Introduction
Hazelight Studios designed this platformer so that nobody clears a room on their own. Two players control Cody and May, a married couple on the verge of divorce who end up trapped inside a pair of handmade dolls, and the way back to their bodies runs through levels built around their combined abilities. There's no solo mode and no AI companion.
The campaign crosses the family's house and garden at doll height, from a cluttered tool shed to a war between squirrels and wasps inside a backyard tree. Each area hands the pair a fresh set of tools that only work when used together.
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The controls change every chapter
Chapters last roughly one to two hours, and the toolkit gets replaced each time. In the Cuckoo Clock, Cody winds time backward and forward with a stopwatch while May leaves holographic clones behind and teleports back to them. Later on, he merges with potted plants to become a needle-firing cactus. Once a chapter ends, its abilities are gone for good.
The rules of each level reflect the relationship
Hazelight writes the couple's problems directly into the mechanics. Inside the Snow Globe, Cody and May each carry one half of a magnet: opposite poles pull them toward each other, while matching ones push them apart. Earlier, in the shed, one of them throws nails that the other can only use by swinging from them with a hammer.
Genre switches and 25 hidden minigames
Rose's Room alone jumps from a zero-gravity space station to an isometric dungeon crawler. Elsewhere the dolls ride a glowing catfish, pilot a pair of underpants and bobsleigh down a snowy slope. Off the main path sit 25 competitive minigames that pit one partner against the other, for example:
- Tug of War and Plunger Dunger in The Tree
- Tank Brothers, on top of a pillow fort in Rose's Room
- Snail Race in the Garden, plus volleyball and a full game of chess in The Attic
Story and Lore
Cody and May have decided to split up. Their daughter Rose takes the news hard and turns to two dolls she made to look like her parents, one of clay and one of wood. Her tears fall on them as she wishes for her parents to get along again, and the couple wakes up inside the dolls with no idea how to reverse it.
Help arrives in the form of Dr. Hakim, a talking self-help volume called the Book of Love, who treats the whole ordeal as marriage counseling. He also keeps sabotaging their progress, placing new obstacles in their way to force them to cooperate. Believing that Rose's tears caused the spell, Cody and May try to reach her, only to learn that she can't see or hear them in doll form. She does notice objects moving on their own whenever her parents push them around.
On their way across the property, old belongings come to life and scold the pair for neglecting both them and Rose. Shared memories start to resurface as well. Toward the end, the journey turns to what each of them gave up over the years: Cody's overgrown garden and greenhouse, and May's love of music and singing.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Movement basics such as jumping, dashing and wall jumps carry through the whole game. Everything else rotates. Progress usually depends on one player setting something up for the other, whether that means opening a path, pinning a platform in place or detonating what the partner has placed. Mistakes are cheap: a fallen character respawns within seconds, and during boss fights the waiting player can press a button repeatedly to speed up the return.
Here's what each chapter gives the pair:
- The Shed: Cody throws nails into wooden surfaces and whistles them back; May swings from them and breaks obstacles with her hammer.
- The Tree: a sap cannon for Cody and a match launcher for May, which ignites the sap. The combination opens passages and handles the wasp army.
- Rose's Room: the kit rotates by section. A size-changing belt and gravity boots cover the space station, fidget spinners allow short glides, and the dungeon crawler adds ice magic for Cody and a fire sword for May.
- Cuckoo Clock: time control for Cody, clone-and-teleport for May.
- Snow Globe: a magnet half each, red for Cody and blue for May, used on objects, on special surfaces and on each other.
- Garden: May cuts through enemies with a sickle and waters soil with a water gun. Cody grabs things with a head whip and transforms inside planted pots into a cactus, a gliding dandelion or a stretching vine.
- The Attic: May's voice, with a sustained song and a sharper shout that do different jobs, alongside Cody's cymbal, which he throws like a frisbee or holds up as a shield against lasers.
Local and online sessions both run in split-screen, with each half of the display following one character.
Characters
May, the wooden doll, is an engineer who pours her time into work. Cody, the clay doll, stays at home and once put his energy into gardening. Each player picks one of them before starting, and since their abilities never overlap, the choice decides your role in every puzzle; swapping requires a trip back to the main menu. Rose rarely shares the screen with her parents in doll form, yet her decisions set every chapter in motion. Dr. Hakim is the one constant, popping up between areas to lecture the couple and throw them into the next challenge.
Several bosses stand in their way, including:
- The Toolbox, a hostile toolbox fought at the end of The Shed
- The Wasp Queen, ruler of the swarm the backyard squirrels are fighting
- A toy space monkey in Rose's Room, taken down across three phases that end aboard its saucer
Editions and Platforms
There's one edition of the game and no paid expansions. Console copies cover both hardware generations: the PlayStation version plays on PS4 and PS5, and Xbox uses Smart Delivery to install the right build on Xbox One or Series X|S.
PC players can buy it on Steam or through the EA app. A May 2024 update removed the need for the EA app launcher on Steam, added invites through the Steam friends list and made the game Steam Deck Verified. Online play still requires an EA account. The Microsoft Store additionally sells the Hazelight Bundle, which pairs It Takes Two with the studio's earlier co-op game A Way Out.