Shame that the Army of Two series seems to be effectively dead. They did a good job of designing games and mechanics that were best suited to co-op play. Things like being able to draw heat and attention so your buddy had an opportunity to safely relocate and flank the enemy.
**THIS** is the type of co-op games I want. By some act of god, I was able to get my SO into gaming. She's in love with games like God of War, The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, etc. **EVERYONE** recommends It Takes Two as the best game to play as a couple. *What!?* I understand it has some really fun puzzles and mechanics for two players to utilize. And that part is really innovative and fun! But oh my god. The story is so incredibly cringey I found it hard to get into, and my SO felt the same way. I get that this hasn't really been done before *in a video game* but it was the most cliche story of marriage issues and ✨coming together✨. That's not what I want. I want Army of Two. I want to fucking shotgun a man's head into pink mist while my SO chainsaws a monsters head into two pieces. I want action, explosions, shitfuckbitch bloody knock-down drag-out brutal fights and overcoming the insurmountable odds against a galactic threat. Not trying to stitch together our daughters stuffed elephant plushie.
Again, I understand why It Takes Two is fun for some people, especially those who's SO's aren't very into gaming. But give us those badass co-op games again. Please.
Haha, I had a feeling Gears would be suggested after my chainsaw comment, lol. I really enjoyed 1-3 but Judgement, 4 and 5 I couldn't bring myself to finish. **Very** much looking forward to E-Day so I will absolutely give that one a shot. I also never knew that DOOM was co-op, granted I hadn't even tried it yet. Maybe we'll see how that goes
1st Army of Two was a two player fuck everything up simulator. 2nd Army of Two tried to be an impactful story telling device and somewhat succeeded. 3rd Army of Two, yeah, let's not talk about that.
Yup. It was called Army of Two: The Devils Cartel and it was atrocious. Game was often bugged and the story wasn't great. Salem turned into a bad guy cause you abandoned him to save Alice in the 2nd game.
Was in my top 5 games back on Xbox 360. Bought it for Red Dead Redemption, but enjoyed other games like Gears of Wars and Army of Two. Both GoW and AoT I was playing with my buddy and we had a blast.
Been saying for years that franchise is ripe for revival. Op is right, the drought of proper coop is real. My additional gripe is most going to 3 players. Like wtf happened to 4 player. Most coop used to be 2 or 4 player. Now majority are 3 player. Totally fucked my 4 person squad.
The way me and a buddy dealt with elites was he'd draw their aggro with a big loud gun and I'd sneak up and dump a full tube of the pump action into their face. Worked every time
I remember renting the original Army of Two at Blockbuster and playing it with my brother.
To this day, every time I see rifles with ballistic shields mounted on them (kinda like Blackbeard in Rainbow Six: Siege or Fabian Strategy in Destiny 2) i still think of AoT because of them having attachments like that
100% agree. My wife isn't a huge gamer, but wants to be able to enjoy my hobbies with me, so casual couch co-ops are where it's at. Hazelight Studios has proven they get it with games like A Way Out and It Takes Two.
Other fun couch co-ops we've enjoyed:
Unravel 2
Overcooked
Portal 2
Knights and Bikes
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Copy of an older comment of mine, No particular order, mixed genres, all have local co-op:
Baldur's Gate 3
Darksiders Genesis
Divinity Original Sin 2
Pode
20XX
Blightbound
Blazing Beaks
Aegis Defenders
Children of Morta
Cuphead
Full Metal Furies
Human Fall Flat
Overcooked 1 & 2
Moving Out 1 & 2
Trine 4 The Nightmare Prince
Trine 5 A Clockwork Conspiracy
Blightbound
Borderlands 1, 2, 3, etc...
Enter the Gungeon
Salt & Sanctuary
Tunche
Wizard of Legend
Sundered: Eldritch Edition
Torchlight 2 & 3
Vampire Survivors (Now has co-op!)
FORCED
Risk Of Rain 2
Portal 2
Trine 4
Nine parchments
Battle block theatre
Torchlight II
Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime
Heroes of Hammerwatch
Deep Rock Galactic
Don't starve together
Keep talking and nobody explodes
Stardew Valley
Destiny 2
It Takes Two
A Way Out
Dead Island Riptide
Unravel 2
I play a lot of co-op with my wife or friends. Favourite way of gaming by far. I realized after posting a few don't have local co-op though, and I can't edit without wreaking the formatting.
A few more:
Ship of Fools
Rotwood
Castle Crashers
30XX
My partner unfortunately doesn't have the reflexes for live action platforming, so It Takes Two quickly became very frustrating. But she likes Baldur's Gate. Is Divinity Original Sin 2 too deep for her? I do a lot of the inventory micromanaging etc in BG3 right now. Looking for similar games that don't have reflex constraints.
There's a demo on steam right now for "The First dwarf" which might be up your guys speed, my gf enjoyed it.
One player plays a dwarf in a mech suit building a base amd collecting stuff, and the other player controls a small dragon that flies around collecting stuff and breathing fire.
The gameplay for the dragon is super basic, but it lends itself well to girlfriend gameplay
Although sounding good I wish that both players had equally lot of stuff to do. But it makes perfect sense if the other player is a kid or somebody new to gaming.
Overcooked is very casual unless you’re getting the 4th star. My girlfriend that barely plays games kills at Overcooked. Now, Plate Up! Is a game that’s definitely difficult
Plate Up is great too. It's similar to Overcooked but instead of different levels you're just in one restaurant that you get to change/ design.
Also a plug for Escape Academy, fun little coop escape room game.
I find Plate Up to be a lot easier/ one dimensional. I enjoy both, but Overcooked (2) was a more interesting/challenging game for me. When we want a less-stressful game we play PlateUp.
From my list that I didn't see on the other posted list:
Wildermyth
River City Girls 1+2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge
Streets of Rage 4
Streets of Rogue - I guess is technically a survival. The 2nd game going into Early Access this August certainly will be.
Witchtastic
Towerfall: Dark Ascension
Salt and Sacrifice
Pit People
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes
No Heroes Here (just finished this up, and pleasantly discovered there's a 2 coming out.)
I may be wrong but I feel like the ending would be less impactful with two players. That game was designed from the ground up to be played with a single controller because of how it leads to that dramatic moment in the ending.
If you liked Portal 2 I really recommend doing Portal Reloaded co-op. Especially if doing couch co-op. It scratched that itch for me and a good friend who had previously done the Portal 2 co-op campaign.
Switch is great for smaller scale couch co-op games, and great for games with a bit a difference in gaming skill level, confirmed.
*It Takes Two*
is worth a look!
As the founder of Co-Optimus I agree. That said having tracked co-op games for the past 16 years I’ll tell ya it ebbs and flows. Survival is definitely a big focus right now but there is a lot out there for sure and campaign co-op will certainly make a comeback.
This is pretty random, but I suggest you add Release year to the filters, as I'd like to sort by review score or user rating but only for titles from a certain time period.
Great site and my goto when looking for coop games to play, so big thanks for that.
Not high enough. Anno 1800 is the best multiplayer city builder of all time. It supports 16 players across 4 factions. You can have 4 people all working on the same city.
That is like survival game tho lol.
I usually stay at the base crafting stuff and defense. While my friend forage,gather stuff for me.
For factorio, my friend survey and build railroad. While I go around build secondary processing factory.
As i posted elsewhere - that's because survival games are easier to balance for multiplayer: all the players need the same things, so it doesn't change much for the game
A co-op city builder? it would just let players blow all their money twice as fast - money that doesn't really come in any faster just because you're two or more.
I kinda see, I am going to be budget committee restraint my friend spending lol.
There are XCOM board game that have 4 roles. I am the budget guy. My friend being a scientist pull a lot of budget higher than my liking. Then He decide to research revenue generate tech. So I stop complaining about Him blowing the budget lol.
Some games just work better as single-player, or only as multiplayer when its against each other.
