Co-op this time around has taken a backseat to the multiplayer games. For those Splinter Cell fans who loved SC: Chaos Theory's extensive cooperative missions, don't get your hopes up too high for Double Agent. The co-op missions can be played offline (split-screen) and online; they're designed for two players, and bots are enabled for either off or line play. Thus, noobs can play with bots to get a feel for the maps, mess up a bunch, and with enough tenacity, they can lift themselves up a competitive level without suffering extensive humiliation online. Co-op consists of three mission-based levels created for two players to complete together. Ubisoft admits this mode is scaled down from the previous game, and emphasized that the majority of its online efforts went into spies vs. mercs.
