Kane & Lynch : Dead Men offers Offline co-op mode, where the second player gets to play as Lynch, the gameplay remains the same as single player mode with a insight to Lynch's past with his audio flashbacks, and a few gameplay changes, detailed as follow.
Gameplay[]
The Psychotic Fear Filter[]
While the control remains the same as when playing as Kane, playing as Lynch offers the ability to trigger his 'psychotic' fear filter, with the exception of a couple of sequences the game will trigger this filter against the player's action (mainly during Withdrawal and Tokyo Streets), the psychotic fear vision can be activated by the player during any chapter (with the exception of Impact) by chaining three or four of Lynch's brutal kills, you know when you've executed a brutal kill when the screen 'glitches' for a second along with the sound effect of a roaring tiger, this is usually done when killing enemies with melee executions or shooting enemies in the head at close range with a shotgun.
The psychotic fear vision will then activate, the screen will tremble, the sound of a ring tone and deep breathing can be heard in the background, the color of the screen washed out to the point of being near black and white, civilian NPCs will look like police officers, which allows Lynch to melee execute them (normally you cannot melee execute civilians, but since Lynch sees them as a threat, he can now) and occasionally, some of these 'cops' will have a Pig head.
It's worth pointing out that the Pig headed cops only happens on female officers. Judging from Lynch's past, it is quite possible that these pig headed women are a mannifestation of his anger and/or regret of killing his own wife. Or his general hatred towards women, as shown in the way he 'handled' Yoko and how, even when a police woman will beg for mercy, saying she has a baby daughter, Lynch will still shoot at her. Of course, his 'hatred' could have generated from the guilt he has of killing his wife Without Even Knowing It.
It doesn't change the gameplay much, but it's still considered as a nice bonus addition for playing as Lynch.
Melee Executions[]
Lynch's melee executions work the same way as when playing as Kane, except of course that the executions themselves are very different. Whereas Kane will usually knock his opponment to the ground before quickly stabbing his push dagger into their throats, Lynch would repeatedly beat his opponements with his fists, elbows, knees, occasional headbuts or grab them by the waist and throw them to the ground to pummel on their face, sometimes ending his kill by stomping his foot in the kneck of a already beaten man. Whereas Kane would kill his foes by pushing his dagger into their head when attacking from behind, Lynch would simply break his foe's neck.
Lynch's melee executions are generally longer than Kane's quick kills, but some might find them more satisfying to watch.
Dialogues Changes[]
When playing in solo, Kane will occasionally talk with Lynch and Lynch with other NPCs in the group, these conversations are almost completely missing while playing in Co-op mode and no new conversations are added, making both the solo and co-op playthrough necessary for players who wishes to get the most out of Dead Men.
Also, when playing in solo, Kane could exchange his weapon with Lynch with him usually replying "Sure, here you go", however, when exchanging his weapon with Lynch in co-op, Lynch would angrily reply with "No way, it's mine", "Me without my shotgun ? no fucking way" or "Self serving prick".
Squad Commands[]
The squad commands remains the same, with the exception that the players can exchange their squad members between Lynch and Kane, meaning for example you can assign Tharpa and Rific to follow Lynch's order and leave Shelly to Kane, or send all squad to follow Kane's order or send all to follow Lynch.
Again, not a real change to the gameplay, but it could be usefull if one of the two players doesn't like the squad combats, he can then let the other player take charge of all the squad strategies.
Adrenaline Revival[]
In solo, Kane could only be revived by his allies and will overdose if he gets several adrenaline shots in a short amount of time. In co-op, Kane and Lynch can only be revived by each other, the NPCs will never come to revive you (with the exception of Impact), however, the 'overdose' system is completely removed, meaning you can get revived as many times as you want as long as your partner is next to you, which in some way, does make the Morphine difficulty a bit easier when playing on co-op.
Note that both Lynch and Kane will still have to revive their ally NPCs.
Additional Enemies and Seperating Players[]
To increase the difficulty since there's now two human players playing the game, some chapters in the game will include a few extra enemies when there were none in solo, for example at the end of Withdrawal Swat officers will storm in the bank whereas they were nowhere to be seen in solo, another example will be the end of Reunion, when the dump truck arrives it'll be followed by at least four mercenaries for The7, making so that one player will take care of them and protect Jenny while the other goes after the truck driver.
Also, at two moments in the game, in Withdrawal and The Exchange, Lynch and Kane will be seperated for some time, these are the only two sections of the game where survival will be crucial, since only the two players can revive each other it is imperative that they play these sections a bit more 'carefully' than the rest of the game.
Fan Theories and useless explanations[]
First and foremost, Lynch is a delusionnal person and would rarely admits is own mistakes, some fans would say that he was indeed part of a huge conspiracy in his past, others would just say that Lynch would intentionnaly make up these imaginary plot events in his own mind in order to dismiss the fact that it was all his fault.
Nevertheless, since there is as of this day no real explanation for all of Lynch's flashback, fan theories is all there is...
- Lynch made all that up ...
- The fact that we can hear Kane is just due to some poor programming of the game, or just the lack of any other voice work material to fill in Lynch's past, so the flashbacks with Kane actually occurs within Dead Men's plot, but just off screen.
- There really was a conspiracy, and it was about the Venezuela Incident, Lynch was the one who messed it up, not Kane, but The7 thought they worked together, which leaded to the events of Dead Men.