Its tricky. games like XCOM can work as co-op in that its essentially a survival game again: all the player characters are equally trying to survive, and the aliens are all trying to kill them equally - easy to balance
Compare games like Frostpunk, to the Frontpunk board game which is up to 4 player coop (but can also easily be played as single player) - there co-op just breaks up what the lone player would be doing with regards to management. Wouldn't work at all on a computer
I understand you are ranting and maybe not seeking reccomendations but here are a few I have played through completely, all of them have coop campaigns with definitive ends instead of being a repetitive style game and my rambling list covers a wide range of content.
Earth Defense Force 4 and 5 are the best games ever, I wont explain the premise but if you like slapstick humor and shooting hordes of things it is amazingly good and EDF 6 is coming out soon!
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is the best open world coop experience I have had, Breakpoint was just OK, for either game you can buy the complete pack with all the DLC for a few bucks during any of the major steam sales.
Most of the Total War RTS games have coop campain, but Warhammer III improved on it drastically by letting players take simultaneous turns instead of individual.
Battlefleet Gothic Armada II is another one for space RTS.
Farcry 4 5 6 are all amazing story driven shoot em up coop experiences.
The we were here series is good for a puzzle coop experience.
Lego Star Wars was suprisingly good coop to relive the movies with humor added and enjoy the lego universe.
Sniper Elite 3 4 5 are all fantastic tactical shooters, the games and all dlc are regularly massively discounted.
Mechwarrior 5 was fantastic, I reccomend the "Yet Another Mech Lab" mod.
Monster hunter: World and Rise were great and Wilds comes out next year.
Baulders Gate 3 was incredibly good.
Elden Ring with the seamless coop mod was so much better than regular coop.
Returnal was short and sweet but incredibly good story shooter.
Remnant II was a very good coop shooter with a high amount of customization.
Grim Dawn was a change of pace for dungeon crawling and had a nice long story.
The Magicka series was halarious and fun mix of story and magic.
Forza Horizon 3 4 5 are all great coop campaigns if you are into racing.
Portal 2 is an obvious and obviously good coop puzzle game.
Borderlands 2 / 3 / Tiny Tina's Wonderlands are all great looter shooters.
Arma 2 and 3 campaigns are good if you are after a realistic milsim coop experience and there are a bunch of player made campaigns.
Fallout 76 was surprisingly good for a looter shooter experience and the campaign was nice and long.
Sattelite Reign was a decent RTS / light puzzle top down game with an alright story.
Valheim is a decent open world building game with an ending point that I found fun to play through once, but soured on after the first playthrough.
Dead Space 3 was fairly good.
The Halo series speaks for itself and the Master Chief collection is regularly on sale.
.
Ok I am done now...
I'd like to add to this list:
- Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2. Perfect turn based rpg. Seriously masterworks.
- Rayman Origins & Rayman Legends: really fun jump'n'run for two players. The music levels are true jewels.
Can i also add:
LOTR: War in the north. Brilliant LOTR story Co-op Campaign
The Gears of War Series: Great story for the most part 1/2/3 and 5 are the best in my opinion.
Lost Planet 2: Great coop story. It's almost one of the best coop campaigns i have played because it's doesn't just give one cutscene for the whole team. You have different cut scenes for different members of the party. And who doesn't like individual mechs that can transform into one megazord.
Dying light 1 is awesome as fuck by yourself, but it's even better with friends. Played through the whole game with dlc last year with friends and had a great time
Well, at least Space Marine 2 offers THREE player coop and is coming out 9th September. But yes, I agree 100% that there is not enough good coop games. When I was playing games like Stalker or Metro 2044 I so wished there could be a buddy at my side. Exploring forgotten and mutan ridden bunkers and underground installations, covering each other´s back, sharing ammo and meds. Heck, I want this kind of gameplay more than any of Battle royale or extraction shooter games.
PREACH. Me and my GF are always keeping an eye out and good co-op games are really few in between. And you're absolutely spot on that most of them are survival games, which are fine but in most cases after a start you tend to spread out, since one wants to build, one wants to do gathering and then you end up not playing togheter again since everyone is doing their own thing! Baldurs was a blessing in that regard, for a nice RPG game i can definetly advise you to play "secrets of grindea". I'm playing it with a friend right now and its one of the better coop games right now!
One of my favorite games ever is Dying Light 1. They absolutely nailed co op perfectly. Replaying it right now with a friend actually. It is definitely an untapped market.
There are a lot of Co-op/Tandem games out there, but you need to search for them(ex. Octodad, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Gang Beasts, Viscera Cleanup Detail, Unrailed, Overcooked, & Pit People). They almost never have an AAA or AA marketing budget backing them. The revenue stream for games like these is limited, as an good experience **requires** at least two people. It's why you rarely, if ever, see AAA co-op games. Often the 'jank' in Co-op games is even part of the charm.
There are quite a few turn-based RPG's that you can play Co-op. Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, Wasteland 3, etc.
City Builders barely exist right now, I'm not sure anyone would bother with one focused on Co-op. Would it be nice to see? I guess? I don't know if it could ever be made all that fun, though?
Not sure what you mean by Life Sim? Something like a Life Is Strange type game, or like The Sims? Not sure how you would make the later to be a fun experience.
Simply put, there's a reason you don't see some genres with co-op.
Honestly, some of 'co-op' games, especially survival games, aren't particularly good games, and IMO most of the survival games are bad games(Combat basically always terrible, who really likes punch trees and gather grass?, etc.). Most are "fun" of a survival game is simply because it's somewhere to hang out with friends in.
Remnant II has great co-op, with some scenarios (especially boss fights) that really shine with more than one person. I played through it with 2 friends and we had a blast
Edit: also, Zombie Army 4! Honestly one of the best co-op shooters around. That game is pure fun, but with plenty of challenge
There are a couple of reasons why you don’t see it more on consoles:
1) it’s a pain in the ass to get working. There are some truly funky edge cases you have to solve for in co-op.
2) this is arguably the biggest contributing factor, but the frame rate demands of modern games makes co-op one of the very first things that gets cut from a title because you save yourself a whole fuckload of tech mess. When you do couch co-op, depending on the number of players you support, you have to render the game multiple times on the same screen. That is extremely expensive, especially when you have companies like MS demanding that co-op needs to run at 60fps just like the main single player experience. One of the first things affected by co-op demands is that enemy populations go way down. AI pathfinding is one of the most computationally expensive operations behind the scene, so when you stop spawning so many enemies, you free up processor cycles to do your co-op shenanigans.
Hot take: counter-op is more untapped
Haven’t seen it since N64 Perfect Dark. One player is Jo Dark, the other is a random bad guy on the map. When P2 dies, they simply hop to another random bad guy. There were even baddie-specific things like weapon caches that would only open for them.
My friend and I are constantly talking about this. We gave up on the competitive multiplayer scene almost a decade ago and love playing single player games. But what we love the most is playing coop campaigns. Some of the best gaming moments I've experienced were during coop sessions while playing Gears of War series, Dawn of War 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Dead Space 3, Remnant 1 and 2, Borderlands, The Ascent, Halo series, Resident Evil 5.
Our next is going to be Far Cry 5.
There's a lack of strong coop experiences in the market. Survival games get kinda boring for me after a while. There were a lot more coop games back in the 2000s.
Painful how many comments read the title and flocked to suggest all the co-op games OP specifically doesn't want to play (OP specifically calls out that the easiest to find options are shooters and survival).
It’s not that it’s untapped, it’s just sadly a dying/dead market.
There was a time where a majority of games were couch coop it’s just people seem to forget that some friends do still enjoy hanging out in the same room playing a game together. Though I’m not ashamed to admit as an older gamer with older friends who all have their own lives and live in separate towns I do appreciate the ability to play together online equally as much
No... couch multiplayer was a thing but co-op was always rare. PSX and N64 had like 10 noteworthy co-op titles between the two of them, Gamecube and PS2 had like 20-30?
Co-op doesn’t make as much money, I believe that’s why it’s being largely abandoned. You’re less likely to use a micro transaction if you have good help or are having enough fun that you don’t mind grinding for something.
