Two-player video game

A two-player video game is a video game played by just two players. This is distinct from a multiplayer video game which is played by more than two players,^[1] and from a single-player video game, in which the player has no human opponents. Players can either participate in games face-to-face, or participate in synchronized gameplay through the Internet. However, the emergence of gameplay that would allow more than two players to participate is relatively recent. Gameplay was not a social activity through the mid-1980s, which made it a somewhat niche activity. Most games were single- or two-player, and did not allow for four-player console play until the 1990s. These were the first of the modern multi-player games.^[2]

In video games, the nature of the two-player mode varies depending on the game. Two-player mode can have players cooperating in a team as in Final Fight, competing against one another as in Mortal Kombat, or alternating like Mario (Player 1) and Luigi (Player 2) in Super Mario Bros. Most two-player games can also be played in single player mode.

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