Can anyone suggest some good co-op games for two people?
Hello all! My buddy and I finally finished up Baldur's Gate 3 this week and we are not left with a giant co-op game shaped whole in our hearts. It was such an incredible experience and it was truly even more fun running through it together. We are excited to hop into another game, but we have no idea what to play. We've played a lot, and some games we've finished or tried recently included:
Borderlands 1, 2, and 3
Minecraft, Terraria, Vintage Story
Raft, 7 Days to Die
A Way Out, It Takes Two
I'm posting here today to ask if any of you have some suggestions for co-op games we could check out! I've Googled for suggestions to no end and 90% of what's there is games we've already played. If anyone has any recommendations for us they would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
~ Hyrulian
Thanks for all the great suggestions everyone!! I'm going to compile a list and check them all out one by one!
How is the Helldivers community these days? I had so much fun with that one before the whole PSN debacle. It kinda killed the vibe for me at the time and I have since moved on to other things, but I was so surprised how much a third-person online shooter sucked me in at this point in my life.
Games playerbase is like, less than half what it was on Steam. Arrowhead has put out like 3 or 4 "apology" letters about "we hear your feedback, we will fix stuff" but its like, how many times you gonna say that? You know?
I haven't played for a while. Last I played, the bots spawn rate was too high when only two people loaded into a 4-5 star mission. They said they put out an update so I played to check, and they actually made it worse. Maybe it has improved since, but I haven't been back to check.
They just added a bunch of new missions, planet modifiers, and ship call downs, which was a pleasant surprise. Also, there is a lot of speculation that they're going to introduce the third enemy race pretty soon, so if you were enjoying it before, now might not be a bad time to dip your toe back in the pool.
Abiotic Factor has been really fun for my buddy and me. Especially with the new update that came out last week. It's a Half Life themed survival game.
Others that get my vote:
Valheim - Norse mythology themed survival game with Playstationesque graphics
Phasmophobia - THE ghost hunting game(see also Ghost Exile, Ghost Exorcism Inc., Forewarned)
Left 4 Dead - the original Zombie FPS series (see also Back 4 Blood, it's kinda alright) PILLS HERE!
Risk of Rain - Pretty tough shooter series
Stardew Valley - A modern Harvest Moon, farming/life sim
Don't Starve Together - If you played Stardew valley in hell, but everyone's name started with a W
Factorio/Satisfactory - Resource harvesting and logistics sims. One's isometric, ones first person, one has zerg rushes
Grounded - Honey I Shrunk The Kids: the survival game
Deep Rock Galactic - Left 4 Dead for Dwarves. ROCK AND STONE!!!
Overcooked - cooking and serving game, lots of communication required
Portal 2 - First person puzzle game, also lots of communication required
Barotrauma - Submarine sim on Europa, requires marriage levels of communication
Binding of Isaac - Roguelike shooter that's sort of Zelda inspired, multiplayer was a little janky last time I tried it, but that was a while ago
The Forest - Excellent horror survival series
Starbound - Terraria in space
Trine series - A modern Lost Vikings, side scrolling puzzles and platforming
Subnautica 2 - A beautiful and terrifying diving/exploration game, original game has a coop mod 8 years in development, but it's been very buggy
Diablo - First and second games are still very solid experiences and there are some excellent mods out for both
Escape Simulator - Literally an escape room simulator. Has workshop support on steam for even more puzzles.
Green Hell - The Forest, but in the jungle, much more focus on the reality of being stranded in a place where just about everything is likely to kill you.