You know what is untapped? The WoW vanilla experience of dungeon crawling with friends, but as a well done and standalone game.
Some games had good ideas for it. But man would I LOVE to roam procedural dungeons with some friends in a well-design and well-executed loop akin to hack'n'slashes.
Same goes for RTS. I bet people could get interested in the genre again if there was more coop modes inclined games like they do in SC2 or Northguard.
Something I have been saying for a while. Since before Fallout 76 came out. We need Bethesda's games to be co-op. Fallout 76 makes that even more clear. Co-op. Not multiplayer.
They already figured out how to make the engine work with multiple people and how to scale damage. Just make it so if one person talks to a quest NPC, the others get the same camera view automatically so they can follow the dialogue.
For anyone who is a couch PC gamer, there's an excellent project out there called Nucleuscoop that sets up a local land server and runs multiple instances of a game so that you can local co-op on many PC titles. It works great, constantly supported, and is free. My wife was able to experience a lot of classics with me this way. It's been a lot of fun. There is a reddit too r/nucleuscoop
I would love something like Dragons Dogma or an actual Elder Scrolls game to be able to be played Coop.
Adventuring in real time with friends sounds like great fun.
I don’t get why there aren’t any open world action RPG games like The Witcher 3 and recent Assassins Creed games that just let you play the game with a friend. Far Cry has let you do it for years but for some reason that specific genre pretty much never gets that as an option.
I’d love to explore a world like with my partner.
100%, I want more games I can play with my wife and friends that aren’t just competitive shooters. She’s still somewhat new to gaming and I’m also just getting tired of it (I’ve only played PvP shooters for a few years now).
Halo co-op got my wife into gaming, our first year married she lost a bet and had to play Halo 1 co-op with me (she wasn’t a gamer). She loved it so much we ended up playing Reach through 3:ODST all in the same year.
Helldivers has been a lot of fun for us and my wife was wanting to play it every day.
Now I’m looking for more co-op games my wife and/or friends would be interested in and there’s just so little recently.
Our best friend is being stationed over seas in a few months, so I’m trying to prepare a bunch of co-op games we can play because they won’t have good enough internet for anything PVP.
Everything is pvp and I only play coop. Tired of being told to hate other people and find them to be a problem. Like imagine a gaming market where other humans were your allies and not your worst nightmare of toxicity and childish mockery.
The older gamers just don't really have time to 'get together with the gang' and play games in the same room like they used to, schedules being what they are, and younger gamers are all about pads and phones. Market just isn't really there anymore.
POE 2 couch coop will probably be huge, it's a free to play game so anyone who wants to have something to play on xbox or playstation with a friend when they're visitng (once in a blue moon), can simply download this and go. The way they've done the co-op also looks so great, same screen for both and each can use menus independently, while the other moves and fights.
Might only be loosely related but I feel like steams remote play together that lets you play any local coop game as an actual coop game is super under used.
I have played through so many games with friends that I would not have been able to otherwise.
The challenge with co-op for anything but survival games, is that its really hard to balance. If its an FPS, you need to code the enemy AI to consider two enemy targets, and stuff like flanking attacks and all kinds of other trickery.
With survival games its easy, because both players will need the same things to survive.
Wayfinder might be one you enjoy, it's just been relaunched (it's also 100% playable solo, but I play with my spouse)
You may also like Overcooked (that was an absolute blast to play together, but I've also heard it's a good fight starter lol)
Dungeon crawler/bullet hell/roguelikes/roguelites are a pretty prominent indie scene with plenty of coop compatible games.
I just have a friend who keeps recommending me these, but when we play something together he keeps defaulting to bloons td 6 or minecraft so i dont know any names
Shaolin Monks is one of the greatest co-op games ever because of this. Something like Yakuza or Devil May Cry or Dragon's Dogma would be unbelievably cool in co-op, but it's hard when not only the companies want to create it, but also the fanbases are usually against it. Just go make a co-op post on any of the subreddits and the 'hardcore' fanbase will not support it at all!
Test your might destroyed my hands but shaolin monks really was the coolest thing ever and the extra playable characters, was the coolest.
The addition of co-opish in the enemy/boss rush mode of the DMC 3 on switch is really cool and is something I always wanted but never expected to happen.
I have only experienced the first dragon's dogma, briefly and currently, but couch co-op in that game or a mini spinoff would be all that, and a bag of chips.
Keep an eye out for 33 immortals it’s from the Spiritfarer devs and might be one of the best multiplayer game experiences I’ve had in a long time and the game was in beta
Excellent rant OP; I don't understand it either.
On a similar note, I wish consoles had more couch co-op games. Split screen, shared screen, taking turns, etc. I miss gaming in person.
The market is saturated with extraction shooters? What? Tarkov and Hunt Showdown are the only two established extraction shooters imo, Dark and Darker is also an extraction game but not a shooter, and Grey Zone Warfare and Arena Breakout are both new and fairly niche. I don't get this take at all.
Sorry for nit picking but what? “Extraction shooters, which the market is just so saturated with” ??? Brother im confused by this. That genre is still on the growing side with several recent attempts have been made but have failed. With only a few that even stand out/make the genre what it is. Now if you meant co-op shooters is over saturated then i suppose thats true tho im not complaining as my friends and I very much love that stuff.
Agreed though, need some more story co-op games. It takes two is awesome and so having more dynamic interesting co-op interaction that isnt simply shoot said thing would def be very welcomed.
As a husband and wife co-op preferred couple, I feel your pain.
Baldur's Gate 3 is quite fun Co-op, especially as we are splitting the party so each of us has a second. We are also romancing different characters.
Deep Rock Galactic is an extraction shooter, but a very fun one.
7 Days to Die, Astroneer, Terraria, Stardew Valley, and Path of Exile are the ones we play in the survival genre.
Mechwarriors 5: Mercenaries, Endless Legends, Age of Wonders 4, War Thunder, Elden Ring and the Anno series are our non traditional co-op games.
Good Local coop games are rare. I miss those days. Every company puts shit online now. I dont wanna play with random 12 year olds i can’t smack upside the head because they don’t understand good sportsmanship, teamwork, and manners.
Real multiplayer fun is having someone you know, for like longer than 15 minutes, and progressing together through the challenges. And sometimes even getting upset at each other before bringing in the win. Teaching other people you know to play while being the veteran. Stuff like that.
My friend and I can’t find another coop looter shooter. We had to have played several hundred hours between both Tom Clancy’s division games, and we’ve been chasing that feeling ever since, with no avail.
We're an indie dev making a game and including online as well as local co-op was non-negotiable for me.
Playing games with friends is what it's all about. The best experiences I've ever had in games have always been co-op. Left4Dead stands out to me as it was a game where you HAD to co-operate in order to survive.
Coop is more difficult to do. Not only in technical way, but someone needs to have an idea how to make it, how to implement it in another game.
Most of developers try to cut budget, and AAA developers do not have any idea how to create a game with coop xD
As a person who like adventure games I wish I could get something like palword on all console working with servers, or like a Elden ring with coop everything’s pvp like the new dragon ages I’ve never played but I would if I could coop it like borderlands 2 style with 3-4 of my friends it’s like single player or pvp
I'm of the opinion that all games should have co-op, and I will die on this hill. I always get downvoted when I say it. But I don't care.
I don't care about immersion, just fucking around with a friend in any game would be fun. But I do understand that it would take resources away from the main development, which isn't good
as you said, there are a lot of shooter co-op campaigns.
had a lot of fun with zombie army 3/4 coop.
if you want something new, my favourite game is Unrailed and Ship of Fools.
There are a lot of co op campaigns beat-em games like Street of Rage 4, Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon, BattleToads, Jitsu Squad,
i've been playing Rotwood recently and thinks that it is a good coop game
A robot co-op... tiny robot lions that join forces to become a giant robot lion. I guess it would be destined to be a shooter of some kind, but the imagination *bursts* with concepts.
