Door Kickers asks you and a friend to direct a SWAT operation from above, mapping routes through rooms before the shooting starts. Its online co-op is for two players: you share a mission, build a plan across the same floor plan, and send officers into a real-time situation where unseen threats can spoil a clean entry. The appeal is in turning a map into a coordinated operation; the catch is that this is a deliberate tactics game, not a two-player action shooter.
Draw the operation before the first breach
Each mission begins with a briefing and a deployment view. You can inspect the building layout, choose which officers to bring, adjust their equipment and starting positions, and decide where the team will enter. The game gives you a top-down blueprint rather than a character to steer directly through a level. Mouse-driven routes tell each trooper where to move and which way to cover. You can add actions such as opening or breaching doors, using equipment, and synchronizing an assault with Go Codes. When the plan looks ready, you start the mission and watch the officers carry it out.
The plan view keeps both players’ routes and facing directions visible on the same floor plan. It also displays planned interactions, such as opening or breaching a door, before the officers carry out those orders in real time. The briefing and deployment choices frame the objective, while the live map shows the orders in progress. Hidden threats are not shown on the blueprint and become apparent during the mission. Orders remain editable once the action is underway, so the map stays an active representation of the operation rather than a one-time setup screen. This shifts the screen from a static map into a view of the squad’s current command state.
The map does not reveal every threat in advance. Walls, doors, furniture, and possible paths are visible, but an enemy may be waiting around the next corner. A room can shift from a routine entry to a hostage rescue, crossfire, or an attempt to stop an execution. Quick restarts keep the focus on how plans meet hidden threats; even a carefully drawn route can encounter a situation the blueprint did not show.
Two planners, one SWAT operation
Co-op changes a mission from a solo sequence of orders into a shared operation. Both players work on the same mission and give orders to SWAT troopers, rather than taking on separate hero characters with individual abilities. Depending on the map, each player may control more than one trooper, so two players shape the same larger operation. Control belongs to the SWAT unit rather than to separate hero avatars, and there is no fixed split of the unit between players. Their orders appear on the same map, where both can see how the squad’s planned routes relate. The team still has to solve the full objective together; the game does not turn the operation into a competitive match.
The co-op menu provides a way to host a particular map or join a quick game. A specifically hosted map can continue to the next map in order after the mission, while Quick Game selects a random map for each session. The mode has a dedicated selection of co-op missions, with some maps familiar from the wider single-player game. You can repeat a single mission or move through that co-op list, but it is not the persistent campaign: you and your friend do not follow the single-player campaign together as a shared sequence with its ongoing roster.
That distinction matters if you want a co-op story to carry you through a long string of connected missions. Door Kickers offers separate campaigns and persistent squad management for solo play, but co-op is organized around individual missions and the co-op map pool. The wider game includes a mission generator, a level editor, and Steam Workshop content, so there is more to explore outside the default scenarios; the standard co-op map selection is the safer expectation for a group planning to play together.
Loadouts change how an entry works
Before a mission, your squad can draw from five trooper classes: Pointman, Assaulter, Breacher, Shield, and Stealth. Their roles are visible in the equipment and movement choices they bring. A Pointman carries a handgun and moves quickly; an Assaulter has a rifle or submachine gun for general fighting; a Breacher uses a shotgun to open locked doors; a Shield officer can advance behind a ballistic shield; and a Stealth trooper carries suppressed weapons for quieter approaches. You can also adjust armor, grenades, breaching tools, and other utilities to fit what the mission asks.
Loadouts add tools beyond each class’s standard kit. The deployment screen includes armor, grenades, breaching tools, and other utilities, plus a spy camera that lets an officer inspect the space beyond a door. These choices are made before deployment for each co-op mission; the mode does not carry the persistent squad progression of the solo campaigns. Objectives give those tools context: missions may ask the squad to secure evidence, defuse a bomb, protect a VIP, or evacuate civilians. Clearing rooms alone is not enough; each mission has a concrete objective to complete.
Go Codes are synchronization markers assigned to steps in a trooper’s route. A trooper can wait at a doorway until the assigned code is triggered, then continue along the planned route. This adds a trigger condition to an officer’s command sequence; it does not assign units permanently to one player. Both players can see each other’s paths on the shared map, making the squad’s planned movements visible to both.
The game’s sense of tension comes from limited information and lethal mistakes, not a timer pushing you into constant motion. A briefing, room layout, and known objective give you a starting point, but the plan meets moving enemies once the mission is live. The setting stays grounded in raids on apartments, businesses, and other urban sites, with guns, explosions, hostages, and armed suspects. Its overhead view and order interface make the action read like a tactical puzzle, while the consequences of a bad angle can arrive in seconds.
The pace depends on your co-op pause setting
Single-player Door Kickers pauses while you draw and revise orders, but default co-op handles this differently. After the opening planning period, pressing Space normally tells your own officers to hold while the rest of the mission continues. Enemies can keep moving, so one player taking time to change a plan does not automatically stop the action for both. An alternate full-pause launcher can stop the whole mission, but it is a separate executable that may be missing from some installations; check before starting if you want full pause.
This difference helps explain why co-op can feel more urgent than the solo game. You still draw routes and give detailed orders, but the default live phase puts a clock on changes to your plan. If you expected to freeze the whole map whenever you want, that can be a jarring shift. The mission becomes a test of communicating and adjusting while the environment continues to move, rather than a fully paused planning exercise. The alternate launcher offers the slower shared-pause option, though it is a separate way to start the game rather than a setting to assume is enabled in every session.
The interface provides detailed paths, directional cover commands, and Go Codes that can hold a trooper at a route step until the code is activated. A clean entry can be satisfying, but a long plan can be fiddly to revise, particularly where several paths overlap in a tight hallway. The view stays flat and top-down, with no crouching or leaning to soften a line of fire. The tactical puzzle is built around positioning and timing, not a detailed simulation of every real-world movement.
Online co-op, with a remote-play caveat
The game’s online co-op is available only on Steam and supports two players. The mobile versions do not include online co-op. Steam Remote Play Together shares one streamed game session. The guest sees the host’s screen and can use the same mouse and keyboard, so the two of you can watch, discuss the map, or take turns drawing routes and adjusting orders. Both inputs go to one game state and one command surface. Remote Play Together does not create a second co-op seat, so it cannot let each player control different squad members at once. Native online co-op is the way to issue orders simultaneously from two separate players over the network.
There is no local split-screen or couch co-op to use on one PC. Each player needs their own way to access the online game, and the tactical interface is designed around mouse and keyboard input.
Door Kickers fits friends who want to study a building together, shape different entry routes, and see their choices tested against hidden threats. It gives each mission room for a fresh approach through its loadouts, objectives, map selection, and quick restarts. It is a more demanding fit for anyone looking for direct character controls, continuous combat, or a campaign that advances cooperatively; here, the main event is the shared plan and what happens once the doors open.