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One Of 2026’s Best Games Is Adding Chaotic 8-Player Co-Op
Big Hops launched at the start of this year and is still one of my favorite games of 2026. And soon, despite not being developed with multiplayer in mind, Big Hops is getting a wild-looking, eight-player, online multiplayer co-op mode that will let you and some pals play through the entire game together.
Big Hops director Chris Wade revealed the update on social media, including that the free multiplayer update is set to go live on August 9. According to a Steam post announcing the update, Big Hops ' multiplayer mode contains the full game, with all of the mechanics and features from the base game intact.
Adding eight-person multiplayer to a game is hard. But according to Wade, whom I chatted with after the update was announced, adding co-op to Big Hops was even more challenging than normal.
On August 9th our Steam version will transform to become BIG HOPS TOGETHER.
– Play the full adventure ONLINE with 8 players – Pick up and throw your friends – Tongue swing from other players – Steal items from each other's backpacks – Story and collection progress is shared
— Chris Wade (@luckshotgames.com) 2026-07-30T17:05:35.372Z
"As I was making the base game, there was no thought at all to it eventually becoming multiplayer, so a lot of the game's code needed to be rewritten for it to work," Wade told Kotaku . "Player movement, all the UI, how progression is tracked, saving, how cutscenes are shown, scene loading, every single veggie, minecarts, and much more."
He continued, "Our team has never made a multiplayer game, so it required learning everything fresh like a baby game developer. One of the hardest things was not knowing if it would be possible and spending the first 2 full months hoping and trusting that I'd be able to figure out all the weird design problems."
But the team has got it working, and you can try it out now ahead of the official August 9 launch. Just load the game up on Steam and activate the "Together" beta branch to check out the co-op mode today.
As for why the update is only available on Steam at launch, Wade says it is much "easier to focus" on just a single platform and admitted that some of the bugs found in Big Hops at launch were the result of "spreading ourselves too thin." Wade also said playtesting is easier on Steam and the ability to have different branches to test out features is handy.
Big Hops is out now. It is a very, very good 3D platformer with some awesome tongue-swinging action and gorgeous visuals. And on August 9, you and your friends can play together on Steam.
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