Online Cooperative Games form such weirdly natural friendships. I’m not even talking like people you’d hang out with or anything but you just interact and get talking as if you’ve known each other your whole life and then leave not even remembering them the next day.
The most memorable moment I had like this was in Elder Scrolls Online. I was in the PVP area and I came across a raiding party and joined up we got into a casual conversation with everyone, started talking about work and finances all while tearing down a fortresses walls and slaughtering everyone inside. It was such a tonal dissonance between what was happening and what we were doing.
Another game is a cult classic game that’s been going since the ps3 era of games called PlanetSide 2. If you need to know what it is imagine Helldivers except it’s on a single planet across 3 continents and it’s three player factions fighting each other. You actually travel across the continent taking bases and outposts with the goal to dominate each continent. Really fun, really simple and I’m shocked that sort of gameplay never caught on.
However during while fighting to take the mountain base called The Crown all three factions met one was fighting from the base while my faction and an opposing faction were storming the Beaches of Normandy to climb that mountain. Everyone was getting into it myself included and bonds were formed as rag tag group formed to help each other climb just a few inches further. I heard someone yell “we won’t let those fuckers take this land!” I was an Infiltrator (basically a spy armed with a Sniper Rifle, pistol, radar gun and cloaking tech) I remember saving a group that was surrounded by sniping a few soldiers and distracting them enough for the others to mow them down. I was a squishy class meant to move solo and… Infiltrate but in that moment I became a part of the crew. We legit started taking bullets for each other as I led them to an emergency exit tunnel I scouted out. It was poorly guarded and I like to think we helped turn the tide by sneaking in a squad into the center of the enemy base. Michael Bay wishes he could direct the story that unfolded during that battle.
