Cooperative Play

Up to four players can join the same world and work on quests, slaughtering, and challenges together. Use the matchmaking system to find other people, or invite buddies directly (through Xbox Live, Steam, or PSN) to get your friends involved.

There’s also a Matchmaking system in-game, reached via the Pause menu. Use that as a way to find other specific players’ games, or to Quick Join if you’re just looking for anyone to play with. You can be cracking skulls with other people in mere seconds.

Once people join, the game responds like it normally would. There are zombies to kill, quests to complete, and challenges to discover. There are also opportunities for small competitions throughout the world. Not only do challenges take on a competitive slant, but you can create competitions when going after Bolters, Goons, and other exotic prey. This is also true when saving survivors.

Friendly fire isn’t an issue, so firearms and melee attacks can be made with impunity. However, explosions and traps do not factor into this. It’s possible to kill each other with Exploding Cars and similar types of weaponry, so watch out unless you’re goofing around with people who don’t mind that sort of thing.

There are a couple of Achievements/Trophies that don’t activate unless you play with other people. To earn these, you must complete quests together in a consistent party or win a series of competitions in a row. Always let other people know so that they can either join up for a longer stretch of play or bow out, instead of messing things up in the middle of your attempt.

It’s easier, by far, to get these types of Achievements/Trophies when playing with people you know in real life. That way, you can organize a play session specifically to get your Achievements (and then make sure that everyone else gets them, too).

You get bonus experience for engaging in these co-op challenges, so playing with a team is often a great way to level your character up, especially in regard to your Power XP ranks.

Working Together

The mini-map and primary map both show all of your allied players, so it’s never hard to find out where people are adventuring. Even people who are very far away appear at the edge of your mini-map, so you know in which direction to head at a single glance.

If you’re all playing casually, it’s okay to spread out and do various things at your own pace. When people want to meet in a large group, it’s best to have one person who acts as the leader. That way, everyone knows to stick with that target instead of running around unsure of whom to follow.

People who try to start quests aren’t able to begin things until everyone else joins them, but all other players have the option to teleport to the quest giver. This is fine as long as people aren’t all trying to go to different areas to start different quests. Again, it’s nice to have a leader who is responsible for finding and initiating quests for the group!

Rewards

Cooperative play is great in a number of ways. Enemies drop loot for everyone on the team, so all bodies are searchable (even if you didn’t hurt the monster in question). XP isn’t shared, so that’s a minor downside, but the enemies aren’t any tougher. Your team can wade through entire plazas worth of Infected without taking much time, so experience doesn’t come in any slower than it would normally. And, the bonus XP from competitions is a nice perk. Set these competitions to a higher frequency in your online options if you’re especially enjoying them.

You get a nice boost to your experience by healing other players. The higher your rank, the more XP you get from doing this. Thus, saving other people isn’t just a good thing to do; it’s also a smart thing to do! There’s also a new Survivor XP boost for healing other players. The number of points gathered depends on the healing player Survivor Rank.