Astral Chain, the newest title from NieR: Automata and Metal Gear Rising developer PlatinumGames, puts players in control of a special-ops Neuron police officer and their armored demonic pals called Legions. Since the game normally has you controlling two characters at once, it’s only natural to wonder whether or not there’s an Astral Chain multiplayer option. Those asking “Is Astral Chain co-op?” will be pleased to hear you can play the game with two players — though the co-op mode isn’t very fully-fleshed. Read on to learn how to play Astral Chain co-op.
Astral Chain Co-Op | How to play co-op mode
In Astral Chain’s co-op mode, each player uses one Nintendo Switch Joy-Con to control either the main player character or the character’s Legions. The player character can attack, activate Legion Actions (such as the Beast Legion’s riding ability), open the menu, move, crouch, and evade as normal. The Legion player can call and dismiss themselves, switch Legion types, turn the IRIS on and off, and move around the environment. As you may have noticed, the Legion player has no attack button, so they won’t be able to directly attack enemies. They do get a unique Legion evade button not normally available in single player, and they can initiate Chain Jumps and switch Legions, but their actions are fairly limited otherwise.
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Legion players also have complete control of the camera, while the player character can only move around. The limited actions each player can perform makes co-op more like splitting up the actions of the normal controller in half than a full-fledged co-op mode, but it’s still an option for those looking to play the game with a friend. To activate co-op mode, simply head to the co-op tab of the Legatus menu (press minus, then use R or L to get over to the tab marked with two Joy-Cons) and select “Begin Co-op Play.”
Astral Chain | Is there online multiplayer?
Unfortunately, there’s no option to play Astral Chain’s co-op mode over the internet. Since the mode is, again, essentially just like splitting one controller in two, perhaps Platinum felt it would have been odd to play co-op with a single Joy-Con when there wasn’t someone next to you holding the other.
