Microsoft has just had a patent approved for seamless switching between solo and cooperative gaming in squad-based shooters. The patent, first filed in the Xbox era of 2002, took seven years to get approved.

Now, Microsoft has a patent to drop-in, drop-out cooperative gameplay in squad-based shooters. Here’s what the government’s issued.

A squad-based shooter video game allows players to dynamically join and leave the game, while that game is in progress, without the players having to save and restart the game. When a new player joins an in-progress game, a new squad member is allocated to the new player and the screen is split to present a viewing panel for the new player that depicts scenes from the perspective of the new squad member. When an existing player leaves the game, the screen is unsplit to remove the viewing panel for the exiting player and that player’s squad member becomes part of the squad being controlled by the remaining player(s).

The patent mentions squad-based shooters only, meaning this will most likely not affect two-player co-op games. However, this patent is a bit odd. Does this mean gamers on other platforms other than Microsoft’s will be unable to experience drop-in co-op from here out? Can a common gameplay element even be patented?

US Patents Office [USPTO]