No Man's Sky - Space/planetary exploration sim
Dead Island - another zombie FPS
Dying Light - a zombie game with parkour
20XX/30XX - Megaman X styled platformers with roguelite elements
GTFO - Extremely hard, stealth based, alien FPS
Most "Souls" games - Very fun coop summoning, if you don't mind the sometimes extreme difficulty
Goat Simulator series - Goofy exploration games
Magicka series - Isometric action adventure games where you combine different elements to cast spells
Barony - a true roguelike FPS RPG, voxel based, very hard
Void Crew - Space sim, mission based, sort of Egyptian mythos themed, meant for up to 4 players but definitely possible with just 2
Human Fall Flat - Puzzle/exploration game
Half Dead series - Cube: the game
Orcs Must Die series - Tower defense
Dungeon Defenders series - also tower defense, but with class based
Secret of Mana - One of the first action JRPGS, the remake has drop in coop just like the original, but I believe it's couch coop, so if you're not right next to each other, you'll need something like Parsec to play it
Have a ton more, but those are the ones I can recall having the most fun. Others have probably listed a bunch of them and I probably missed a few good ones, but hopefully a few of them are new.
You could always tinker with some emulators for some retro coop games!
The overcooked series is definitely fun and always comes up cheap on sales for like 3 bucks. It's definitely one to add to any co-op rotation because it's easy to learn but hard to execute so you'll always be going back to get those extra stars you missed.
Note about Overcooked is that the new version that combines 1 & 2 (Overcooked All You Can Eat) seems to have major issues with online multiplayer that never got fixed. You're better off just buying Overcooked 2.
Both are great games, with 1 being a little rough around the edges but still very playable. The gameplay is different enough that it's worth playing them both imo. Story might be better if you play 1 first, but I played through 2 first, then went back later to play 1 and was pleasantly surprised how good it was.
I probably vehemently disagree with some recommendations to play BG 1 and 2 btw, your mileage may vary. It requires very specific builds and knowledge of DnD, or lots of trial and error. You can easily build a well rounded group and find yourself unable to progress because of lacking one very specific thing. If that doesn't sound to annoying, it might be worth a shot. If nothing else, rolling characters is fun.
There's just not many story mode games that compare to Larians for co-op. Besides take two/a way out, I haven't found any RPGs that are worthwhile (borderlands was the closest I guess but the gameplay is boring)
Chained Together - running gauntlets while ... chained together
Children of Morta - adorable graphics meet solid gameplay and vivid storytelling
Core Keeper - top-down Terraria with great pixel art, full release in a week!
Cosmoteer: Build your 2d-Spaceship and do what you want! Full workshop support with tons of available mods.
(hmm so much stuff starting with c, gotta change my game)
Element TD 2 - classic tower defense experience
Heavenly Bodies - Adventure game with physics!
Kingdom: Two Crowns - the right thing for chilling :-)
Necesse: even more Terraria, but with a huge world and settlements to build and manage. Still in EA, and needs polish, but great game even now!
Neon Chrome: Cyberpunk twin-stick shooter
Operation Tango: Asymmetric Coop, one is a hacker, the other is the agent on the ground
Streets of Rogue: "immersive sim"-top down twin stick action roguelite - i cant even describe it well, but it is heaps of fun and chaos can pop up around every corner!
Synthetic: twin-stick shooter with tons of guns and a hefty difficulty later on
Grim Dawn: ARPG, and one of the best in its class. Dated, but still updated (and gets a new expansion soon-ish!). community is running seasons which add new areas, items and whatnot! i've sunk 1500 hours into that one, so i am probably biased when i say give it a whirl.
I liked Grim dawn for the amount of time that we (my other half and I) played it, but I seem to remember it had issues with shared quests in that you had to complete all quests individually (I'm pretty sure that was it, forgive me it's been awhile), is that still a problem? I might have to go check it out again if it isn't.
Project Zomboid. Feels like a Sims game with zombie and great survival elements. Arguably, the best zombie survival game to hit the market. Supports split screen couch co-op.
Also, OP, dont be afraid to jump straight into mods. You dont have to fuss with a single file. Right from the start, inside the client, you can join modded multiplayer servers. The mods are automatically installed and applied then and there. Zero setup! I say this because a whole heap of mods are strictly quality of life and they really ease the learning curve.
