Hacktag

My first instinct with Hacktag was to slot it somewhere between Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and Monaco, which is a promising neighbourhood to live in. The core split is clean: one player is the on-the-ground stealth Agent navigating corporate offices in isometric view, dodging guard patrols and security cameras, while the other is the Hacker riding a holographic network grid, tangling with radar-sweeping scanners and Pac-Man-style antivirus agents that wander the same virtual corridors. The two screens show the same level from completely different perspectives, and the dependency is real. The Hacker kills the camera so the Agent slips through, the Agent opens a server rack so the Hacker can push deeper into the network. There are three mission types across 24 levels spread across three rival corporations, and a light progression system hands out unlockable active and passive skills as you level up. Character customisation is surprisingly deep for this kind of game, with over 360 cosmetic items to chase through loot safes earned on mission completion. Here is where I have to be straight with you. The asymmetric concept earns its premise for the first couple of hours, especially on a couch where you can talk without lag. Local co-op, ideally with a headset or your partner sitting a metre away from a second screen, is where this thing actually breathes. The coordination mini-games, things like punching direction sequences on a timer to crack a door, or making an office phone ring to pull a guard off a corridor, feel sharp when both players are in sync. The problem is that the loop does not deepen fast enough. After a session or two with the same partner the puzzles stop surprising, the guard routes start feeling scripted, and the mission structure underneath it all is stubbornly linear. You are always moving toward the same boss terminal, just in a different building skin. Online play has a separate, more annoying problem. The built-in communication system bottoms out at a handful of generic pings, no voice, no text wheel worth anything. Playing with a stranger over the internet without an external voice app is close to unworkable for anything requiring tight timing, and tight timing is basically the whole game. If you are going in with a friend who will open Discord first, the netcode holds up well enough that it is not the thing killing your runs. If you are queuing blind, lower your expectations substantially. Solo mode exists, tabbing between both roles in real time, and while it technically functions it is a different kind of stressful, not in the fun way. The Steam user score sits at a mixed 66 percent across a modest review count, and that tracks. The community that loves it loves it specifically because of the couch co-op chemistry, not despite the game's limitations but almost around them. It is also worth noting that bugs and stability issues drew complaints at launch, and the player population has thinned since 2018, so finding a random online partner for spontaneous sessions is not a given. The game is best understood as a short-form co-op experience to boot up with one specific person you can talk to. Think of it as a two-hour puzzle box you revisit in short bursts rather than a sustained co-op campaign.

Fred · Scout Team

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