Your partner has turned into a cactus.

On the left half of the screen, May is surrounded by angry plants. On the right, Cody has become a cactus and is firing bright green needles into the same fight.

The pumpkins around them are enormous. The attackers look ridiculous. But the split screen makes something practical immediately clear: these two people have very different ways to help.

For your pair: It Takes Two belongs on the list if you want a shared adventure that keeps finding new uses for your partner. Both players need to enjoy learning unfamiliar abilities. The attraction is seeing what the other person can do with the tool you do not have.

Our examples come from Hazelight and EA’s official promotional trailers. They reveal selected situations and abilities, including the garden, rather than documenting a first playthrough or measuring how difficult the puzzles are.

Cooperation you can see from the other screen

The garden shot is memorable because Cody’s new shape tells you something before the next instruction appears. His cactus body is large in his camera; May is a small figure moving amongst the plants in hers. Both views belong to the same space, but they encourage you to pay attention to different things.

In his garden feature for PlayStation, Hazelight’s Josef Fares explains that Cody can also become a vine whose leaves give May platforms. May receives a water hose and a scythe. Those abilities turn helping into concrete actions: make somewhere to stand, water something, clear an obstacle.

That is the distinction I find appealing. The partner’s contribution can change the route itself. Watching the other half of the screen has a purpose beyond checking whether they are keeping up.

One prepares the target; the other provides the spark

An earlier sequence in the gameplay trailer makes the relationship especially easy to follow. Cody launches yellow sap towards an opening in a tree. May has a different weapon. Over the next few seconds, the view changes from hanging yellow blobs to a burst of fire.

The useful visual detail is the time before the explosion. Sap marks the shared target in both cameras. You can see preparation becoming something the other player can act on.

LOOK CLOSER

One action, two useful views.

The whole picture

Both cameras contain the tree opening and the yellow sap, but they give those details different amounts of space. Compare what is easy to see in each half before looking for the next explosion.

DETAIL 01

A partner’s action is visible in both views.

The sap stretches across May’s wider view and fills much of Cody’s closer one. Its bright colour lets you connect the two perspectives without needing to read a separate status panel.

DETAIL 02

The wider camera keeps both people in sight.

May stands in the left foreground while Cody works farther ahead. Her half of the screen shows the relationship between the two characters; Cody’s closer camera gives more room to the launcher and its output.

DETAIL 03

Match a landmark, then compare the angle.

The hollow is visible in both halves of the tree. It anchors two views of the same space. This frame shows the preparation; the ignition described in the article happens in the following seconds.

For a prospective pair, the question is whether taking turns making an opportunity and using it sounds satisfying. A player who wants to solve every situation independently may feel differently from someone who likes being useful in a very specific way. A short promotional sequence cannot tell us how an unfamiliar pair will manage the timing; the free opening chapter is a better test of that partnership.

A household becomes an adventure

EA’s gameplay introduction explains the premise: Cody and May are a separating couple transformed into dolls. Their relationship supplies the story, while familiar surroundings become outsized problems.

That domestic starting point gives the strangeness somewhere to land. The garden is recognisably a garden even when one parent has become part of it. If that blend of family tension and physical comedy interests you, it is a useful reason to choose this adventure over another collection of impressive set pieces.

In Split Fiction, the dragon sequence draws attention to changing scale and travelling through a fantasy world together. Here, the sap and garden scenes put complementary tools in the foreground. Both games keep changing what the pair can do; choose the world and premise you both want to spend time with. Our Split Fiction versus It Takes Two comparison goes further into that choice.

Check the pass and the platform

EA’s current setup guide confirms a free first chapter through Friend’s Pass. Beyond that, one full-game owner can invite a partner. It is an exactly-two-player game, locally or online.

The same guide now lists cross-play for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. Original Nintendo Switch has separate compatibility rules; check the guide rather than assuming both Nintendo versions connect identically. Online console subscription requirements also apply.

Try the opening together, and notice whether seeing your partner’s progress makes you more curious. That is a more useful first decision than choosing whichever trailer contains the biggest boss.

Setup facts checked October 15, 2026. This website is not endorsed by or affiliated with EA or its licensors.