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There comes a time in every gamer's life when they invite a friend or two (or three) over, and must reckon with the ultimate question: What to play? In the past few years, many games have begun only supporting online cooperative play, and sometimes it feels like local options are slim. Thankfully, that's not the case; the days of split-screen gaming are far from over. Plenty of great couch co-op games hit shelves each year. To prove it, we've rounded up some of the very best cooperative titles for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows PC, and Nintendo Switch.
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. Don’t Starve Together: Console Edition. PLUS Don’t Starve Shipwrecked and Autumn PS4 Themes! Set out on your own for a classic game of uncompromising wilderness survival in singleplayer Don’t Starve (complete with desert islands and roving giants!), or gather up to six friends and pop into Don’t Starve: Together for an all-new. Available for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch (1-2. Add Guacamelee!' S aesthetic achievements onto its satisfying gameplay. That fun is doubled when you bring a friend along for the ride, since.
Unravel Two is a side-scrolling platformer starring two tiny sentient yarn creatures who must traverse the large, scary world we humans live in. The two yarnys, as they're called, depend on each others' stringy bodies to perform various acrobatic feats and avoid obstacles, such as animals and nature hazards. While it sometimes struggles to make its puzzles and challenges intuitive, the game's gorgeous graphics and heartfelt two-player design make up for any shortcomings.Available for, and (1-2 Players).
If you've played a Mario Kart game, you'll instantly get this cooperative kart racing game. It has team-play, letting players divide into groups of two or three in order to outrace foes as a pack.
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It also encourages trading items mid-race with allies and using their speed to increase your own, meaning an eagerness to help squadmates is mandatory to score first place. It's an exciting, innovative co-op racer built for gamers who know that teamwork makes the dream work.Available for, and (1-4 Players). If The Shawshank Redemption had a video game adaptation, this would be it.
The game only works with two players, and tasks them with teaming up behind bars in order to find—you guessed it—a way out of prison. This game's an action-adventure like no other, loaded with heists, big-budget set-pieces, unique co-op mechanics, and enough narrative heft to satisfy just about every kind of gaming duo who've ever wanted to try their hand at escaping jail from the comfort of a couch. Plus, A Way Out offers online co-op even if only one of you owns the game!Available for, and (2 Players). Use your portal gun to shoot portals in two places so you can walk into one and come out the other. That's what the original Portal first-person puzzle game was all about. Now, multiply that portal count by two and you'll begin to imagine the mind-bending fun of, which has a cooperative campaign that requires a pair of players to figure out how to make four portals transport them through some seriously tricky puzzle rooms. If you like physics, teamwork, and funny characters, this is a fantastic, one-of-a-kind puzzler to blaze through with a friend.Available for and (1-2 Players).
Every stage in Mekazoo can be completed solo, but the platformer's central gimmick of switching between robotic animals mid-level affords the game a unique co-op mechanic. One player controls the primary animal and a friend controls the secondary one. Only one animal can play at a time, so you both take turns as needed.
Whoever is pressing buttons on their controller activates their animal until the other player presses a button (don't fight!). Extreme precision is required to avoid screwing each other over, but for friends who really want to test their platforming prowess as a team, no game can top the neon-drenched couch co-op insanity in Mekazoo.Available for, and (1-2 Players). This 2D shooter and spaceship management simulator lets up to four players save the galaxy from the forces of 'anti-love' by controlling different facets of a single spaceship to pilot it through levels brimming with baddies. One player is the pilot, one controls the shields, and the other two control the four guns.
The only way to survive is through intense coordination. Thankfully, since it's a couch co-op experience, shouting orders back and forth with your crew is an intergalactic piece of cake.Available for, and (1-4 Players). If you've ever enjoyed producing crafts with construction paper, then this is the unexpectedly fun, family-friendly shape-making game is for you. Snipperclips Plus is all about cutting and trimming objects to make particular shapes that'll allow you to complete a wide variety of objectives, like popping balloons and rotating gears.
The game's core levels are built for one to two players, though there are four-player multiplayer modes that allow a quartet of friends to get crafty.Available for (1-4 Players). Harkening back to the ye olde days of film-grain-riddled Mickey Mouse cartoons, the 1930s-inspired Cuphead is a visual treat as well as a genuinely exciting game. Beyond its sumptuous visuals, Cuphead delivers a nails-tough and immensely satisfying gameplay experience via a uniquely punishing brand of bullet hell mayhem. Playing co-op doubles the challenge by giving bosses more health, so for masochists who want to brave this beast of a game together, know that no title on this list might test a friendship as much as this one.Available for, and (1-2 Players). In many ways, Resident Evil 6 is the pinnacle of cinematic action-adventure horror games. It blends its genres with skill and, at times, even manages to sell the idea that you're trapped in a wildly fun B-movie.
That fun is doubled when you bring a friend along for the ride, since the game offers two-player co-op for all four of its lengthy campaigns. Few cinematic gaming experiences offer the bang for the buck that RE6 provides, and even fewer can do it all in co-op like this one.Available for, and (1-2 Players).
It’s not surprising that these clips are presented as keystones rather than diversions; Never Alone was developed by Upper One Games, which identifies itself as 'the first indigenous-owned video game developer and publisher in US history.' So yes, there’s an agenda here, but it’s a noble one and it adds an immeasurable amount to the product as a whole. I’m a sucker for cultural documentaries, and the clips permeating Never Alone add up to a really fascinating one. It’s a shame then that the game that surrounds them is so underwhelming. Never Alone isn’t egregiously bad, it’s just wholly uninspired. Nuna can jump, toss a traditional weapon called a bola and drag the occasional box. Her fox buddy can scale walls and summon ancient spirits that serve as platforms for Nuna to navigate the world.Good games have been made from more mundane mechanics, but Never Alone rarely forces the player to think about how they need to be employed.
You see ice, you throw the bola at it. You see a coiled rope, the fox needs to unfurl it for Nuna.
It’s all completely rote and thuddingly mechanical. The game doesn’t even require much platforming precision until its later stages.Never Alone is designed as a co-op experience, and though it can be played by a single player switching between the two leads, I would strongly advise against it.
The AI pathing is absolutely terrible and I can’t tell you the number of times I completed a series of jumps only to watch in horror as my computer controlled pal leapt to their doom.
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