There are many milestones in a relationship. Meeting the parents. Moving in together. Getting married. And then there’s the big one: deciding to play a co-op game.

When my girlfriend and I decided to start playing It Takes Two, I thought it would be a fun, low-stakes way to spend evenings together that wasn’t just switching our brains off and passively watching TV every night.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly it would turn into a psychological case study on communication, control, and whether a relationship can survive repeated missed jumps.

For context, I’ve been playing video games for almost two decades, and for better or worse, they’ve taken up a scary amount of my lifetime. My girlfriend, however, has a much more casual relationship with games. She’s a diehard Pokémon fan, but hadn’t played many other games before she met me.

I’m used to the language of games, so things I take for granted, like moving the camera whilst walking, using combinations of buttons and joysticks, and navigating a 3D space, didn’t come naturally to her.

This was definitely a point of contention at first. When we started playing It Takes Two, I’d find myself getting frustrated, wanting to take the controller from her just to get her over a jump she’d been stuck on, or to handle a timing-heavy section I knew I could do more quickly.

The game tested us in those moments: how well we communicated under pressure, and how much frustration we could tolerate before it spilled over. Each puzzle demanded a level of coordination that we didn’t always manage on the first try.

But I had to keep reminding myself that this was all new to her, and that maybe the thing I actually needed to work on was my patience. She wasn’t a student, and I wasn’t her teacher. This was a partnership.

Nobody teaches you how to play games. Sure, they have tutorials, but the actual fundamentals of gaming – movement, navigation, timing, spatial awareness – are treated as assumed skills. If you didn’t grow up with a controller in your hand, you’re in for a steep learning curve if you pick up gaming as an adult.

Once I had this revelation, I stopped trying to interfere. I only offered help if she asked for it, and made a conscious effort to support from the sidelines rather than take over. I think that’s an important part of a relationship: knowing when to help and when to step back, whether you’re navigating a tricky platforming section or something far less virtual.

Giving her the space to learn at her own pace changed the entire dynamic; she was more confident, I was less frustrated, and we communicated better. Playing became something we both really looked forward to. We hadn’t magically become better at the game, but we had become better at working as a team.

For a silly little cartoon game, It Takes Two sure led to a surprising amount of self-reflection.

Co-op gaming can add a new dimension to a relationship. Exploring a virtual world together, solving problems side by side, and learning how to work at the same pace can be surprisingly revealing. Sometimes, it teaches you as much about how you treat each other off-screen as it does about how well you play together.

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