Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken includes a separate 10-chapter co-op campaign for two players. You and a friend take the roles of Budgie commandos searching for the General’s kidnapped daughter, with both local play on one PC and online co-op available. This is not the 15-chapter solo campaign with a second character added: the Budgies, their rescue story, and the altered puzzles give the pair a distinct route through the same world.
On one PC, the two characters share a screen. The PC local setup pairs keyboard and mouse for one player with an Xbox 360 controller for the other, or uses two Xbox 360 controllers. The game also supports native online co-op and Remote Play Together, which lets a remote friend join a streamed local session. Windows, macOS, and Linux versions are available.
A rescue story built for two
Hardboiled Chicken’s main story follows the armed chicken Hardboiled as he fights the penguin regime in Albatropolis. The co-op campaign moves the focus to a pair of small birds: six Budgie commando characters are available to choose from, and the pair’s mission is to rescue the General’s daughter. It has its own 10-chapter progression and reuses locations from the solo campaign, changing routes and puzzles to account for two shorter, weapon-specialized characters.
That difference is more than a second avatar running alongside the hero. Hardboiled can collect and switch among weapons, use grenades and brain bugs, and reach ledges with his taller jump. A Budgie is tied to a chosen weapon and lacks some of Hardboiled’s solo abilities. The co-op campaign is therefore about moving two capable but more limited commandos through spaces designed around their partnership. The story stays playful and pulpy, but its mission is clear: advance through the penguin-controlled areas and bring the kidnapped VIP back.
The six-character roster is a selection of playable Budgies, not a six-player party. The rescue story is built around a pair, with each person controlling one commando throughout the shared stage. If one friend cannot make it, the game still has a complete solo campaign, but the Budgie rescue story itself is specifically designed for two.
The Budgies turn height into teamwork
The clearest difference in how the co-op pair moves is their ability to climb on each other’s shoulders. The upper Budgie can reach a ledge the lower one cannot, while the lower player becomes part of the route rather than just following behind. Some passages also let the elevated character fire while being carried, combining traversal and combat in a single moving platform. It is an easy-to-read shared action: one player provides height, the other uses that position, and both remain in the same side-on view.
This changes the rhythm of a familiar room. A barrier, high platform, or narrow opening can divide the pair for a moment, then a lift or jump brings them back together. The stages reuse the visual spaces of the main game, but the altered puzzles give those spaces a new purpose. Instead of only finding a keycard or pushing a box as Hardboiled, the Budgies’ height difference and paired movement shape how they cross gaps and reach the next section.
There is still plenty of shooting between those traversal problems. Rocketbirds uses straightforward side-scrolling gunplay: move through compact rooms, face armed penguins, and fire across the screen. The animation sells the force of the hits, with opponents knocked into the air amid stylized blood and feathers. The combat is direct rather than a precise cover shooter, so the main variation comes from weapon choice, enemy placement, and the timing of jumps between platforms.
Six commandos, different guns
The Budgies’ fixed weapons give each character a recognizable combat role. The roster includes choices such as Chief, who carries a light machine gun, and Mutt, who uses a shotgun. Unlike Hardboiled’s changing arsenal, a selected Budgie stays with that weapon rather than swapping between every gun collected in the solo campaign. The difference is easy to understand when two players compare characters: one has a weapon suited to sustained fire, another a close-range spread, and neither has the full range of tools available to the main hero.
That fixed loadout also gives ammunition more weight: a sustained-fire weapon and a close-range spread have different rhythms, and each character stays within that role. You are not building a long-term class or unlocking a complex skill tree; the choice is about how you want to approach the current run. It makes the roster feel like more than six cosmetic skins, without turning the game into a character-building system or requiring a specific pair.
The simplicity cuts both ways. Combat and puzzles do not demand a complicated command set or layered character builds, and two armed Budgies put little pressure on a small set of enemy types. That keeps the mode approachable, but players looking for demanding combat or a long-term character system may find the Budgies’ weapon identities fairly light. The run-and-gun encounters are brief and direct; the challenge comes more from moving through each room and its obstacles than from a deep arsenal simulation.
