Playing video games with your buddies is a tale as old as video games themselves, from summer nights in with Smash Bros to those sleepovers with Halo. But, as the age of the internet has consumed the gaming landscape, couch co-op took a backseat to prioritise online experiences over those intimate moments laughing with your friends over goofy things you did or yelling about screen watching. Whether you’re looking for the perfect gaming Valentine’s night in, an adventure to play with your best bud or maybe even your children, here are some of our recommendations for the best modern co-op games.
Maybe one for Halloween rather than Valentine’s, but Luigi’s Mansion 3 feels like it was made to be played with a friend. Whilst one of you controls the titular green-clad hero, the other player takes control of his fearless and gelatinous clone who has his own unique skills to help solve puzzles. Typically, the player would switch between both forms to solve these puzzles but having two players control each one at the same time feels more seamless. What’s especially fun about this game with a friend though, is the elevator to each floor. Since you both have free control to move around in a confined space you often end up shooting your plungers at each other’s faces or just blowing the vacuum to watch Luigi’s nose wiggle around. Fun times ahead for sure.
Probably one of the best “made to be two-player” games ever conceived, this game tackles a failing relationship through a child’s perception of a book that she found to help keep her parents together. As a couple, you’ll tackle metaphorical relationship hurdles through platforming and unique mechanics introduced for each level. It leads to a gameplay loop that gives you new tools to learn and master with every theme change whilst you progress to the end and it teaches real values you could apply to a real relationship. Personally, I think this game suits a couple better than friends but if you view the game as media to enjoy rather than relate to anyone could feasibly enjoy this together for the incredible gameplay innovation alone. If you do try and enjoy this, keep an eye out for Split Fiction, also made by Hazelight Studios, which looks to be doing the same and so much more.
Whilst the original Cat Quest is single-player, its sequels are both 100% cooperative games which is their greatest strength. Though the world of Cat Quest is simple, the quests are fun, the text is littered with puns, and the fights can get quite intense as the games go on. You’ll be glad to have player 2 to revive you and focus on healing and support whilst player 1 bombards the enemies with attacks. Exploring this adorable world together while sharing the loot you collect for your different classes feels organically fun and makes me wish this element was there from the start.
Pode is another title made with co-op as its focus. Both characters have a unique set of abilities that aid in puzzle solving, one lights up the environment and helps plants grow, whilst the other is heavy, can cause leaves to drop and can solve puzzles with its weight or its ability to absorb light to move it around a room. The objective of Pode is to aid the light back up the mountain it fell from, whilst avoiding water and other deadly obstacles. They can even hold hands with each other as they climb from floor to floor, solving puzzles to get further and further until the light can finally reach the stars again. This one is very gameplay-driven, with very little text. It’s a short and sweet journey with wholesome vibes.
If you can get past the crude and outright weird character design and damn near impossible-to-control characters, Totally Reliable Delivery Service can be one of the most fun, albeit frustrating, bond-building activities you and your player 2 can experience. While some deliveries are clearly designed to be done (and are easier in) solo, having a second player tag along opens up lots of possibilities for problem-solving by manipulating the second player to grab hold of vehicles, holding items in place and even just helping you lift objects properly. The core gameplay is a physics-based puzzle game in which you must deliver items without them being destroyed while wielding different vehicles and even power-ups. I must warn that this game isn’t for everyone, the frustrating nature of these titles can be a little much for inexperienced or impatient gamers, so choose wisely!
Now everyone has played Minecraft, and most people have played in a multiplayer world with a few friends, but have you ever played Minecraft with your partner or best friend alone? It’s a unique experience, especially if one of you is more experienced than the other. You often find yourself sticking to particular jobs and cultivating a home base that has form and function with one resource gatherer and the other building. So next time you’re getting that Minecraft itch, consider playing on a sofa together on one screen, it’ll certainly bring you closer together.
