"A Way Out" review (Part 2/2 - MASSIVE Spoilers)

The Ending 
Here comes the spoiler:

it turns out in the final chapter that one half of your co-op team, Vincent, has actually been an undercover cop all along. While Harvey really did kill Vincent's brother (another undercover cop), Vincent infiltrated the prison with the approval of his superiors, with the intention of gaining Leo's trust in order to track Harvey down.

By this point, we had figured out that something was amiss with Vincent's character. The fact that Leo's backstory had been told in on-screen flashbacks, while Vincent's had all been given through dialogue (except for two brief, ambiguous conversations with his wife), is a typical red flag in cinematic storytelling. It was clear that he was hiding something, but we hadn’t begun to guess what. 

This caused my first and only real issue with the game: playing as Vincent, I actually felt more betrayed at this point than my co-op partner playing as Leo. Having spent the last seven or eight hours inhabiting a character only to have half of his backstory re-written on me in the final chapter was distressing. As someone who gets very involved with her characters, I was left with the feeling that I hadn't properly played mine for much of the game, because my real motivation had been hidden from me - something that broke the immersion because, of course, Vincent has that information while his player doesn't. Leo's player, by contrast, gets a far more consistent experience, knowing everything that Leo does from very early on.

Following this unmasking, the final chapter of the game flips you from co-operation to competition, with Leo and Vincent in a dramatic chase that turns into a gunfight to the death. From a gameplay perspective it's a very cool way to round off the experience: the past few hours getting to know your co-op partner's play style goes from your greatest strength to your biggest problem. I was at a double disadvantage, though: not only is my co-op partner more experienced at cover-shooters than I am, but I was still reeling from the enforced switch to the antagonist of the game. Still attempting to play the character, I could think of no reason why Vincent would want to kill Leo at this point unless forced to in self-defence, so half of my health bar was used up in attempting to get close enough to subdue him non-lethally before I realised that, no really, only one of us was allowed to survive.

Despite my complaints, this did lead to the most affecting video game death scene I've experienced since Season One of The Walking Dead. I got a little teared up when I realised that the weak pulsing buzz I could feel in my controller represented my character's heartbeat gradually slowing, as he died of his injuries in the final cutscene; and both I and my co-op partner were a bit emotional when Vincent's half of the split-screen faded to black.

Still, though, even after that big emotional finale, I felt I would have preferred an ending more in keeping with the character I'd had in my head while I was playing. I respect that the game's creator wanted it to play out as a Donnie Brasco style tragedy, but I still feel there's something unsatisfying about one player losing so much of their investment in the final chapter. Judging from the emerging discussion online, the ending where Vincent dies and Leo survives seems to be more popular, and to have been the one most teams came to on the first play-through: possibly because, like me, there was an issue with demotivation at that point for Vincent players.

Conclusion
For all my (literal and figurative) crying over the ending, within a few hours of finishing the story I'd convinced my co-op partner to replay some chapters, in order to scoop up a few Trophies we'd missed, try out a few alternative decision paths, and take advantage of those sweet mini-games. 

Despite the fact that it's not designed to be hugely replayable, there really is a lot to go back to. For one thing, we'd played with a feeling of time-sensitivity, even though story developments are triggered by completing objectives rather than on a timer. So, for example, we missed much of the interactivity in the farmhouse chapter because we were worried the owners might return at any minute. The game allows you to replay individual chapters once you've passed them in the story, so the first thing we did was revisit this one and then spend a good half hour just messing around, playing with the farm animals, and trying on hats. Not a smart move if you're genuinely a prison escapee, but great fun for gamers who like exploring a surprisingly deep interactive world.

Then, of course, you can replay the whole game as the opposite character, or to try to get a different ending. While there are plenty of sections that allow you to choose with your co-op partner which character to assign to which activity, there are also lots of times where this is chosen for you for narrative reasons, so arguably you've not really experienced this game in full until you've played through as both Vincent and Leo. For this very reason, we’re planning on replaying it in full at least once, even though we have technically completed everything. For a game that’s designed to deliver a strong story and emotional experience while not counting replayability as one of its strong points, A Way Out really does manage to give you both, with the added bonus of a price and time commitment that make it more accessible than many games at the moment. I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know - especially those who have a regular gaming partner, because it really does present a unique spin on co-operative gameplay (or possibly a unique opportunity to ruin your relationship!).