A couple of years ago, Hazelight’s A Way Out seemed to reignite proper co-op play that had been missing from games. This year It Takes Two continued that on with a platformer that required constant communication from partners. Now, Operation: Tango from developer Clever Plays looks to fit into the same category. You will need a friend, and you will need good communication to succeed in this espionage puzzle game. 

Ashley Hobley and I played through two levels of Operation: Tango that took us all up, about an hour. We’d just come off It Takes Two, so I thought we’d be well-oiled co-op partners by this point, but Operation: Tango proved itself quite tricky.

Ash played the ‘hacker’ character while I played as the ‘field agent’. As I moved through a building to gain access to a vault, I had to communicate information to Ash, who would hack into computer systems to get me inside different rooms. The puzzles ramp up in difficulty, and the simplest mini-games often required us to slow down and more succinctly explain what we needed the other person to do. More so than the Hazelight games I’ve mentioned, Operation: Tango emphasises voice communication, whereas Hazelight games often rely on the split-screen to communicate information. There are little-to-no visual explanations given to each player about what they may need to do or what their partner can or can’t see on their screen.