our hands against the COGs and drill into lava infested islands.
I did not play Volcanoids a lot before its co-op update but I really liked the idea of the game. Most of my survival games have been co-op and one of the reasons why I was not playing Volcanoids too much was the lack of a co-op mode since I’ve been sticking to games where a friend or two could join me in them. With this update, however, I finally jumped in the game with another friend of mine who is also a big fan of co-op survival games.
Having played the game in solo earlier, the difference in the co-op mode and the solo mode is massive. For me, I found the game more convenient in co-op because both of us could focus on different tasks at the same time and when times were tough, we were there to help each other out in the tasks. One of us could be driving the drillship around while the other one was able to work on the workbenches and create or upgrade different facilities on the rig on the go. It massively saved up time and any extra movement that a single player needs to do in the game.
Volcanoids co-op update currently works as one player hosts the game and the other one joins the game as another player. For some reason, only one drillship is allowed in a single co-op game in the co-op updates first phase. I did read somewhere that this intends to be changed in the future however this review is solely based on the co-op experience that you can experience right now in the game. Right from the main menu, you can host an online game and invite your buddies to your game. The game allows up to four players to jump into a single game however I only had a friend playing along with me for this review. The joining was smooth and silky and there were no hiccups in the starting phases.
Right off the start, we jumped in the tutorial and finished the initial missions which serve as the tutorial of the game. Although we’ve played the game in solo mode, we had a good idea about how everything works in the game already. The quests in the game work simultaneously for both players in the game. One player can start it and it will begin for everyone on the server. This works really well because everyone playing on the same server can experience the same quest rather than waiting on the host to finish the quest.
Apart from the quests, random exploration was fun and convenient as well because having more players meant that we had a greater chance of survival against those pesky COGs. While one hunted for resources, the other one made sure that no one was trying to kill the looter. If you keep the convenience of having more players aside, playing as a team simply makes exploration more fun as you can mess around with each other. There is no PvP in the game so you cannot just blast each other’s heads off yet. This could change if a PvP mode arrives in the game later.
Bunk Beds is also part of the new update which is specially targeted at co-op gameplay. With this handy new feature, any players who want to sign off the game can simply head over to a bun bed and sleep there. After some time, if they wish to jump back, they will wake up at the bunk bed and join the other players at their current location. This saves the hassle of party invites and long waits in lobbies. This is one of the best features of the new co-op update and I think that more games should follow some sort of this mechanic for leaving and joining back games.
At this stage, I would not call the co-op perfect. It works flawlessly without any problems but it is more centered towards the host at this point. For example, for me, I was the host of the game and when my friend joined, he was sort of a helper in my game. True he was playing in co-op with me but we only had my drillship on the map and everything he did, was basically helping me out ultimately. Also, every time I quit the game, he was kicked out of the game as well. I would prefer it if the co-op world could be a little more seamless in the future where both co-op players have access to their own drillships and would be able to help each other out at the same time rather than just one player helping out the other one on their drillship.
That being said, the co-op however worked extremely smoothly. I don’t remember a single time when my game crashed or my friend disconnected from my game due to some in-game glitch or bug. We started a brand new game and spent nearly 4 hours just in our initial session. It was a smooth ride and we did not experience any sort of technical difficulties while playing the game together. This bodes well for the future updates of the game because additional features can always be added in the future but the foundation has to be really good and in this case, I can say that the update feels pretty well-settled with the game and has not broken anything in the game.
Final Verdict:
Volcanoids Co-op Update is a really good addition to the game because every open-world survival game is good with friends. It greatly increases the fun factor and life of the game. I will highly recommend that if you looking for a decent co-op survival game, give Volcanoids a try. It features an extremely unique take on the survival genre and I am sure that you will enjoy playing it with your friends. There are a few additions and changes that I would have liked in the mode however even in its current form, it is quite fun to play. Since the game is currently in Early Access, we can expect the final release to be even more refined and filled with additional features that are missing at this point.
Final Score: 7.9/10