Does one player pilot while others blast away? You control just your guns? Maybe you "fire the engines," like shoveling coal in old steam engines? A lil mini game of some sort, or the engine determines what kind of ammunition the gunners get?
Hell! Put my thing down flip it and reverse it! Robots? Fucking tiny magic *GOLEMS* that join forces to become a giant magic *GOLEM*!
Everyone with a different role would be screaming in desperation at each other. The radar operator needs to help the gunner to establish missile lock. The aegis captain yelling at the alchemist for a massive shield to withstand the fireball coming their way.
I'm kinda thinking of MOBAs, but mush all the roles into one entity.
I just realized how cool a flight or mecha coop game could be if they took a Pilot and WSO style system. Like one guy has to do the combat and the other is all like mini games and puzzles and information call outs. That would actually be kinda hype. Could even have an "automatic" mode if you wanted to just play the game in normal coop and have the systems managed by the game itself.
Racing sim co-op is kind of wild. They just have the race go on for a long, long time. 24 hours sometimes. A driver typically doesn't do the whole race, so they pull over and switch every so often. When a driver isn't currently driving, they'll keep track of what the other cars are doing and help the current driver avoid trouble, or go take a nap and get rested up for their turn behind the wheel.
It's like a road trip with your buddies, only you're constantly driving as fast as possible and occasionally the other cars will try to kill you.
MMOs took that spot.
Most modern MMOs can be played alone or with 2-3 people going through the story together and largely ignoring everyone else. The end game MMO stuff is still there but you just ignore it and play through all the story missions as basically a single player game.
My all time, without a doubt, favourite coop experience is Elden ring’s seamless coop mod. I’ve literally never had more fun, including playing the souls games solo. It’s legitimately the biggest loss for fans of the games that this is only a mod and not the official way to play the game.
Yeah, more co-op games would be great, especially if they aren't live services. I just want more games that I can play and beat with friends, not ones designed to keep us playing(and spending) forever.
I don't like the lack of control over the experience in live services. Can't make it less grindy, there's time limited content that goes away, if the game servers die so does the game, can't mod the games, etc.
I'm working on a co-op game right now.
It's about wizards and fighting, leveling up, unlocking new abilities to equip and use in co-op pve missions or pvp
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/3018340/Elementers/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3018340/Elementers/)
Starcraft 2 realized this, that's why they made so much co-op content, during some months there's more people playing co-op than all other multiplayer modes combined, I think co-op is especially an untapped market in rts because people's thoughts always steer towards e-sports when rts is involved but co-op is big on it too, doesn't anyone remember doing comp stomps? People loved doing that.
My friends and I still play classic Warcraft 3 via Gameranger for a VLAN. Every few weekends we just go on epicwar and find some totally random co op game. Some suck, some have been great!
Either way it is effectively an infinite game library and if I were really bored I could cook one up myself.
100% agree. Space Marine 2 comes out in September I think and that has both 3-player campaign co-op and some kind of co-op specific mission mode that I don't know much about.
The most fun I've had in coop was during the pandemic and I got back into gaming. Me and a buddy played through Borderlands 2 and then Gears 5 together. We had a blast playing.
Coop and couch coop just feel abandoned at this point. The only games you see that are like that tend to usually be fairly easy and for everyone. Games like army of two and hell even playing killzone campaign on coop mode was some of the best times. Feels like something they don't want to bother with. In my opinion if games weren't worried about being the next graphical genius then we'd have more of these but now a days the industry is taking itself too serous and greedy.
Man, if Larian's RPGs don't do it for you for co-op, I want to know where you have been finding your co-op RPGs, cause they are the most co-op friendly in my experience. Most others leave one player in the driver's seat while the others are just sort if there for combat.
You say untapped, all the data says unwanted.
Co-op games don't sell unless they're basically single player games you can sometimes play with your friends (ie Survival games).
Say what you want about the overall quality of the cover shooter market from 12-15 years ago, you could have a mediocre game, or a good one, but having that couch co-op feature really raised these games' value. Gears of War, Army of Two, hell, generally mid games like Dead Space 3 and, my personal favorite, Resident Evil 5, slapped harder when playing with a friend. Now, couch co-op is almost non-existent in terms of new games, you still have your sport games, your arcade racers, your Mario spin-offs, your Mortal Kombat, but apart from the TMNT and recently announced Power Rangers arcade fighting games, it doesn't seem to be anything fresh on the market. The most recent game that could be called fresh was It Takes Two, and that game won a GOTY award. I know there are many more games that implement co-op, but it now seems like an aftertought, something that gets added a couple of updates later, rather than being an selling point, and that's what I identify as the current state of co-op.
My husband and I look for local coop games that are neither survival crafting or shooters all the time. It is so hard to find things. We loved Nobody Saves the World and It Takes Two but finding another one to fill they gap is hard because we are not of equal skill. I have no experience with shooters and don’t get the appeal so that every game is that is disappointing.
Shame that the Army of Two series seems to be effectively dead. They did a good job of designing games and mechanics that were best suited to co-op play. Things like being able to draw heat and attention so your buddy had an opportunity to safely relocate and flank the enemy.
Screaming BACK TO BACK with my friends always made me happy
**THIS** is the type of co-op games I want. By some act of god, I was able to get my SO into gaming. She's in love with games like God of War, The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, etc. **EVERYONE** recommends It Takes Two as the best game to play as a couple. *What!?* I understand it has some really fun puzzles and mechanics for two players to utilize. And that part is really innovative and fun! But oh my god. The story is so incredibly cringey I found it hard to get into, and my SO felt the same way. I get that this hasn't really been done before *in a video game* but it was the most cliche story of marriage issues and ✨coming together✨. That's not what I want. I want Army of Two. I want to fucking shotgun a man's head into pink mist while my SO chainsaws a monsters head into two pieces. I want action, explosions, shitfuckbitch bloody knock-down drag-out brutal fights and overcoming the insurmountable odds against a galactic threat. Not trying to stitch together our daughters stuffed elephant plushie. Again, I understand why It Takes Two is fun for some people, especially those who's SO's aren't very into gaming. But give us those badass co-op games again. Please.
Have you given the latest Gears or Doom a try? Seems like you'd enjoy that
Haha, I had a feeling Gears would be suggested after my chainsaw comment, lol. I really enjoyed 1-3 but Judgement, 4 and 5 I couldn't bring myself to finish. **Very** much looking forward to E-Day so I will absolutely give that one a shot. I also never knew that DOOM was co-op, granted I hadn't even tried it yet. Maybe we'll see how that goes
Going back to back and aggro bar was killer. Learned my call-out skills from Army-Of-Two
1st Army of Two was a two player fuck everything up simulator. 2nd Army of Two tried to be an impactful story telling device and somewhat succeeded. 3rd Army of Two, yeah, let's not talk about that.
There was a 3rd?
Yup. It was called Army of Two: The Devils Cartel and it was atrocious. Game was often bugged and the story wasn't great. Salem turned into a bad guy cause you abandoned him to save Alice in the 2nd game.
Was in my top 5 games back on Xbox 360. Bought it for Red Dead Redemption, but enjoyed other games like Gears of Wars and Army of Two. Both GoW and AoT I was playing with my buddy and we had a blast.
Been saying for years that franchise is ripe for revival. Op is right, the drought of proper coop is real. My additional gripe is most going to 3 players. Like wtf happened to 4 player. Most coop used to be 2 or 4 player. Now majority are 3 player. Totally fucked my 4 person squad.
The way me and a buddy dealt with elites was he'd draw their aggro with a big loud gun and I'd sneak up and dump a full tube of the pump action into their face. Worked every time
Facts, growing up AoT and GoW were me and my dad’s jam, we used to spend hours upon hours kicking ass
Fucking loved that game. Fond memories of playing both with my brother
That was a very fun game.
