A Way Out vs It Takes Two

The short answer: It Takes Two, unless you want one night

Buy It Takes Two if you want the better game. It is longer, far more varied, and it invents and discards a new pair of mechanics every level rather than settling into one idea. For two people who want a co-op game to work through over several evenings, it is the best thing available and the easiest recommendation on this site.

Buy A Way Out if you want one complete story in a sitting or two. It is shorter, cheaper, and paced like a film, and the split-screen prison-break structure does something no other co-op game does. It is also a single playthrough with almost no reason to return.

Everything else about them is nearly identical, which is exactly why people confuse the two. Same studio, two players only, split-screen throughout including online, no crossplay, and a Friend's Pass so only one of you buys it.

What they share, and why it matters

Two players, no more and no less. Neither has a solo mode and neither takes a third. If you are a group of three, both are the wrong purchase - our three-player page is the right list.

The Friend's Pass. One person buys, the second joins free from their own machine with the whole game. It halves the cost of both and is the single reason a one-playthrough game like A Way Out is defensible at all. Our one copy, two players guide covers it alongside the other legitimate ways to share a purchase.

Split-screen everywhere. Both keep the frame divided whether you are on one sofa or in different countries. That is unusual and it is central to how they play - our split-screen and online page covers the handful of games that work this way.

No crossplay in either.This is the trap. The Friend's Pass covers the cost but not the platform, so both of you need to be on the same platform family. A pair split between a PS5 and a PC cannot play either one.

Length and replay value

This is the real difference and the one that should decide it.

It Takes Two runs across a series of themed worlds, each with its own pair of abilities, and the structure means it keeps surprising you right up to the end. It is a project - something two people arrange to continue on Thursday - rather than an evening.

A Way Out is a single story with a single ending, and the surprises are the content. Once you have seen it, there is very little reason to start again, and both players know how it goes. Treat it as one exceptional night rather than a purchase to get months out of.

We do not publish hour counts because they vary enormously with how much a pair talks and how often they get stuck, and a precise figure would be invented rather than measured. The shape is what matters: one is several evenings, the other is one or two.

Tone

It Takes Two is bright, comic and inventive - a couple turned into dolls trying to save their marriage, with a talking self-help book. It is genuinely funny and entirely suitable for a wide range of ages, which is why it appears on our couples page and family guide.

A Way Out is a grim, adult crime story - two convicts breaking out of prison, with violence and swearing throughout. It is well told and it is not a family game.

If tone is the deciding factor rather than length, that difference is larger than anything mechanical between them.

Price

A Way Out is the older and cheaper of the two, and both benefit from the Friend's Pass making one purchase cover two people. Live prices for both are at the top of this page. Given how much more game It Takes Two contains, the gap in price is usually much smaller than the gap in content - which is why we recommend it first even to people on a budget. Our cheap games guide covers the wider budget question, and Portal 2 is the genuinely low-cost two-player alternative.

What about Portal 2?

It comes up constantly in this conversation and deserves an honest mention: a separate two-player co-op campaign, split-screen or online, usually a few dollars, and still one of the best co-op games ever made. It is a puzzle game rather than a story, so it scratches a different itch, and it is the best value of the four by a wide margin. Portal 2 versus It Takes Two covers that pairing directly.

The verdict

It Takes Two is the better purchase for almost every pair - more game, more variety, and a tone that suits a wider range of people. A Way Out is the right call when you specifically want one complete story told in an evening or two, and with the Friend's Pass that is a cheap and memorable night.

Play It Takes Two first, then come back for A Way Out when you want something shorter. Our reviews of It Takes Two and A Way Out go deeper on each, and the co-op campaigns page lists the rest of the games with a real ending.