We Were Here

While its asymmetric co-op play is novel, its implementation doesn’t feel as polished or fair as its competition

In a vacuum, it’s hard to recommend the original We Were Here – it may be free, but it’s plagued by audio issues throughout and is decidedly simpler than the newer entries, inviting entirely the wrong kind of headache. But from the perspective of the franchise as a whole, it does offer a cool window into the origins of We Were Here, and it’s obvious that the seeds of many great ideas are already beginning to take root in this initial entry, shaky though it is.

We Were Here Forever gives no quarter in its cooperative puzzling, fully trusting players to get on with it and work together. At its peak, the wondrous structure of this game is simply sublime, and perhaps the most invested I've felt in a co-op game since Portal 2. It doesn't always hit those highs, and matchmaking was personally hit and miss, but We Were Here Forever generally dazzles.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but We Were Here still offers a genuinely enjoyable co-op puzzling experience that’s very clever in design. Don’t get me wrong, most of the puzzles are simple enough to solve with a bit of team-work and it is guilty of being a little bit short, but We Were Here did more than enough to keep a big smile on mine and my co-op partner’s faces as we unravelled all of its conundrums. It certainly has us excited to see what else the series would bring in its subsequent releases…

We Were Here feels like a first outing but its unique co-op puzzle-solving gameplay immediately gets its hooks into you and offers an experience unlike anything else on the market. A few blemishes from a restricted budget show themselves every now and again, but the gameplay is most important and We Were Here is a solid launching bed for the two sequels.

There aren't many online-only first-person co-op puzzle adventure games so if you want something truly innovative, play this.