Cooperative play on a multiplayer game? Players actually working together towards a common goal rather than mindlessly slaughtering every player that gets in their way? The heck, you say! Though this all seems almost too odd to be true, Westwood Studios has just released a multiplayer addition to their recent hit, Nox. And yea, there is no deathmatch to be found. Surely a rare find, indeed.

Nox Quest, as the add-on is being called, allows up to six players to fight through randomly generated interconnected maps. The goal is simple: fight until you drop. When the party runs out of lives, the game ends. This is obviously a score-driven game. The players will not be able to attack one another and instead will have to resort to cooperating with each other if they want to live. In an obvious nod to the classic Gauntlet series of games, the monsters appear in never-ending waves streaming from obelisks. The monsters won't stop until these summoning obelisks are destroyed. Furthermore, the farther along the party gets, the harder the enemies get. Finally, characters start and remain at the tenth level of experience, but they begin with weak inventory items. The solution? Get stronger items by playing through the game.

Of course, Nox players will note that Nox is no newcomer to multiplayer gaming. It even shipped with multiplayer capabilities right out of the box. However, those capabilities were limited to competitive games rather than offering cooperative gameplay. Also, the maps in Nox Quest are larger than those featured in Nox and are comparable to the maps in the Nox single-player game.

All this is well and good, but where is this add-on available? This is the easy part: simply go to Westwood's website and download it. Be warned: it is 26 megs so it may take a bit of time for those without the benefit of a broadband connection. And the best part of all this is that Nox Quest is free of charge. Of course, one must own the full version of Nox in order to play the add-on. The add-on is currently available in English, German, French, Japanese, Italian, and Korean languages. For the benefit of RPGamer's English- speaking readers, this link is a direct download of the Nox Quest from Westwood's FTP server. After downloading, copy the file into your Nox directory. As one last note, those who have Nox Quest will not be able to chat with players who do not yet have the add-on.

Westwood has set a fine example for the industry to follow. Does it get any better than free add-ons? If you happen to own Nox, there is no excuse to not download Nox Quest. So what are you waiting for? Be off with you, and don't forget to check back with RPGamer for more Nox-related news.