Hyper Light Drifter gets co-op mode in beta

Ride together, die together

Hyper Light Drifter developer Heart Machine just added a beta version of a local co-op mode to the game, a surprise addition of a feature that the studio cut many moons ago.

"This was a mode we had cut months before we shipped due to time constraints, but have since gone back to because it's a lot of fun and felt worthwhile to take the time to complete," said Alex Preston, the game's creator, in a post on Steam today.

The beta of co-op mode is available now; players can enable it by right-clicking on the game in their Steam library, then hitting Properties and going to the Betas tab. In the game, you turn on co-op mode from the pause menu. Co-op requires at least one player to use a controller, and it's not possible to earn achievements while playing in co-op.

Heart Machine will run the co-op beta until 1 a.m. ET on Monday, May 2. At that point, the studio will take stock of all the feedback it receives about co-op, and tweak the mode before releasing an updated version of Hyper Light Drifter with co-op included.

You can check out the mode in action in the GIFs below. For more on Hyper Light Drifter, which is available now on Linux, Mac and Windows PC, read our review.