What the co-op campaign leaves out
The solo campaign’s brain bugs let Hardboiled take control of penguin soldiers, and its jetpack sections switch the action to aerial shooting. Those systems do not carry over as the defining features of the Budgie campaign. Co-op instead concentrates on the pair’s smaller moveset, weapon choices, and reworked traversal puzzles. That distinction matters if one friend has watched solo footage and expects the same puzzle tools or airborne chapters: the co-op story is a companion campaign, not a two-player version of every solo mission.
The tradeoff is a more consistent shared format. Both players remain on foot, move through the same side-scrolling spaces, and solve obstacles as a pair. The campaign is divided into ten chapters rather than one uninterrupted level, and each stage is a short stretch of rooms, platforms, and fights. The environment reuse gives the co-op story a familiar visual route through Albatropolis, while the changed puzzle layout gives the two Budgies a reason to travel it together. It is a companion storyline within the full game, not an add-on that replaces the solo missions or a later sequel.
The wider series began with the browser game Rocketbirds: Revolution!, which Hardboiled Chicken substantially expands with new story material and its own co-op campaign. Rocketbirds 2: Evolution is a separate later game; its modes and player count should not be confused with this one. Here, the practical promise is narrower and clearer: two commandos, ten rescue chapters, and a movement mechanic designed around their height difference. The co-op party stays a pair, and character choice changes the Budgies’ weapons rather than building into a long-term character system.
A grimy cartoon war with a rock soundtrack
The setting gives that small mission a distinctive look. Albatropolis is a bird-run city under an authoritarian penguin regime, and the levels shift between military interiors, streets, and more ornate spaces such as the museum shown above. Propaganda, industrial machinery, and exaggerated uniforms keep the setting recognizable as a dictatorship story, while the armed birds and absurd dialogue prevent it from becoming a straight-faced war drama. The humor is deliberately dry and occasionally bleak; the cartoon proportions do not make the combat bloodless.
Music is a major part of the presentation. The game uses tracks by New World Revolution in its cinematic interludes and music-video-like story moments, giving the rescue plot a rock soundtrack instead of treating the songs as background ambience alone. The bold visual style and New World Revolution soundtrack give the compact action adventure a strange, knowingly over-the-top atmosphere, even when its fights and puzzles stay simple. It is less suited to friends looking for a realistic military story or a rhythm game where actions have to match the beat.
The difference can be a welcome change if you want a partner-focused story, but it also means the co-op game has fewer mechanical surprises than Hardboiled’s solo route. Its compact stages and straightforward combat make the rescue campaign easier to follow, while friends who want the aerial chapters or possession puzzles will find that those remain part of the main campaign rather than the Budgie adventure. Rocketbirds favors an approachable buddy outing over a second campaign with the same mechanical range as Hardboiled’s.
A focused two-player outing
Ten chapters give the co-op campaign a defined beginning and end, while the shared locations and altered puzzles keep it connected to the larger story. It is substantial enough to be more than a quick bonus room, but shorter and more focused than the solo campaign’s 15 chapters. The mission to save the General’s daughter supplies a clear through-line, and the Budgies’ paired traversal creates moments the solo hero cannot reproduce in the same way.
Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken suits two friends who want a side-scrolling action adventure with simple shooting, light puzzles, a peculiar bird-and-penguin war story, and a dedicated local or online campaign. The fit is weaker for a larger group, anyone expecting a deep class system, or players who want co-op to include all of the main campaign’s brain-control and jetpack mechanics. The game’s theatrical violence and blood are also visible beneath its cartoon cast and deadpan humor. For the right pair, the appeal is the compact rescue journey: two small commandos sharing one screen or connecting online, climbing over one another and pushing through the same absurdly serious revolution.