During today’s Nintendo Indie World showcase, I had two epiphanies. The first was the realization that friendslop games are about to hit the Switch 2 like a falling piano in a Road Runner cartoon. The second was that I love that for me, because that means I can finally play them.
My friends love “friendslop,” the initially derisive but now descriptive nickname given to indie co-op games with a loose gameplay structure that permits the kind of chaos that can make games go viral on social media. And from what I’ve seen, I would love it, too. Friendslop is known for low-quality graphics (hence the “slop” part) that give a game a stylized look that’s common among other indie games. The term hasn’t become a ubiquitous genre descriptor like metroidvania or soulslike, but it’s still useful for labeling the kinds of casual co-op games that have recently exploded in popularity, primarily on Steam.
The problem is that playing them typically requires me getting off the couch, something I do not do. I’m a comfort gamer. If a game cannot be played from my couch, I don’t want it. Co-op games with a console release like Phasmophobia are perfectly fine, but PC-only games like Peak are nonstarters to me.
GameChat opens the door for a ton of similar games making their way to the Switch 2
GameChat sands down those spiky bits of friction, allowing you to connect with friends at the press of a button to play online together like in Mario Kart World, or play together separately, each person in the little four-player lobby chatting away while doing their own thing.
The Switch 2 GameChat feature eliminates my barrier to entry in these kinds of games. There’s no worry of trying to figure out my Steam Deck’s text or voice chat or playing on my Deck while I chat through a Discord call on my phone. (Remember, I’m lazy.) With one button on one device, I can connect with my friends and yap to my heart’s content as we’re all eaten alive by underwater cryptids.
Content Warning, for example, is a game where you and your friends explore an underwater ruin in hopes of filming supernatural phenomena to farm clout and ad revenue on social media. How you do that, and whether all your friends survive the trip, is up to you. In friendslop games, cooperation is important but not required. And in fact, working against each other can be just as fun as working together.
GameChat breaks open the door for a ton of similar games to make their way to the Switch 2. Peak, for example, sold almost 5 million copies in under a month and is the exact kind of casual, indie co-op game the Switch is suited for. Peak and games like it on the Switch 2 have the potential to be incredibly successful. These games aren’t graphically or mechanically intensive — and even if they were, the Switch 2’s hardware upgrades can handle it. And they’re focused on partying with your friends, a key feature in some of the most popular games out there right now. People want to play with their friends on the platforms their friends play on and with GameChat, the Switch 2 can finally be that platform.
