Summary
Co-op video games can provide an excellent opportunity to socialize with friends or even make new ones. Game developers have come up with a wide variety of ways to buildan immersive and engaging co-op experienceacross a multitude of genres, giving fans an endless supply of adventures to go on together.
Unfortunately, some games include co-op as more of an afterthought, dropping a second player in with limited abilities and not meaningfully changing level or encounter design to support their inclusion. These games center the co-op experience to the exclusion of everything else, to the point that solo players will have to look elsewhere.
The simple but addictive social deduction mechanics ofAmong Usmade it a major hit in 2020, and the gameplay has not gotten stale since. The title borrows liberally from the gameplay of the classic party gameWerewolf, hiding onesecret murderer in a group of cooperative playersand forcing them to work together to identify the Impostor, all while keeping their ship working in the depths of space.
Among Usis an excellent way to spend time with friends, and the adorable crewmates who populate the game’s matches have become iconic pop culture figures in their own right. With the successorAmong Us 3Don the horizon, it’s still an excellent time to dive into this legendary co-op game.
Payday 2is a classic co-op shooterwhere up to four criminals band together for the ultimate heist. Fans have a wide array of crimes to choose from, ranging from standard bank robberies to more severe crimes like stealing nuclear bombs. The game presents a satisfying feedback loop, allowing players to earn new weapons and masks to hide their identity in the field.
The game earned a lot of buzz for its chaotic multiplayer heists. While fans can theoretically clear most missions from total stealth, there’s a lot that can go wrong, and the wild chaos of a heist that’s gotten out of hand can be just as entertaining and exciting for friend groups as one where everything falls perfectly into place.
A lot of asymmetrical multiplayer games focus on pitting one big, terrifying monster against a team of comparatively underpowered humans. Few games exemplify this dynamic better thanDead By Daylight, a co-op survival horror game that banishes four survivors to a terrifying nightmare realm, where they are stalked by an implacable killer.
This engagingly terrifying premise, coupled with the wide variety of horrifying killers on offer, givesDead By Daylighta lot of replayability. Many of the characters present in the game are lifted from other iconic horror IPs likeResident EvilandScream, giving horror fans a lot to play with.
A Way Outis the second game by Josef Fares of Hazelight Studios, and the first to establish what would become a pattern of completely eschewing single-player gameplay. It canonly be played by two people, who each take the roles of a pair of prisoners who stage a prison break.
The game features an asymmetrical design, with players frequently needing to complete goals together with completely different mechanics. For instance, one player might need to distract a guard while the other breaks a lock. This asynchronous design proved to be a considerable success for Hazelight, and the blueprint for some truly iconic co-op games to come.
Journeyhas long held a reputation as an indie darling and is still held up as one of the most profound and artistically moving games out there. The game casts the player as a robed figure on a pilgrimage through a mysterious desert, littered with strange ruins and mystical ribbons. Along the way, they’re joined by other players, who can share the journey and help them navigate the ancient structures on their quest to the top of the mountain.
Journeyis a rather gameplay-light title; players' interactions with the world are restricted to movement, a limited flight ability, and a small pulse that can activate nearby structures. But the experience of sharing such a trek with another person can make for a truly profound and emotionally significant experience, and one that will likely stick with players for a long time.
The second pure co-op game from Hazelight Studios casts a pair of players as husband and wife in a failing marriage. Once their young daughter inadvertently traps them in a pair of dolls, they must traverse a sprawling fantasy world derived from their child’s toys and household objects in order to return to their bodies and maybe save their marriage along the way.
This fantastical premise opens up a lot of opportunities for co-op gameplay, and players get a lot of strange and fantastical tools to aid them in their quest. Hazelight Studios has prepared a truly creative co-op experience for fans, and one that well and truly earned its Game of the Year accolades.
As the name suggests,Keep Talking And Nobody Explodesis a somewhat chaotic title, and an ideal party game for VR players. The game tasks a player with defusing a bomb, using instructions from a group of other players who cannot see the device but do have a manual on how to disarm it.
Communication is key inKeep Talking And Nobody Explodes, and as the timer ticks down, players' increasingly desperate efforts to shut it off will lead to chaos, confusion, and explosive mistakes. This is an excellent way to unwind with a bunch of friends, and with plentiful non-VR options, players can join the fun regardless of their hardware.
Hazelight Studios' newest game is another exclusively co-op experience, casting a pair of players as two fiction writers who get trapped in a malfunctioning simulator which mashes their stories together. As thehigh fantasy and sci-fi genres collide, the protagonists, Mio and Zoe, must work together to survive, learning about each other in the process.
In true Hazelight Studios fashion, the game features asymmetrical co-op. Players are frequently tasked with using completely different mechanics and control schemes in tandem in order to solve puzzles and overcome challenges. As with Hazelight’s other co-op games, players only need one copy between them in order to play together online, making this an accessible and engaging adventure for two friends to undertake together.
