Update: Capcom has taken to the Steam Community page for the game to "apologize to our Resident Evil Revelations 2 PC players who purchased the game and expected to have local co-op as a feature." The company says the local co-op feature was never intended for the PC version, and initially left in the Steam description as an oversight. "This was an unintentional error and again, we apologize for the confusion this may have caused."

While Capcom initially said no such PC co-op was planned, it now says it's "currently looking into the matter and potential solutions and we hope to have new information to share very soon, so please stay tuned. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

Original story

The PC version of Capcom's recently released Resident Evil: Revelations 2lacks a long-promised offline cooperative mode, even though concurrent console versions of Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, and PS4 all have the feature.

Since Revelations 2 went up for preorder on Steam, the order page has promised that players can make use of an "adaptive co-op" system in "either single player mode with an AI partner or offline co-op." That statement still appears in the Steam listing, but a recently added footnote on the page clarifies that "the PC version does not support offline co-op play in the Campaign or Raid Mode."

Capcom said in a statement provided to Eurogamer that the variable graphics settings on the PC were somehow to blame for the promised feature's removal, and the company suggested that a local co-op campaign isn't in the plans for any subsequent patches.

The PC version of Resident Evil Revelations 2 supports a variety of customizable visual settings and resolutions. The decision to prioritize a single local screen was made to ensure a stable user experience across a variety of different PC settings and devices. Raid mode will support online co-op shortly after launch when a free patch is available for players to download which adds this feature, but the main campaign on PC will only be available to play in single local screen.

While generating a split-screen co-op view would certainly strain PC hardware more than a single-player experience, the beauty of graphics customization options is that the players can decide how to set that balance. If players aren't getting a "stable experience" in local co-op, they can lower the resolution or graphics effects until they get something that's suitably playable for two people in the same room. Capcom seems to have decided to take this option out of the hands of PC players, even though the console versions of the game are already tuned to allow for local co-op.

Frankly, Capcom's statement shows a basic misunderstanding of the PC gaming market and what players are looking to get out of "a variety of customizable visual settings and resolutions." In some ways, it reminds us of recent tone-deaf statements from fellow Japanese publisher Koei Tecmo , which asked that any mods for the PC version ofbe "in good moral and manner. Otherwise, we won’t be able to release a title for PC again."

PC gaming may still be a relative niche in Japan, but if you're going to port your games to the platform, you need to know a little bit about how PC player's expectations differ from those of console players.