However, picking and choosing your own mods for your own server is the headache you might expect. Let some saintly admin do all that work for you.
Stardew Valley. My wife and I have sunk well over 1000 hours into it and we still aren't bored. The amount of mods for it is insane and gives so much more depth to the game, but vanilla is super well done as well.
Remnant 2 and Deep Rock Galactic are the best that come to mind rn.
Remnant 2 is dark souls with guns and coop actually changes the game in some ways to better enable teamwork to make the dream work.
Deep Rock Galactic is just a wonderful little title about space dwarves mining a crazy bug planet. 100% randomly generated. Each of 4 classes feel like they bring something unique to each mission.
I haven't seen Rayman Legends mentioned, so I'll throw it out there. It's a pretty flawless game for what it tries to be, and it's a lot of fun to play with a friend. The musical levels are just extraordinarily crafted. Definitely recommended if you're into platforming at all (and even if you're not it's worth a shot!)
Wyldermyth - indie fairly unique story building campaign with turn based tactical combat.
Wastelands 3 - post apocalyptic RPG with good story, choices, and characters. Great tactical turn based combat. Other than the other Larian games this is closest to filling the BG 3 shaped hole.
Halo Master Chief Collection; 1 - 3, Reach, and ODST are amazing co-op. We've played through all of them multiple times. 4 is... disappointing.
I play a lot of couch coop with my kid but adults would enjoy all these too. Most can be found under $20 on Steam and a lot are fairly lightweight games but have good coop mechanics and can be a lot of fun to sit down for an hour or two with.
Overcooked 1 + 2 (but 2 really is better) you will love or hate it depending on your personalities, nothing in between. We loved it
Ship of Fools
Enter the Gungeon
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
Moving Out
On Switch
Cadence of Hyrule
Don't starve together (only split screen on console not PC... Wtf)
I've used split screen Halo to learn some completely unaware buddies about simple military strategy, such as "QUIT STANDING IN FRONT OF ME WHEN I'M HURLING GRENADES!!1!"
The whole We Were Here series is marvelous. Asymmetrical co-op puzzle games. My friend and I’s recent games list looks very similar to this.
We also do a lot of single player games with one of us streaming over discord. When it’s a slow-burn puzzle or mystery game, it doesn’t really matter who is actually controlling.
For those types, I really recommend Return of the Obra Dinn. We’re currently working our way through the entire Frogwares Sherlock Holmes collection. The old ones are so terrible, which is a greatness all by itself.
Earth Defense Force. You can probably get 4.1 on a sale really cheap and that could be a decent introduction to the series as a whole, it also has the best overall story tone in my opinion, made of 110% grade B cheese
If you two enjoy it and don't feel burnt out, you can later get EDF 5, which has several QoL updates compared to 4.1, but tends to have a higher price.
This 100% it's so fun to laugh at how ridiculous the story and gameplay is with a friend. Plus each class truly feels unique in how you play them, so you have 4 play styles to choose from.
A few I've played with a friend of mine:
the We Were Here series, Portal 2, Monster Hunter World, Factorio and Deep Rock Galactic (which we both didn't like, but it's pretty popular)
Do you find that NWN still holds up well today? I used to play it a lot when it first came out (first campaigns then dlc then persistant world servers), I haven't really played the enhanced edition much yet, so just wondered.
My wife and I just finished Super Mario Wonder. It was a lot of fun. Every level has a weird psychedelic section that completely changes the players or the level temporarily. It shakes it up and gives a lot more variety than the other side scrolling Mario games.
Be a vampire lord with a keep, thralls, blood banks, cast magic, wild shape to a wolf, decorate a castle, posess a horse, make your Castlevania/vampire fantasy come true!
It's fairly niche, and it's been years since I've played it, but it seems to still keep an active player base. It's much more cooperative than most MMOs, with very little PvP. It's like the whole community is working together to build a civilization.