The Warriors style of gameplay present in Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty, Samurai or Gundam Warriors entries is not to everyone’s tastes. They can be slow, repetitive and a little overwhelming for those who are not well-versed with the series, Hyrule Warriors though, takes these points and simplifies them into a well-made puree designed for anyone to enjoy. Despite it not being made in-house by Nintendo, it has that charm and ease of access you’d expect from the legendary company that makes this, seemingly repetitive string of endless content much more approachable. The adventure maps added via DLC for the WiiU version and part of the base game on the Switch, are the bread and butter of this game’s multiplayer offerings. After playing this game with my partner for the best part of the last decade I’m convinced it was designed to be played this way with some of the ridiculous tasks it expects from the player, which would be tedious and frankly too difficult alone.
Travelers Tales perfected the LEGO game formula very early on with the Star Wars games, and each entry iterated and improved the formula little by little meaning that every entry had a hub, story levels, a tonne of collectables, lots of playable characters and every aspect can be done with two people. If you somehow haven’t played a LEGO game, I have you covered. They are relatively safe beat-em-up collectathons with hidden collectables locked behind barriers opened by character abilities or skills and filled with cheats that help you find said collectables. Pick an IP you enjoy, Marvel, Harry Potter, Star Wars or even Jurassic Park and aim for 100% and you’ll find hours of fun together.
One of the lesser-known entries on this list is Idea Factory’s foray into the party game genre, which tasks you with adventuring over a game world, helping free towns from monsters to gain the most wealth and take over the kingdom. The fights take place in turn-based battles where turns happen like board game rounds and the other player can move in-between attacks across the board. Whilst the objective is simple, levelling up your class, picking the right gear and chasing bonuses on the board can prove to be an edge over your opponent, you can also customise your character to a degree so it has a unique factor to each run you try too.
When thinking up this list I wanted to avoid the obvious titles that would plague searches for this kind of article, but there’s good reason that they fill up those lists, they’re classics. This section is dedicated to Mario Kart, and its legion of clones, Mario Party, Rocket League, Overcooked, and any Wii-styled mini-game compilation you can fathom. Sometimes it’s fun to go to a second-hand games store, grab a couple of Wii party games and just go wild with the absurdity and laugh at the terrible together, you’d be surprised what fun you can have in typically subpar experiences with the right person.
Diablo as a franchise has long been an example for the industry in making a satisfying single-player gameplay loop that translates nearly perfectly to multiplayer. But in my opinion, it took a few instalments for the multiplayer mechanic to reach its ideal form. If you’ve never come across the franchise before the core gameplay revolves around picking your character class and exploring desolate demon-infested landscapes and dungeons, cutting a bloody path through the horde with unique abilities and equipment sets built from the randomised loot you find along the way.
Diablo 1 is hard to recommend as it is very outdated, the gameplay is quite slow and there are only 3 character classes to pick from.
Diablo 2 is a classic in all senses of the word. It’s well-beloved among PC gamers for good reason. Its excellent atmosphere, simple yet engaging gameplay loop and deep storyline made it one of the best-selling PC games of all time and it still makes it into many people’s lists of best games of all time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit in this list as in-person Co-op wasn’t considered for PC games at the time.
What I can recommend wholeheartedly however is Diablo 3.
Diablo 3 was developed with console gameplay and couch co-op in mind from the get-go. It retains nearly all the positives that made Diablo 2 a classic with the added benefit of multiplayer co-op being a core mechanic rather than an extra mode on the side. This does change the atmosphere somewhat, knowing that a friend could drop in to help you at any moment definitely makes it a much less lonely-feeling experience. Whether that’s a negative or positive to you will be a matter of opinion but for me, it’s a trade-off I’m completely fine with.
Diablo 2 will most likely forever stay my favourite game in the franchise but when I’m looking for a couch co-op game there’s nothing quite like the experience of sitting down with friends and hacking through the demonic hordes together that you get from Diablo 3.
Here’s our list, how many of these games have you tried with a friend or partner, and what are you going to try next? Let us know, and don’t forget, any of these games that are on PlayStation can be played together online if one of you has a PlayStation Plus subscription so even long distance can play together as if you were in the same room!
