I love couch co-op. I find that it embodies everything that video games are supposed to be.Playing a good game with someone else sitting next to you makes the rest of the world fall away, and for a few hours, nothing matters other than you, whoever’s on the couch next to you, and the shared memories you’re creating.
One of the main reasons I love video games is the times my brother and I played side-by-side on our old family couch, on the tiny tube TV in our parents’ basement. My affinity for sniping in shooters, my competitive nature exclusively tied to gaming, and my undying love for Luigi are directly tied to my inarguable role as a little brother with the responsibility of being the second player. That mutual love made Berzerk Studio’s newest co-op roguelite, Maximum Thunderness, a no-brainer game to try at PAX West 2026, and we were so happy that we did.
Maximum Thunderness is listed as a side-scrolling roguelite beat-em-up, and it has the same all-around feel as something like Castle Crashers. Trade the satirical medieval cartoon aesthetic for something that feels straight out of a 90s Saban series, and you’ve got the idea. The intro starts with wailing guitars and awesome powered-up characters, thrusting me straight back to being a kid and watching Power Rangers with my brother. The vibrant hand-drawn art gives the game a real sense of action and movement, with colorful character models and sprites whizzing past the screen, big bombastic attacks creating lots of exaggerated effects, and consistently high energy that causes each level and subsequent run to feel like it’s flying by.
At its core, Maximum Thunderness is really a 3-player co-op side-scrolling bullet-hell shooter. There are 3 classes to play: an assault class (the jack-of-all-trades), a sniper class (the glass cannon – my choice, obviously), and a melee-based tank class that is significantly larger and was usually our last man standing. The game is an auto-scroller, with your characters constantly running to the right, surrounded by fun, nasty monsters and bosses to fight and obstacles and hazards to avoid.
On top of all that, the 3 characters are simultaneously zooming around the screen, shooting baddies and activating special power-ups to clear the stage more efficiently. Once clear, as in many other roguelites, you can visit the store to heal, upgrade your character, take on another stage, or occasionally fight a boss. The upgrades do a great job making the game feel significantly different on each run, and the health system is just stingy enough to make it never feel like you’re breezing through the different stages. When we lost our run, our time was up, but we all wanted to jump into another run. It’s chaotic, chromatic fun that’s designed to be enjoyed with friends, online or on the couch.
At the end of the day, that’s something that I really appreciate about Maximum Thunderness. Games are a lot of things: art, culture, commentary, a reflection of society and where our minds are at the time, and more. But the one through-line I sometimes feel has been lost throughout the last decade or so is that ultimately, they’re supposed to be fun. From start to finish, this experience is about fun, and I commend Berzerk Studio for remembering what’s most important and implementing it so expertly.
Maximum Thunderness can now be wishlisted on Steam, and when I inquired about when it would be out, I simply got a shrug and the response: “sometime after GTA VI.” So be on the lookout for the release date.