A couple titles that deserve mention and I don't see in any other lists:
Children of Mora - Narrative driven action RPG with some light Roguelite-ish elements. Amazing world building and story telling, good character choice/building and gameplay.
Cassette Beasts - Pokemon, if it were good. Much more mature story, tons of quality of life systems that makes building things fun, a weakness system that matters a lot more than "number big" and the entire game is double battles. I've played the game start-to-finish in couch co-op and it was incredible. They've recently added online multiplayer, but I cannot say with 100% certainty that the online allows you to engage with the story together. Couch co-op has one player play as the companion character in an otherwise unchanged experience whereas online has one player character hop into another player characters world.
Weird enough, the Monster Hunter franchise - I'm not sure how this isn't anywhere else in this thread. Use large weapon to hunt large monster. Build bigger weapon to hunt bigger monster. World and Rise are both on sale on Steam right now. World is dumb to move through the story together though, despite the fact that most fans who aren't me are likely to call it the better game.
I’m playing through BG3 with a good friend too, we’re actually planning on doing another, wildly different, playthrough when we’re done with this one. We’re playing sorta chaotic/neutral good right now and intend to do an evil campaign next with different characters and classes and possibly even modded.
Now I obviously haven’t tried it yet but the game has so much hidden stuff, branching paths and different-to-play classes I’m fairly confident you can play it at least twice and have an almost entirely new experience!
Most of these have been mentioned before, but I'll mention them again.
Halo Master Chief Collection. Everything before 5 is local split screen. 5 requires two Xboxs. I would just avoid Infinite, but I believe it also requires two systems, maybe including PC.
Diablo 3 is very accessible. 4 should be as well. I'm told Diablo 2 is the best, so I need to try to get back into it. All should be good options.
Monster Hunter requires more patience. At least for World, cooperation is good but really the game is geared towards individuals being able to take charge as necessary. Track, set traps, bait, capture, etc. Multiplayer is VERY useful during fights though.
Stranger of Paradise is kinda Souls-like but more forgiving. In my experience it's A LOT more friendly to Multiplayer. It's also a ton of fun with a friend.
Psi-Ops: Mindgate Conspiracy. An old PS2 game. One person controls the body, the other controls the mind. Especially if you have a Gameshark and you can go Godmode.
Any of the old Street sports games were a blast back in the day.
Older Twisted Metal for another old-school recommendation.
I love solasta to bits but I think it will feel really bad to play directly after BG3. You need to have a lot of love for DnD and the jank of indies to enjoy it all the way
If you're into souls-likes, try "Stranger of Paradise"
Its fantastic, nobody has heard of it for some reason. I played this last year with a friend and it was really fun (if you're into that playstyle)
Darksiders Genesis was also very fun with my little cousin, more hack n slash, one player gets to be pure meelee and the other half meelee half twin stick ranged.
Sniper Elite (4?) is pretty good as a chill co op FPS mission progression game.
Otherwise, probably any survival craft will do, you already played a few. I enjoyed Valheim and Planet Crafter and wish Subnautica had Multiplayer.
Nine Parchments - Top down Magic slinging romp. Similar to the Majica series, but with less knowing how to do certain key-press combos.
Orcs Must Die 2 - 3rd person tower defense where you place traps and use spells and weapons to take down foes. Continues the story of the first game, which did not have multiplayer, unfortunately.
Children of Morta - Top down dungeon crawler. Take on the roles of a family trying to hunt down an ancient evil. Like the Belmont's of Castlevania fame.
Full Metal Furies - Top down action fighter. Fight the Titans as some of the last remaining survivors of Ragnarok. Fun dialing with a good-sized world map to explore.
Astroneer - 3rd person survival crafting on a randomized planet. Cute component designs and a unique air management system. Plays best with a mouse & keyboard.
