Army of Two: The 40th Day's executive producer, Roy Schneider, has said that his team looked closely at both Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty 4 for inspiration for the upcoming co-op shooter sequel

"We once compared Army Of Two’s campaign mode with Call Of Duty 4’s and we found our game had more features, but it was their execution that made the game so amazingly strong," Schneider told games™. "So what we’ve tried to do here is say ‘Okay, we’re not going to try and create a thousand new features’, it’s about creating the right new features and polishing the existing ones.

...Gears is obviously focused on the shooting more or less 100 per cent of the time," he continued. "But we wanted to give players the opportunity to utilise and experiment with co-op tactics. I think that’s what’s going to separate us from Gears Of War 2, by going far deeper with the co-op content."

According to Schneider, EA has also taken on-board many of the criticisms leveled at the first Army of Two, with the team focused on integrating its new co-op features more fluidly with the main campaign.

"There are several new actions the player can perform," said Schneider. "From simple stuff like a sprint button and crawling on the ground to a really flexible hostage and civilian escort mechanic that can let you protect people or use them as human shields. We’ve also spent a lot of time simplifying the controls so no action is more than one button press away. Our cover system also got an overhaul, so you can move fluidly in and out of cover without needing to press a button.”

Check out the full Army of Two: The Fortieth Day feature in issue 81 of games™, on sale this week.