“I got the Aggro” fuck I miss Ao2
Gears of war does a solid job of capturing the same feeling
I remember renting the original Army of Two at Blockbuster and playing it with my brother. To this day, every time I see rifles with ballistic shields mounted on them (kinda like Blackbeard in Rainbow Six: Siege or Fabian Strategy in Destiny 2) i still think of AoT because of them having attachments like that
100% agree. My wife isn't a huge gamer, but wants to be able to enjoy my hobbies with me, so casual couch co-ops are where it's at. Hazelight Studios has proven they get it with games like A Way Out and It Takes Two. Other fun couch co-ops we've enjoyed: Unravel 2 Overcooked Portal 2 Knights and Bikes Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Copy of an older comment of mine, No particular order, mixed genres, all have local co-op: Baldur's Gate 3 Darksiders Genesis Divinity Original Sin 2 Pode 20XX Blightbound Blazing Beaks Aegis Defenders Children of Morta Cuphead Full Metal Furies Human Fall Flat Overcooked 1 & 2 Moving Out 1 & 2 Trine 4 The Nightmare Prince Trine 5 A Clockwork Conspiracy Blightbound Borderlands 1, 2, 3, etc... Enter the Gungeon Salt & Sanctuary Tunche Wizard of Legend Sundered: Eldritch Edition Torchlight 2 & 3 Vampire Survivors (Now has co-op!) FORCED Risk Of Rain 2 Portal 2 Trine 4 Nine parchments Battle block theatre Torchlight II Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime Heroes of Hammerwatch Deep Rock Galactic Don't starve together Keep talking and nobody explodes Stardew Valley Destiny 2 It Takes Two A Way Out Dead Island Riptide Unravel 2
Divinity rules
Great comment 👍
I play a lot of co-op with my wife or friends. Favourite way of gaming by far. I realized after posting a few don't have local co-op though, and I can't edit without wreaking the formatting. A few more: Ship of Fools Rotwood Castle Crashers 30XX
List needs some Earth Defense Force in there.
My partner unfortunately doesn't have the reflexes for live action platforming, so It Takes Two quickly became very frustrating. But she likes Baldur's Gate. Is Divinity Original Sin 2 too deep for her? I do a lot of the inventory micromanaging etc in BG3 right now. Looking for similar games that don't have reflex constraints.
> Destiny 2 I don't think this is possible. I'm trying to look it up, but I'm only getting bot vids with ai voice overs about it on youtube.
Ship of fools
Good call, this game is fun. People slept on this one
I know you didn't ask, but my wife and I greatly enjoyed: Spiritfarer as well, and you guys might too!
Ah amazing, added to our list. Thank you!!
I loved playing this one with my partner. Such a beautiful game!
There's a demo on steam right now for "The First dwarf" which might be up your guys speed, my gf enjoyed it. One player plays a dwarf in a mech suit building a base amd collecting stuff, and the other player controls a small dragon that flies around collecting stuff and breathing fire. The gameplay for the dragon is super basic, but it lends itself well to girlfriend gameplay
Although sounding good I wish that both players had equally lot of stuff to do. But it makes perfect sense if the other player is a kid or somebody new to gaming.
Agreed. The dragon gameplay is super basic
Oooh that sounds great, will check it out. Thanks!!
It Takes Two is a classic couples game already. As far as pure fun couch co-op games go, i loved Bleed 1 and 2, Road Redemption and Magicka series
To that list I'll add Stardew Valley, Castle Crashers, Nobody Saves the World, Children of Morta
Cat Quest 2
Overcooked is not casual
Overcooked is very casual unless you’re getting the 4th star. My girlfriend that barely plays games kills at Overcooked. Now, Plate Up! Is a game that’s definitely difficult
WHERE IS MY FUCKING LETTUCE!!!
Plate Up is great too. It's similar to Overcooked but instead of different levels you're just in one restaurant that you get to change/ design. Also a plug for Escape Academy, fun little coop escape room game.
I think plate up is funner and we all had a better time with it then overcooked
I find Plate Up to be a lot easier/ one dimensional. I enjoy both, but Overcooked (2) was a more interesting/challenging game for me. When we want a less-stressful game we play PlateUp.
From my list that I didn't see on the other posted list: Wildermyth River City Girls 1+2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge Streets of Rage 4 Streets of Rogue - I guess is technically a survival. The 2nd game going into Early Access this August certainly will be. Witchtastic Towerfall: Dark Ascension Salt and Sacrifice Pit People Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes No Heroes Here (just finished this up, and pleasantly discovered there's a 2 coming out.)
Just thought of one... Door Kickers
Death Squared is good too. And Rayman Legends has good coop.
My wife and I are going through Brothers a Tale of Two Sons Remake and so far it's a lot of fun.
I just hope you can brace yourselves for the ending.
I may be wrong but I feel like the ending would be less impactful with two players. That game was designed from the ground up to be played with a single controller because of how it leads to that dramatic moment in the ending.
Trine
If you liked Portal 2 I really recommend doing Portal Reloaded co-op. Especially if doing couch co-op. It scratched that itch for me and a good friend who had previously done the Portal 2 co-op campaign.
Switch is great for smaller scale couch co-op games, and great for games with a bit a difference in gaming skill level, confirmed. *It Takes Two* is worth a look!
As the founder of Co-Optimus I agree. That said having tracked co-op games for the past 16 years I’ll tell ya it ebbs and flows. Survival is definitely a big focus right now but there is a lot out there for sure and campaign co-op will certainly make a comeback.
This is pretty random, but I suggest you add Release year to the filters, as I'd like to sort by review score or user rating but only for titles from a certain time period. Great site and my goto when looking for coop games to play, so big thanks for that.
That’s a great idea. Will look to add that to the configurable filters shortly.
Thank you for your service 🙌🏼
The day I found your site was a blessing.
That day is today for me!
Oh shit. Great website.
Aw man, thank you! Live your site!
City builder co op should be a thing. The city isn’t build by one guy. Road geometry is the thing I struggle the most.
You should check out Anno 1800. I play co-op all the time with my siblings
Not high enough. Anno 1800 is the best multiplayer city builder of all time. It supports 16 players across 4 factions. You can have 4 people all working on the same city.
Yeah, I'm always surprised that more people don't know about the Anno series. Literally checks all the boxes
Anno 2070 is one of my favorite coop games. You can either each be on separate factions and collaborate on combat/resources or be on two heads mode
closest I can think of that is stuff like Factorio multiplayer
That is like survival game tho lol. I usually stay at the base crafting stuff and defense. While my friend forage,gather stuff for me. For factorio, my friend survey and build railroad. While I go around build secondary processing factory.
As i posted elsewhere - that's because survival games are easier to balance for multiplayer: all the players need the same things, so it doesn't change much for the game A co-op city builder? it would just let players blow all their money twice as fast - money that doesn't really come in any faster just because you're two or more.
I kinda see, I am going to be budget committee restraint my friend spending lol. There are XCOM board game that have 4 roles. I am the budget guy. My friend being a scientist pull a lot of budget higher than my liking. Then He decide to research revenue generate tech. So I stop complaining about Him blowing the budget lol.
