Honestly, they just don't make them like this anymore. When you look back at the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, it was a wild west of "brown and bloom" shooters, but Army of Two: The 40th Day actually tried something radical. It didn't just give you a partner; it made that partner the entire point of the experience. Developed by EA Montreal and released in early 2010, this sequel took the bromance of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem and dropped it into a literal war zone in Shanghai. It was chaotic. It was loud. It was unapologetically focused on two guys back-to-back against the world.
If you played it back then, you remember the "Aggro" meter. It was the heart of the game. One player would kick up a fuss, drawing all the enemy fire, while the other would sneak around for a flank. It felt like a dance. A violent, high-stakes dance with customizable gold-plated AK-47s.
The Shanghai Disaster That Changed Everything
Most sequels just do "more of the same," but the jump from the first game to Army of Two: The 40th Day felt massive in terms of tone. The first game was a bit of a globe-trotting mercenary romp. This one? It was a nightmare. You’re just in Shanghai to finish a routine job, and suddenly the entire city starts falling down around your ears. Buildings are collapsing. People are screaming. It felt more like a disaster movie than a standard tactical shooter.
The level design reflected that chaos. You weren't just moving through corridors; you were navigating a crumbling urban hellscape. One minute you're in a high-rise office, the next you're fighting through a zoo where the animals have all escaped or died. It was grim, but it gave the shooting a sense of urgency that many of its contemporaries lacked.
The 40th Day also introduced "Morality Moments." This was EA Montreal’s attempt to inject some soul into the mercenary life. You’d be faced with a choice—usually something like "save this civilian" or "take the money and run." The twist was the comic-book style cutscenes that showed you the long-term consequences of your actions. Sometimes, doing the "good" thing led to a horrific outcome years down the line. It was cynical. It was dark. It fit the vibe perfectly.
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Customization Was the Real Endgame
Let's talk about the guns. Because, really, that’s why we were all there. The weapon customization in Army of Two: The 40th Day was light-years ahead of its time. You could swap barrels, stocks, magazines, and scopes, sure. But you could also wrap your gun in duct tape or give it a diamond-encrusted finish. It was ridiculous.
You could literally build a "pimped out" shield or a rifle that looked like it was held together by prayer and spit. This wasn't just for show. The parts actually changed how the weapon handled. A heavier barrel meant less recoil but slower movement. It encouraged experimentation. You and your buddy would spend twenty minutes in the menu just comparing builds before jumping into the next firefight.
Why the Co-op Mechanics Still Hold Up
Co-op is often an afterthought in modern gaming. It's usually just "Single Player, but with a Friend." Army of Two: The 40th Day rejected that. It had specific "Co-op Snipe" mechanics. It had the "Back-to-Back" mode where the camera would swirl around as you and your partner fended off enemies from all sides in slow motion. It was pure popcorn cinema.
You could feign death. You could surrender to enemies to distract them while your partner lined up a shot. You could even play rock-paper-scissors or headbutt each other. These little interactions made Rios and Salem feel like actual people—or at least, actual action movie archetypes—rather than just empty avatars. The game forced you to communicate. If you didn't talk, you died. Simple as that.
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The Problem with Modern "Tactical" Shooters
Compare this to something like Ghost Recon Breakpoint or the newer Call of Duty campaigns. Those games have co-op, but they don't need it. In Army of Two: The 40th Day, the mechanics were built from the ground up for two people. When your partner got downed, you had to drag them to cover while shooting one-handed. It was tense. You felt the weight of your friend’s life in your hands.
There's a specific tension in the 40th Day that comes from the "Extraction" mode, too. It was a wave-based survival mode that required genuine strategy. You couldn't just rambo it. The AI was surprisingly aggressive for 2010. They would flank you. They would use grenades to flush you out. If you weren't managing your Aggro levels correctly, you’d get overrun in seconds.
The Technical Legacy and the "Dead Space" Engine
It’s an interesting bit of trivia that the game ran on a modified version of the engine used for Dead Space. You can see it in the way the characters move and the way the world breaks apart. There’s a certain "chunkiness" to the physics. When a grenade goes off, the debris feels heavy.
However, time hasn't been entirely kind to the visuals. Looking back at it now on a PS3 or 360, the frame rate can get a bit chuggy during the bigger building collapses. But the art direction—that oppressive, smoky, orange-and-grey Shanghai—still carries a lot of weight. It’s got a specific "vibe" that separates it from the generic deserts of other 2000s shooters.
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What Happened to the Franchise?
After Army of Two: The 40th Day, we got The Devil’s Cartel. And honestly? That’s where it went wrong. They swapped the main characters. They swapped the developers (Visceral Games took over). They swapped the tone. It became a generic explosion-fest that lost the weird, bromantic heart of the first two games.
The 40th Day was the peak. It was the moment the series found its identity. It was a game that knew exactly what it was: a high-budget, B-movie action game that prioritized fun over realism. It didn't care about being a "mil-sim." It cared about whether or not you could customize your mask to look like a skeleton while you saved a zoo hostage.
How to Play It Today
This is the frustrating part. Army of Two: The 40th Day is not currently backward compatible on Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5. It’s a tragedy of the digital age. The servers for the online play have also been shut down for years.
If you want to experience it now, you have a few options:
- Dust off the old hardware. Find an old Xbox 360 or PS3. You can usually find the disc for a few bucks at a local used game shop. It’s the most "authentic" way, though you'll be limited to couch co-op.
- Emulation. If you have a beefy PC, RPCS3 (PS3 emulator) or Xenia (Xbox 360 emulator) have made great strides. The game is mostly playable, though you might run into some graphical glitches or need to tweak settings to get the "Aggro" fire effects looking right.
- Couch Co-op is King. Seriously, if you find a copy, play it split-screen. That’s how it was meant to be played. Grab a beer, sit on the couch with a friend, and yell at each other about who was supposed to be drawing the Aggro.
Actionable Insights for Fans of the Genre
If you’re craving that specific 40th Day itch and can’t get the original game running, there are a few modern spiritual successors you should check out. They aren't exact matches, but they capture the spirit of "us against the world."
- A Way Out: While it’s not a shooter, it’s the only modern game that understands co-op dependency as well as Army of Two did. You literally cannot progress without your partner.
- Helldivers 2: For the pure chaos and the "accidental friendly fire" comedy. It captures that feeling of being two (or four) small soldiers in a massive, crumbling war zone.
- Remnant 2: If you want the gun customization and the tactical "draw the boss's attention" gameplay loop, this is probably the closest modern mechanical equivalent.
The industry has largely moved toward "Live Service" games with four-player squads, but there was something special about the duo dynamic. Army of Two: The 40th Day wasn't trying to sell you a battle pass or a seasonal skin. It just wanted you and a buddy to survive a terrible day in Shanghai. It remains a masterclass in co-op design, proving that sometimes, two is the perfect number for a revolution.