Army of Two

Overview

Army of Two is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on 4 March 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The story follows two mercenaries fighting through war, political turmoil and a conspiracy from 1993 to 2009.

The main feature is co-op play. Nearly every objective needs both players to work together, whether the partner is a human or the Partner AI. Armour and weapon parts can be bought and swapped, with barrels, stocks, grips, suppressors, gun shields and underslung launchers. A firing range was planned but cut. A jeep and a tank were planned as drivable vehicles but were removed for pacing, and only a hovercraft stayed, in the China and Miami levels.

Online play is four players, two to a team, and is region-locked. Players with the European, American and Asian versions cannot play each other. EA said the lock was to prevent lag and because the Asian version is censored. There are three game types: Warzone, Bounties and Extraction. Warzone has random primary and secondary objectives, Bounties is a hunt for the enemy leader, and Extraction means getting VIPs or prisoners to a safe point. The team with the most cash at the end wins.

Two Army Rangers, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios, join the private military company Security & Strategy Corporation (SSC) after a 1993 mission in Somalia. Their jobs take them to Afghanistan, Iraq, an aircraft carrier, South Korea, China and Miami, where they find that their own employer has been setting them up.

Two DLC packs came out in 2008. The SSC Challenge Map Pack arrived on 24 April and added a 2 versus 2 online mode with four maps. The Veteran Map Pack arrived on 29 May and added a co-op map in a Kyiv subway, an expanded Versus map, more destructible objects, six secret achievements and an alternative ending with a boss fight against Dalton. EA shut the online servers on 11 August 2011 and both packs were delisted in 2017.

Critics praised the co-op play and were less happy with the AI and the difficulty. Metacritic lists the PS3 version at 74 out of 100 and the Xbox 360 version at 72. In the US it sold 831,000 copies in March 2008, 224,900 of them on PS3. Famitsu scored the Japanese PS3 release, which came out on 19 March 2008, 32 out of 40. Two sequels followed, The 40th Day in 2010 and The Devil's Cartel in 2013.

Official trailer

Army of Two Context Trailer, Electronic Arts. Watch on YouTube

Gameplay

ARMY OF TWO | PS3 Gameplay, BenedictPlays. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Third-person shooter

Developer

EA Montreal

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Series

Army of Two (first game)

Engine

Unreal Engine 3

Composers

Trevor Morris

Designers

Chris Ferriera, Vander Caballero

Writers

Corey May, Dooma Wendschuh, Keith Arem

Producers

Reid Schneider

Artist

Hugo Dallaire

Platforms

PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

2 (co-op)

Online multiplayer

up to 4

Release dates

Editions

Buy this game

Disc IDs

The serial printed on the disc and the case. It tells you which region a copy is from.

Trophies

TrophiesNo trophy list

Platinum possibleNo platinum

Space and patches

Update patch28 MB

Version 01.03, the latest Sony hosts.

These are the patches Sony still hosts for this disc ID. The game's real history can be longer.

DLC

Two map packs came out in 2008. Their online parts stopped working when the servers closed, and both were delisted in 2017.

Items

Name	Date	Adds	Obtainable today
SSC Challenge Map Pack	2008-04-24	A new cooperative 2 versus 2 online mode with four maps.	no
Veteran Map Pack	2008-05-29	New co-op campaign map set in a Kyiv subway, an expanded Versus map (China Canal Lock), more destructible objects, six secret achievements and an alternative ending with a boss fight against Dalton.	no

Playable today

Playable offline todayPartly

The campaign plays solo or in split-screen co-op. Online play ended in 2011.

Online

Online servers runningNo

Plays offlinePartly

EA shut down the online multiplayer servers on 11 August 2011. Online play was region-locked, so players on the American, European and Asian versions could not play each other.

Services

Service	Status	Shutdown date
Army of Two online multiplayer servers	closed	2011-08-11

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale	Reviews
Metacritic	PS3	74	100	43

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
Famitsu	32	40
GameTrailers	7.3	10

Staff and cast

Staff

Role	Name
Developer	EA Montreal
Producer	Reid Schneider
Designer	Chris Ferriera
Designer	Vander Caballero
Artist	Hugo Dallaire
Writer	Corey May
Writer	Dooma Wendschuh
Writer	Keith Arem
Composer	Trevor Morris

Notes for collectors

• Online play was region-locked, so the American, European and Asian versions could not play each other.
• The Asian version is censored, for example by removing the shooting of bodies that are already dead.
• A jeep and a tank were planned as drivable vehicles but were taken out for pacing reasons. Only the hovercraft stayed, in the China and Miami levels.
• A firing range for testing weapons was planned and cut because it did not meet the team's standards.
• Both DLC packs were delisted in 2017 and their online parts stopped working when the servers closed in 2011.
• A graphic novel, Army of Two: Dirty Money (2008), follows Rios and Salem's early missions.

Credits

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Developer

EA Montreal

Released

2008-03-04

Age rating

ESRB M

Disc ID

BLUS30057

Region

US

Time to beat

about 6.5 hours

Copies in the shop

• Army of Two (PS3) CA$14.99