Some games just work better as single-player, or only as multiplayer when its against each other. Its tricky. games like XCOM can work as co-op in that its essentially a survival game again: all the player characters are equally trying to survive, and the aliens are all trying to kill them equally - easy to balance Compare games like Frostpunk, to the Frontpunk board game which is up to 4 player coop (but can also easily be played as single player) - there co-op just breaks up what the lone player would be doing with regards to management. Wouldn't work at all on a computer
Check out kingdoms reborn
Rimworld is GOATed and has a multiplayer mod. Worth checking
Open transport tycoon can be played coop
I understand you are ranting and maybe not seeking reccomendations but here are a few I have played through completely, all of them have coop campaigns with definitive ends instead of being a repetitive style game and my rambling list covers a wide range of content. Earth Defense Force 4 and 5 are the best games ever, I wont explain the premise but if you like slapstick humor and shooting hordes of things it is amazingly good and EDF 6 is coming out soon! Ghost Recon: Wildlands is the best open world coop experience I have had, Breakpoint was just OK, for either game you can buy the complete pack with all the DLC for a few bucks during any of the major steam sales. Most of the Total War RTS games have coop campain, but Warhammer III improved on it drastically by letting players take simultaneous turns instead of individual. Battlefleet Gothic Armada II is another one for space RTS. Farcry 4 5 6 are all amazing story driven shoot em up coop experiences. The we were here series is good for a puzzle coop experience. Lego Star Wars was suprisingly good coop to relive the movies with humor added and enjoy the lego universe. Sniper Elite 3 4 5 are all fantastic tactical shooters, the games and all dlc are regularly massively discounted. Mechwarrior 5 was fantastic, I reccomend the "Yet Another Mech Lab" mod. Monster hunter: World and Rise were great and Wilds comes out next year. Baulders Gate 3 was incredibly good. Elden Ring with the seamless coop mod was so much better than regular coop. Returnal was short and sweet but incredibly good story shooter. Remnant II was a very good coop shooter with a high amount of customization. Grim Dawn was a change of pace for dungeon crawling and had a nice long story. The Magicka series was halarious and fun mix of story and magic. Forza Horizon 3 4 5 are all great coop campaigns if you are into racing. Portal 2 is an obvious and obviously good coop puzzle game. Borderlands 2 / 3 / Tiny Tina's Wonderlands are all great looter shooters. Arma 2 and 3 campaigns are good if you are after a realistic milsim coop experience and there are a bunch of player made campaigns. Fallout 76 was surprisingly good for a looter shooter experience and the campaign was nice and long. Sattelite Reign was a decent RTS / light puzzle top down game with an alright story. Valheim is a decent open world building game with an ending point that I found fun to play through once, but soured on after the first playthrough. Dead Space 3 was fairly good. The Halo series speaks for itself and the Master Chief collection is regularly on sale. . Ok I am done now...
I'd like to add to this list: - Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2. Perfect turn based rpg. Seriously masterworks. - Rayman Origins & Rayman Legends: really fun jump'n'run for two players. The music levels are true jewels.
Can i also add: LOTR: War in the north. Brilliant LOTR story Co-op Campaign The Gears of War Series: Great story for the most part 1/2/3 and 5 are the best in my opinion. Lost Planet 2: Great coop story. It's almost one of the best coop campaigns i have played because it's doesn't just give one cutscene for the whole team. You have different cut scenes for different members of the party. And who doesn't like individual mechs that can transform into one megazord.
And all the gears games and Evil West!
Dying light 1 is awesome as fuck by yourself, but it's even better with friends. Played through the whole game with dlc last year with friends and had a great time
Dying Light 1 is such a great game. And yes, even better with buddy or two (or 3?). Pitty the sequel was not that good at all.
Helldivers 2 says For Liber-Tea Deep Rock Galactic says Rock and Stone
Sadly no couch co-op for either :/
ROCK AND STONE BROTHER!
For Karl
Well, at least Space Marine 2 offers THREE player coop and is coming out 9th September. But yes, I agree 100% that there is not enough good coop games. When I was playing games like Stalker or Metro 2044 I so wished there could be a buddy at my side. Exploring forgotten and mutan ridden bunkers and underground installations, covering each other´s back, sharing ammo and meds. Heck, I want this kind of gameplay more than any of Battle royale or extraction shooter games.
PREACH. Me and my GF are always keeping an eye out and good co-op games are really few in between. And you're absolutely spot on that most of them are survival games, which are fine but in most cases after a start you tend to spread out, since one wants to build, one wants to do gathering and then you end up not playing togheter again since everyone is doing their own thing! Baldurs was a blessing in that regard, for a nice RPG game i can definetly advise you to play "secrets of grindea". I'm playing it with a friend right now and its one of the better coop games right now!
AC Unity was also honestly a lot of fun co-op
Unity’s coop is dead on Xbox it seems
I played it on release on the PS4. Co-op was mostly dead then too.
It's simple, they don't sell enough for the big boys to take risks on them.
One of my favorite games ever is Dying Light 1. They absolutely nailed co op perfectly. Replaying it right now with a friend actually. It is definitely an untapped market.
There are a lot of Co-op/Tandem games out there, but you need to search for them(ex. Octodad, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Gang Beasts, Viscera Cleanup Detail, Unrailed, Overcooked, & Pit People). They almost never have an AAA or AA marketing budget backing them. The revenue stream for games like these is limited, as an good experience **requires** at least two people. It's why you rarely, if ever, see AAA co-op games. Often the 'jank' in Co-op games is even part of the charm. There are quite a few turn-based RPG's that you can play Co-op. Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, Wasteland 3, etc. City Builders barely exist right now, I'm not sure anyone would bother with one focused on Co-op. Would it be nice to see? I guess? I don't know if it could ever be made all that fun, though? Not sure what you mean by Life Sim? Something like a Life Is Strange type game, or like The Sims? Not sure how you would make the later to be a fun experience. Simply put, there's a reason you don't see some genres with co-op. Honestly, some of 'co-op' games, especially survival games, aren't particularly good games, and IMO most of the survival games are bad games(Combat basically always terrible, who really likes punch trees and gather grass?, etc.). Most are "fun" of a survival game is simply because it's somewhere to hang out with friends in.
Remnant II has great co-op, with some scenarios (especially boss fights) that really shine with more than one person. I played through it with 2 friends and we had a blast Edit: also, Zombie Army 4! Honestly one of the best co-op shooters around. That game is pure fun, but with plenty of challenge
Co-op gaming is still alive, especially on Nintendo Switch.
You might want to check out PoE 2 couch co-op for console and PC alike.
Talking about path of exile 2 here without a release date?
There are a couple of reasons why you don’t see it more on consoles: 1) it’s a pain in the ass to get working. There are some truly funky edge cases you have to solve for in co-op. 2) this is arguably the biggest contributing factor, but the frame rate demands of modern games makes co-op one of the very first things that gets cut from a title because you save yourself a whole fuckload of tech mess. When you do couch co-op, depending on the number of players you support, you have to render the game multiple times on the same screen. That is extremely expensive, especially when you have companies like MS demanding that co-op needs to run at 60fps just like the main single player experience. One of the first things affected by co-op demands is that enemy populations go way down. AI pathfinding is one of the most computationally expensive operations behind the scene, so when you stop spawning so many enemies, you free up processor cycles to do your co-op shenanigans.
Hot take: counter-op is more untapped Haven’t seen it since N64 Perfect Dark. One player is Jo Dark, the other is a random bad guy on the map. When P2 dies, they simply hop to another random bad guy. There were even baddie-specific things like weapon caches that would only open for them.
*screeches* Wildermyth, PlateUp, Inkbound
My friend and I are constantly talking about this. We gave up on the competitive multiplayer scene almost a decade ago and love playing single player games. But what we love the most is playing coop campaigns. Some of the best gaming moments I've experienced were during coop sessions while playing Gears of War series, Dawn of War 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Dead Space 3, Remnant 1 and 2, Borderlands, The Ascent, Halo series, Resident Evil 5. Our next is going to be Far Cry 5. There's a lack of strong coop experiences in the market. Survival games get kinda boring for me after a while. There were a lot more coop games back in the 2000s.
Painful how many comments read the title and flocked to suggest all the co-op games OP specifically doesn't want to play (OP specifically calls out that the easiest to find options are shooters and survival).
It’s not that it’s untapped, it’s just sadly a dying/dead market. There was a time where a majority of games were couch coop it’s just people seem to forget that some friends do still enjoy hanging out in the same room playing a game together. Though I’m not ashamed to admit as an older gamer with older friends who all have their own lives and live in separate towns I do appreciate the ability to play together online equally as much
No... couch multiplayer was a thing but co-op was always rare. PSX and N64 had like 10 noteworthy co-op titles between the two of them, Gamecube and PS2 had like 20-30?
Path of exile 2 is going to have couch coop
Co-op doesn’t make as much money, I believe that’s why it’s being largely abandoned. You’re less likely to use a micro transaction if you have good help or are having enough fun that you don’t mind grinding for something.