Deep Rock Galactic - Space Dwarves Corporate mining simulator. You and up to 4 friends drive do into infested planetoids in order to make some Gold. Destructible terrain and shenanigans.
Is there any reason you recommend two specifically over three? I know there is a third Orcs Must Die game but I have no idea if the community considers it "good" or not.
Not played most of the games you mentioned so not sure this'll be your thing, but I've gotten back in to Sky: Children of the Light recently and it's been great.
It's beautiful, f2p (ad free!!!) on a bunch of different platforms, and going in as a pair will give you a head start since it has a social aspect and is designed to occasionally get players to cooperate (though you can play alone just fine, I do most of the time and cooperate with and befriend other platers). It's mostly chill and you can take it at your own pace and make what you want of the world - follow the spirit guides and play through "proper" or fly/run/swim around and discover things on your own. You can use skills like playing instruments and taking photos, decorate your own or shared spaces, customise your character, chat to people from all over, or just chill in your favourite spot.
I have a co-op buddy too and heaps of good suggestions from others here. Two that I've been enjoying as 2 person co-op:
Wartales: started this after completing BG3 and it was a real interesting change in thinking. This is fantasy party adventure, but you run a team of mercenaries, so it's more about the team build and strategy, rather than the specific character focus that you have in BG3.
The Wild Eight: an isometric survival, crafting, set in a plane crash in the snow. Some story, discovery elements included.
PlateUp can be fun in 2 player co-op. If you've played Overcooked, its basically a clone of that, but turned into a roguelike. Its not the longest or deepest, but its still solid, and the price is very fair IMO, esspecially if you get it on sale.
Since you played all Borderlands and just finished a D&D game, why not play "B&B" on Borderlands, there's a game called Tiny Tina's Wonderland which plays like Borderlands but is set in "medieval" fantasy (but still has gun for some reason)
Ark survival evolved is something my husband and I enjoy playing together that's quite fun. The base building and dino taming together is very enjoyable if you're on a private server.
If you give this one a try, make sure whoever is hosting sets their server to private and invites the other person via steam. Otherwise you might get randos.
Wildermyth is an awesome indie RPG that I've had a lot of fun with as a two-player coop game. It's a turn-based dungeon crawler with a strong focus on role play and party dynamics.
I hear great praise for Across the Obelisk as a coop game from my friends, although I personally bounced off of it. It's a roguelite deck builder like Slay the Spire, but with multi-player, lots of meta progression, and a heftier time commitment for each run.
Gunfire Reborn is a roguelite looter shooter that's a blast in coop. I think it's still in Early Access, but what's already there is enough for me to be happy with it as a full game. To me it's a spiritual successor to Borderlands in combat and gamefeel, but without the grinding.
I'd highly recommend Stolen Realms. Pretty cheap too
It's a hex grid turn based game. You can have up to 6 characters (difficulty scales per character) and can each control as many in the party as you want. Turns are taken as enemy, and players with the players able to act at the same time so you aren't waiting too long if you are communicating about what you want to do.
It has multiple "classes" with skill tiers that require you to take a few from that "class" but you can spec however you want.
The roguelike mode is very fun for quick sessions and will reward you with a choice of random skills and armors after every fight, but it also saves if you need to go and play later.
Prodeus is still EA, but it has a solid first episode with good Co-op gameplay if you're into retro style shooters.
If you really want to go old school, OG Doom from 1993 and Bungie's Marathon Trilogy(1994-96) support co-op. I haven't tried Doom yet, but you do need to be technical to figure out Marathon co-op.
Since you mentioned Vintage Story I'm gonna go ahead and praise that suggestion. A game truly worth supporting! Developed by only two people, with a huge dedication. Game has a lovely community too. Definitely give it a shot 👌
Has nobody mentioned Barotrauma? Had a few hundred hours of fun with this, my buddy and I. Especially if you don't mind shit being not very shiny. It is unique, and it keeps on giving.