CastleStorm turns a medieval siege into a two-player arcade challenge. In Survival, you and a friend hold one castle against successive attacks: one of you fires its ballista and sends troops into the field, while the other controls a hero fighting among them. Last Stand gives both players a hero and a central flag to defend from waves approaching across the arena. The roles and arenas differ, but neither mode is a co-op story campaign; they are focused survival challenges alongside the separate solo campaign.
CastleStorm supports two-player local split-screen and online multiplayer. You can play the two co-op modes locally or online, with two players total in a match. Steam Remote Play Together is a separate option that streams one host’s local game to a friend as if you were sharing a computer. For couch play, one player can use keyboard and mouse while the other uses a controller; the game also supports controllers. That two-player limit makes this a focused option for one friend rather than a larger group.
One match has several moving parts
The battlefield sits between two castles, each built from a stack of rooms that can be smashed apart. You control a ballista mounted on your own side, aim across a 2D landscape, and release arrows, spears, rocks, or stranger ammunition toward the opposing fortifications. Some projectiles split, explode, or require a second input to detonate; others can hit flying creatures or the troops moving on the ground. A clean hit can remove a room, cut away a troop-producing structure, or topple enough masonry that rubble crushes units below.
The ballista is only one part of the siege. You can send soldiers and creatures toward the other castle, where they advance on their own, fight enemy troops, or try to reach the gate and capture the flag. The castle’s rooms determine which units you can call in and provide resources or bonuses that keep an army moving. Spells can damage enemies, help your troops, or summon a hero for a short stretch of direct combat. Switching between ammunition, troop deployment, spells, and the hero keeps the battle busy: a player focused on aiming can easily miss a flag carrier or let their own units be overwhelmed.
Those systems give CastleStorm its particular rhythm. A projectile is not simply a shot at an opponent’s health bar. You are judging the angle and timing, watching the structure deform, and noticing whether its collapse also removes useful rooms or lands on a wave of attackers. Meanwhile, the ground battle gives the other side of the screen a changing objective. Destroying the enemy castle is one route to victory, but taking the flag or completing a stage-specific goal can matter more. The basic tools are easy to recognize; using them together takes attention.
Survival splits the work between the castle and the field
In Survival, one player handles the castle’s ranged attack and troop deployment while the partner takes a hero into the field. That division makes each player’s contribution legible. From the castle, you can break up enemy waves, aim at dangerous targets, and send friendly units forward. On the ground, your friend can engage attackers directly and help keep pressure away from the castle. The ballista player sees a broad slice of the siege; the hero player is closer to the advancing troops and has a different view of the danger.
The roles also make the mode uneven in the best and worst senses. The castle player has more systems to manage between attacks, including the loadout and units available from the chosen structure. The hero player gets immediate movement and combat, but depends on the siege unfolding around them. If the hero is caught in a crowded fight, a well-meaning ballista shot can land nearby, and friendly fire can add another source of frustration. A hero’s defeat does not always end the whole match, but it can leave the castle carrying the pressure while that player waits to return.
Enemy waves grow more threatening as Survival continues. You are not following campaign chapters or building through a narrative; the point is to withstand another assault and see how long the partnership holds. The mode offers a useful change from competing castle-to-castle, yet repeated waves and limited between-round adjustments can make long sessions feel bare-bones. If you want every player to have the same kind of immediate action, Last Stand is a more even match. If you like a split between ranged planning and close-up fighting, Survival gives you more distinct jobs to trade or settle into.
The castle side adds a preparation choice to the match. The layout and rooms affect what troops can be deployed and which passive benefits are available. In the main game, the editor lets you rearrange rooms and test a design before taking it into battle; campaign progress unlocks more rooms and units for later use. The co-op mode’s match setup is more constrained than that broader editor-and-progression loop, so it is best understood as selecting among battle-ready options rather than building a long-term shared base during a run.
Last Stand puts both players on the ground
Last Stand removes the player-operated castle role. You and your friend each control a hero and defend a flag positioned in the arena while enemies attack from both sides. Heroes combine close-range attacks with ranged abilities, so combat involves changing distance as enemies bunch up or approach from opposite directions. A partner can thin out one side while you turn toward another, but the arena can make both fronts feel urgent at once.
The flag is the objective, not a distant exit. If enemies carry it away, or both heroes are down at the same time, the run is over. Heroes can return after a short cooldown, giving a surviving player a chance to hold the line temporarily, but a simultaneous defeat leaves no one to protect the banner. As the waves become harder, moving and choosing which threat to interrupt matter more than delivering damage in one direction. You are working against a growing crowd rather than trying to destroy a rival’s castle.
Last Stand is the clearest choice for a pair that wants to share one kind of action. Both players move, dodge, and attack directly, and each can switch between melee and ranged options. The challenge comes from holding a center while pressure arrives from either side. The escalating waves are difficult to manage alone and more manageable with a partner; the difficulty is part of the format rather than a branching campaign that the two of you progress through together.
The solo campaign feeds the wider game
CastleStorm’s story follows Sir Gareth and the Kingdom’s conflict with the Vikings, but the campaign is separate from the two-player co-op modes. Its missions introduce the ballista, troops, spells, and hero in stages, then vary the objective: destroy an enemy structure, defend your own, capture a flag, or meet another condition. Some missions restrict which tools are available, so the same combination of artillery and troops does not solve every battle. Bonus goals and accuracy ratings give you reasons to replay a level after reaching its main objective.
Gold from campaign battles can improve weapons, spells, troops, and castle rooms. The castle editor adds a construction puzzle to that progression: the rooms you place help determine which units you can call and what resources support them, while their placement changes how the building withstands incoming shots. You can test a design and watch the physics pull it apart, then modify it before the next siege. Campaign unlocks and customization provide a longer single-player loop, while multiplayer matches draw on the game’s weapons and castle choices without turning those story missions into cooperative chapters.
That distinction matters if you are looking for a two-player adventure with shared checkpoints and a finale. CastleStorm’s co-op is about repeatable matches and survival runs. You can return to the same mode with different heroes, castle layouts, troop options, and ammunition combinations, but there is no co-op story route to complete. The game’s achievement and progression systems also sit mainly around the broader campaign and multiplayer modes rather than a shared co-op campaign save.
A playful siege with sharp edges
CastleStorm’s world is colorful and deliberately silly. Knight and Viking armies trade spears and spells under bright skies, while donkey riders, flying creatures, explosive fruit, and absurd projectiles keep the medieval setup from feeling solemn. The sound of a shot landing and the sight of a tower section breaking away make the physics central to the spectacle. When rubble falls onto a group of soldiers or a projectile interrupts an enemy push, the scenery itself has become part of the fight.
The game also asks for more focus than its cartoon presentation suggests. Aiming the ballista while monitoring troop lanes, cooldowns, and the castle’s condition can feel hectic. The variety and tactical choices give the siege plenty to manage, but hero combat and repeated survival waves can feel shallow over time, and later solo missions raise the difficulty sharply. That split identity is visible in each shot: the artillery has a precise physics-toy quality, while the battlefield layers several small strategy decisions over the aiming and timing.
For two friends, the main choice is between complementary jobs and matched ones. Survival puts a ballista operator and field hero together against waves; Last Stand gives each player a hero and a shared flag to defend. Both modes support two players, either locally or online, while 1-vs-1 split-screen offers a competitive alternative. If you want a campaign that both players advance through or room for a large group, this is not that setup. If you want short siege runs where castles fall, troops crowd the field, and two players take on a clearly defined survival challenge, CastleStorm gives you two distinct ways to do it.