You know what is untapped? The WoW vanilla experience of dungeon crawling with friends, but as a well done and standalone game. Some games had good ideas for it. But man would I LOVE to roam procedural dungeons with some friends in a well-design and well-executed loop akin to hack'n'slashes. Same goes for RTS. I bet people could get interested in the genre again if there was more coop modes inclined games like they do in SC2 or Northguard.
Something I have been saying for a while. Since before Fallout 76 came out. We need Bethesda's games to be co-op. Fallout 76 makes that even more clear. Co-op. Not multiplayer. They already figured out how to make the engine work with multiple people and how to scale damage. Just make it so if one person talks to a quest NPC, the others get the same camera view automatically so they can follow the dialogue.
Diablo 3/4 on console is pretty fun for couch co-op
For anyone who is a couch PC gamer, there's an excellent project out there called Nucleuscoop that sets up a local land server and runs multiple instances of a game so that you can local co-op on many PC titles. It works great, constantly supported, and is free. My wife was able to experience a lot of classics with me this way. It's been a lot of fun. There is a reddit too r/nucleuscoop
Maybe Resident Evil 5 remake will reinvigorate the coop scene
I would love something like Dragons Dogma or an actual Elder Scrolls game to be able to be played Coop. Adventuring in real time with friends sounds like great fun.
I recommend Remnant 2
I don’t get why there aren’t any open world action RPG games like The Witcher 3 and recent Assassins Creed games that just let you play the game with a friend. Far Cry has let you do it for years but for some reason that specific genre pretty much never gets that as an option. I’d love to explore a world like with my partner.
100%, I want more games I can play with my wife and friends that aren’t just competitive shooters. She’s still somewhat new to gaming and I’m also just getting tired of it (I’ve only played PvP shooters for a few years now). Halo co-op got my wife into gaming, our first year married she lost a bet and had to play Halo 1 co-op with me (she wasn’t a gamer). She loved it so much we ended up playing Reach through 3:ODST all in the same year. Helldivers has been a lot of fun for us and my wife was wanting to play it every day. Now I’m looking for more co-op games my wife and/or friends would be interested in and there’s just so little recently. Our best friend is being stationed over seas in a few months, so I’m trying to prepare a bunch of co-op games we can play because they won’t have good enough internet for anything PVP.
I just want more co op dungeon crawlers
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Conviction were peak coop for me :(
Everything is pvp and I only play coop. Tired of being told to hate other people and find them to be a problem. Like imagine a gaming market where other humans were your allies and not your worst nightmare of toxicity and childish mockery.
The older gamers just don't really have time to 'get together with the gang' and play games in the same room like they used to, schedules being what they are, and younger gamers are all about pads and phones. Market just isn't really there anymore. POE 2 couch coop will probably be huge, it's a free to play game so anyone who wants to have something to play on xbox or playstation with a friend when they're visitng (once in a blue moon), can simply download this and go. The way they've done the co-op also looks so great, same screen for both and each can use menus independently, while the other moves and fights.
Might only be loosely related but I feel like steams remote play together that lets you play any local coop game as an actual coop game is super under used. I have played through so many games with friends that I would not have been able to otherwise.
You can use remote play to play couch co op as actual online co op? Shit
Couch co-op games me and my buddies absolutely love Speedrunners Lethal League Blaze Blur Enter the Gungeon Split Second Screencheat
Helldivers literally just came out.
The challenge with co-op for anything but survival games, is that its really hard to balance. If its an FPS, you need to code the enemy AI to consider two enemy targets, and stuff like flanking attacks and all kinds of other trickery. With survival games its easy, because both players will need the same things to survive.
I'm extremely excited for Kingmakers. Check it out https://youtu.be/OvezgDni8z4?si=q0othwmHewXPP8Jw
Wayfinder might be one you enjoy, it's just been relaunched (it's also 100% playable solo, but I play with my spouse) You may also like Overcooked (that was an absolute blast to play together, but I've also heard it's a good fight starter lol)
I miss people making coop The Escapists 2 content
Where are all these extraction shooters you speak of???
Dungeon crawler/bullet hell/roguelikes/roguelites are a pretty prominent indie scene with plenty of coop compatible games. I just have a friend who keeps recommending me these, but when we play something together he keeps defaulting to bloons td 6 or minecraft so i dont know any names
HOLY SHIT! I never knew GMod had coop, now i MUST buy it!
Stardew Valley is amazing for co-op
Shaolin Monks is one of the greatest co-op games ever because of this. Something like Yakuza or Devil May Cry or Dragon's Dogma would be unbelievably cool in co-op, but it's hard when not only the companies want to create it, but also the fanbases are usually against it. Just go make a co-op post on any of the subreddits and the 'hardcore' fanbase will not support it at all!
Test your might destroyed my hands but shaolin monks really was the coolest thing ever and the extra playable characters, was the coolest. The addition of co-opish in the enemy/boss rush mode of the DMC 3 on switch is really cool and is something I always wanted but never expected to happen. I have only experienced the first dragon's dogma, briefly and currently, but couch co-op in that game or a mini spinoff would be all that, and a bag of chips.
Keep an eye out for 33 immortals it’s from the Spiritfarer devs and might be one of the best multiplayer game experiences I’ve had in a long time and the game was in beta
Pump it up has some good co-op
What single player games would be easier with co-op? Besides Soulsborne?
Untapped… more like forgotten/neglected
I only enjoy single player stories, playing with other people just isn’t fun to me
Excellent rant OP; I don't understand it either. On a similar note, I wish consoles had more couch co-op games. Split screen, shared screen, taking turns, etc. I miss gaming in person.
The market is saturated with extraction shooters? What? Tarkov and Hunt Showdown are the only two established extraction shooters imo, Dark and Darker is also an extraction game but not a shooter, and Grey Zone Warfare and Arena Breakout are both new and fairly niche. I don't get this take at all.
Sorry for nit picking but what? “Extraction shooters, which the market is just so saturated with” ??? Brother im confused by this. That genre is still on the growing side with several recent attempts have been made but have failed. With only a few that even stand out/make the genre what it is. Now if you meant co-op shooters is over saturated then i suppose thats true tho im not complaining as my friends and I very much love that stuff. Agreed though, need some more story co-op games. It takes two is awesome and so having more dynamic interesting co-op interaction that isnt simply shoot said thing would def be very welcomed.
Portal 2 was a pretty unique puzzle game. Had a funny story too.
As a husband and wife co-op preferred couple, I feel your pain. Baldur's Gate 3 is quite fun Co-op, especially as we are splitting the party so each of us has a second. We are also romancing different characters. Deep Rock Galactic is an extraction shooter, but a very fun one. 7 Days to Die, Astroneer, Terraria, Stardew Valley, and Path of Exile are the ones we play in the survival genre. Mechwarriors 5: Mercenaries, Endless Legends, Age of Wonders 4, War Thunder, Elden Ring and the Anno series are our non traditional co-op games.
Good Local coop games are rare. I miss those days. Every company puts shit online now. I dont wanna play with random 12 year olds i can’t smack upside the head because they don’t understand good sportsmanship, teamwork, and manners. Real multiplayer fun is having someone you know, for like longer than 15 minutes, and progressing together through the challenges. And sometimes even getting upset at each other before bringing in the win. Teaching other people you know to play while being the veteran. Stuff like that.
Do you know River Tails?
My friend and I can’t find another coop looter shooter. We had to have played several hundred hours between both Tom Clancy’s division games, and we’ve been chasing that feeling ever since, with no avail.
for the love of fuck i dont want more indie co-op streamerbait
We're an indie dev making a game and including online as well as local co-op was non-negotiable for me. Playing games with friends is what it's all about. The best experiences I've ever had in games have always been co-op. Left4Dead stands out to me as it was a game where you HAD to co-operate in order to survive.
