Sons of Sparta's co-op options leave players confused at launch

Thursday's State of Play continued PlayStation's streak of ending its presentations with big announcements. Last night's final reveal was a 2D God of War prequel called Sons of Sparta, and it's available now. The spinoff's store page mentions a co-op mode, and there appears to be a second player involved in some of the gameplay, but once people start playing the game themselves, no one can figure out if Sons of Sparta actually has co-op.

At the end of the Sons of Sparta trailer, Kratos and Deimos are seen fighting together. The two Spartans also finally stand together after hitting 2026, making it “today”, confirming the Shadow Drop status of the new God of War game. Go to its PlayStation Store page to buy it, and you'll confirm that it can indeed be played by 1-2 players.

Sons of Sparta appears to have co-op, but how does it work?

However, players have been confused about how you add a second player to the game, taking to Twitter and Reddit for answers, but no one has been able to figure it out. A Reddit post that mentions a game with co-op has gotten a lot of attention, as people are working together on answers to figure out how to make it work.

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One answer reads that the “Add Player Two” options do not appear in Sons of Sparta's menus, nor are you prompted to invite someone to control the demos when connecting a second controller. Another player claimed that they were able to fight the first boss with a friend, though no one else could back up that claim.

Does the new god of war have a co-op mode?

One theory is that the co-op mode is something you need to unlock, potentially by playing the entire game alone first. Another is that the game isn't co-op at all, and that the PlayStation Store listing says otherwise is a mistake. A player has claimed that they received a response from PlayStation telling them that the game is not co-op, and that it shouldn't be on the Sparta store page.

TheGamer has reached out to PlayStation for clarification on the co-op situation and will update this article if and when we hear back.

Some disgruntled early adopters have suggested to the God of War spinoff that they may already request a refund, citing that the chance to play the game in co-op was the main reason they bought it. It can be very difficult to get a refund from the PlayStation Store in general, but if the reason for that request is that the game is missing a function that the store page states, then it will be difficult for customers to refuse their money back.