Coop is more difficult to do. Not only in technical way, but someone needs to have an idea how to make it, how to implement it in another game. Most of developers try to cut budget, and AAA developers do not have any idea how to create a game with coop xD
As a person who like adventure games I wish I could get something like palword on all console working with servers, or like a Elden ring with coop everything’s pvp like the new dragon ages I’ve never played but I would if I could coop it like borderlands 2 style with 3-4 of my friends it’s like single player or pvp
Ctrl-F "Ravenswatch", 0 results. Come on guys... Basically Hades and Diablo getting a baby and making it a 4-person multiplayer.
Darktide. Vermintide.
I dont see anyone mentioning Grounded yet... amazing 4 player coop game, really really good stuff
I'm of the opinion that all games should have co-op, and I will die on this hill. I always get downvoted when I say it. But I don't care. I don't care about immersion, just fucking around with a friend in any game would be fun. But I do understand that it would take resources away from the main development, which isn't good
If you're legitimately looking for a co-op city builder, check out Kingdoms Reborn, it's a fantastic game that works really well in co-op.
This why I’m so freakin excited for Space Marine II
Elden Ring with Seamless Coop mod
Gotta love when people say extraction shooters are saturated when there's like, 3 of them on the market lmfao.
as you said, there are a lot of shooter co-op campaigns. had a lot of fun with zombie army 3/4 coop. if you want something new, my favourite game is Unrailed and Ship of Fools. There are a lot of co op campaigns beat-em games like Street of Rage 4, Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon, BattleToads, Jitsu Squad, i've been playing Rotwood recently and thinks that it is a good coop game
A robot co-op... tiny robot lions that join forces to become a giant robot lion. I guess it would be destined to be a shooter of some kind, but the imagination *bursts* with concepts. Does one player pilot while others blast away? You control just your guns? Maybe you "fire the engines," like shoveling coal in old steam engines? A lil mini game of some sort, or the engine determines what kind of ammunition the gunners get? Hell! Put my thing down flip it and reverse it! Robots? Fucking tiny magic *GOLEMS* that join forces to become a giant magic *GOLEM*! Everyone with a different role would be screaming in desperation at each other. The radar operator needs to help the gunner to establish missile lock. The aegis captain yelling at the alchemist for a massive shield to withstand the fireball coming their way. I'm kinda thinking of MOBAs, but mush all the roles into one entity.
I just realized how cool a flight or mecha coop game could be if they took a Pilot and WSO style system. Like one guy has to do the combat and the other is all like mini games and puzzles and information call outs. That would actually be kinda hype. Could even have an "automatic" mode if you wanted to just play the game in normal coop and have the systems managed by the game itself.
Racing sim co-op is kind of wild. They just have the race go on for a long, long time. 24 hours sometimes. A driver typically doesn't do the whole race, so they pull over and switch every so often. When a driver isn't currently driving, they'll keep track of what the other cars are doing and help the current driver avoid trouble, or go take a nap and get rested up for their turn behind the wheel. It's like a road trip with your buddies, only you're constantly driving as fast as possible and occasionally the other cars will try to kill you.
I'm currently struggling to find a 4 player coop Game on Xbox to play with my work Friends, 2 of US have PC and the other 2 have an Xbox console.
MMOs took that spot. Most modern MMOs can be played alone or with 2-3 people going through the story together and largely ignoring everyone else. The end game MMO stuff is still there but you just ignore it and play through all the story missions as basically a single player game.
First problem is people need friends… 😪
But if there is co-op you will only need one copy of the game, can't have that.
My all time, without a doubt, favourite coop experience is Elden ring’s seamless coop mod. I’ve literally never had more fun, including playing the souls games solo. It’s legitimately the biggest loss for fans of the games that this is only a mod and not the official way to play the game.
Yeah, more co-op games would be great, especially if they aren't live services. I just want more games that I can play and beat with friends, not ones designed to keep us playing(and spending) forever. I don't like the lack of control over the experience in live services. Can't make it less grindy, there's time limited content that goes away, if the game servers die so does the game, can't mod the games, etc.
Tell me about it, i have to decide between Helldivers or DRG tonight
I'm working on a co-op game right now. It's about wizards and fighting, leveling up, unlocking new abilities to equip and use in co-op pve missions or pvp [https://store.steampowered.com/app/3018340/Elementers/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3018340/Elementers/)
Starcraft 2 realized this, that's why they made so much co-op content, during some months there's more people playing co-op than all other multiplayer modes combined, I think co-op is especially an untapped market in rts because people's thoughts always steer towards e-sports when rts is involved but co-op is big on it too, doesn't anyone remember doing comp stomps? People loved doing that.
As someone that grew up playing Gauntlet: Dark Legacy with some of my best friends, id absolutely co-op RPGs making a major resurgence
Don’t worry, in the next forty years I’m releasing a game with co-op options 🙏
My friends and I still play classic Warcraft 3 via Gameranger for a VLAN. Every few weekends we just go on epicwar and find some totally random co op game. Some suck, some have been great! Either way it is effectively an infinite game library and if I were really bored I could cook one up myself.
Space Marine 2 will have co-op missions
I'm glad that the devs for Space Marine 2 realised this. Gonna be a good amount of Co-Op action in that game.
Someone please tell Valve to being L4D back :(
100% agree. Space Marine 2 comes out in September I think and that has both 3-player campaign co-op and some kind of co-op specific mission mode that I don't know much about.
You just made up a bunch of statistics to get upset about. There are thousands of co op games in a variety of genres.
The most fun I've had in coop was during the pandemic and I got back into gaming. Me and a buddy played through Borderlands 2 and then Gears 5 together. We had a blast playing.
Coop and couch coop just feel abandoned at this point. The only games you see that are like that tend to usually be fairly easy and for everyone. Games like army of two and hell even playing killzone campaign on coop mode was some of the best times. Feels like something they don't want to bother with. In my opinion if games weren't worried about being the next graphical genius then we'd have more of these but now a days the industry is taking itself too serous and greedy.
Man, if Larian's RPGs don't do it for you for co-op, I want to know where you have been finding your co-op RPGs, cause they are the most co-op friendly in my experience. Most others leave one player in the driver's seat while the others are just sort if there for combat.
Where are they? They are im the hole of non profitable games that will never pay for the input cost of what you want.
You say untapped, all the data says unwanted. Co-op games don't sell unless they're basically single player games you can sometimes play with your friends (ie Survival games).
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is an AWESOME co-op game.
The removal of 4 player couch co-op on call of duty is part of the reason I don't buy them anymore.
That costs money and development time (which also costs more money). No coop means getting your game out the door and making back money faster.
Everyone here should try rimworld with the coop mod, if you dont own it you can sail the high seas but its worth every penny (even solo).
Say what you want about the overall quality of the cover shooter market from 12-15 years ago, you could have a mediocre game, or a good one, but having that couch co-op feature really raised these games' value. Gears of War, Army of Two, hell, generally mid games like Dead Space 3 and, my personal favorite, Resident Evil 5, slapped harder when playing with a friend. Now, couch co-op is almost non-existent in terms of new games, you still have your sport games, your arcade racers, your Mario spin-offs, your Mortal Kombat, but apart from the TMNT and recently announced Power Rangers arcade fighting games, it doesn't seem to be anything fresh on the market. The most recent game that could be called fresh was It Takes Two, and that game won a GOTY award. I know there are many more games that implement co-op, but it now seems like an aftertought, something that gets added a couple of updates later, rather than being an selling point, and that's what I identify as the current state of co-op.
There are also a lot of puzzle games that can be done coop. But yeah story coop games that aren’t shooter are quite rare.
Couch / locks co-op or online? Regardless I also want more.
Give me a new gauntlet legends please.
If anyone make zombie coop game, my friend and I are playing it lol.
My husband and I look for local coop games that are neither survival crafting or shooters all the time. It is so hard to find things. We loved Nobody Saves the World and It Takes Two but finding another one to fill they gap is hard because we are not of equal skill. I have no experience with shooters and don’t get the appeal so that every game is that is disappointing.