The 17 Best Co-op Games You Can Play Right Now

Hazelight got its start as a force in co-op games with A Way Out, which follows two criminals who escape from prison and are on the run. That could easily be a setup for a generic third-person crime shooter, but A Way Out marks the beginning of Hazelight’s inventive and varied co-op design. Everything you do in A Way Out is a team effort, whether it be setting things in motion for your prison break or escaping to freedom with the cops on your tail. The studio’s later offerings lean harder into fantastical premises and riff on more interesting cooperative ideas, but A Way Out is where it all began and it still holds up. — Kenneth Shepard

A Way Out established that Hazelight was skilled at creating memorable co-op experiences, but It Takes Two is where the studio really found its footing. The charming platformer puts you and a friend into the shoes of an estranged couple whose daughter wants them to remember why they fell in love in the first place, and that means using a spell to turn them into toys who have to overcome a series of challenges by working together. It Takes Two is constantly changing things up, giving both players different tools to use in wildly varied segments that are smooth, intuitive, and could easily have been extrapolated into separate, standalone games. — Kenneth Shepard

Split Fiction is the culmination of everything Hazelight has done up to this point, taking the co-op action platformer structure of It Takes Two up a notch as it shifts nimbly between sci-fi and fantasy worlds to pay tribute to different pieces of genre fiction as well as a wide array of video games. The game is a bit more challenging than It Takes Two, however, so if you’re looking to ease someone into format, maybe start with the previous game before jumping right into Hazelight’s latest. — Kenneth Shepard

Often imitated but never duplicated, Left 4 Dead 2 is still the best co-op shooter around some 15 years after its release. Many have tried to copy its format, but none have come close to beating L4D2’s mix of amazing level design, intuitive UI, fast-paced action, and perfect pacing. I’ve played so many memorable matches of Left 4 Dead 2 with complete strangers who had no mics. Didn’t matter. We still had an amazing time mowing down zombies or killing survivors as special infected. Truly one of the all time greats. Pick this up ASAP, get some friends together on Steam, and have a blast. - Zack Zwiezen

For most of its run, Splinter Cell Conviction’s cooperative campaign plays like most others in Ubisoft’s stealth franchise. It’s two players sneaking, shooting, and interrogating guards with a gun to their heads. However, what separates Conviction from its predecessors is its incredible and subversive ending, one that other games on this list would also go on to emulate. If you want a rock-solid stealth game with an intriguing espionage story full of twists and turns, you can’t go wrong with Splinter Cell Conviction. — Kenneth Shepard

Studio MDHR’s run-and-gun platformer Cuphead is notoriously challenging. But you know what makes it less so? Having a friend running and gunning by your side. Playing Cuphead with a friend is a surefire way to cut down your play time, as you’re able to revive one another after a death you’re sure was bullshit and you don’t even know what killed you. Co-op Cuphead is basically giving yourself a second, third, and fourth life. Playing it alone is just making it harder on yourself. — Kenneth Shepard

Baldur’s Gate 3’s tabletop inspirations are most apparent when you play it with friends. Yeah, hanging out with Larian’s party of would-be mind flayers makes for an incredible single-player RPG, but journeying through Faerûn with a group of friends playing as custom characters, getting into hijinks, and coordinating battle strategies together is the game’s chaotic potential realized. Like a good tabletop session, playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with friends can either be filled with incredible moments of creative problem-solving and synergy, or it can be an absolute dumpster fire of everyone sabotaging each other and creating new problems. Sure, it’s still limited by the finite possibilities of Larian’s code, but it does a great job of emulating the concept. — Kenneth Shepard

Super Mario 3D World is another co-op game that can easily see the action devolve from jolly cooperation to playful trolling, with its ample opportunities to wreak havoc on each other. But even when the most annoying player is throwing you off the side of the map, you can’t beat four friends running and jumping around in a Mario level. 3D World’s co-op brings the multiplayer madness of the New Super Mario Bros. sidescrollers to a 3D space. You’ll probably reach the goal pole faster on your own, but it won’t be nearly as memorable without a few hours of laughing together on the couch. — Kenneth Shepard

What’s more cooperative than building something together? Minecraft needs no introduction as the best-selling video game of all time, but if you somehow don’t know about the game that spawned an upcoming Jack Black-led film that looks pretty bad, it’s equal parts survival adventure and creative suite. So many incredible things have been made in Minecraft that you might be intimidated by the game and hesitant to jump in. But in my experience, the best Minecraft experience is having a chill hangout with friends as you explore and build. It’s calming and therapeutic, almost like gardening with your pals. It gives you a digital space to hang out in without the stress of objectives or puzzle-solving. — Kenneth Shepard

Oh look, another Valve game is on the list. This time we’re spotlighting Portal 2, a game that shipped with a fantastic single-player campaign and didn’t need more. Yet, Valve also tossed in a damn fine co-op mode, too, complete with its own story, characters, levels, and mechanics. You’ll probably need to play this one with someone who has patience, loves puzzles, and has a strong stomach, as portal hopping can cause some motion sickness. But with the perfect person, Portal 2 co-op is an amazing experience that is both immensely satisfying and fun. -Zack Zwiezen

The Lego games aren’t the most complex of co-op experiences, but they are reliable and very easy to pick up and play, and there are so many different games and franchise adaptations that there’s bound to be something you and your friend are both interested in. Are you a Star Wars fan hoping to journey to that galaxy far far away? Looking for something Marvel you can play with your friends that isn’t as sweaty as Rivals? Or maybe you want to play a good Horizon game to help you and your buddy forget about the AI monstrosity Sony is cooking up? You can find all of the above in the Lego games, so you and a friend can beat up blocky baddies and usually enjoy a funny spoof of your favorite franchises. They’re a fun, uncomplicated romp. — Kenneth Shepard

My favorite kind of cooperative games are the ones that give everyone a role to play. Operation: Tango is one of the best examples of asynchronous co-op I’ve played because the tools it gives its two players could not be more different. One player is a field agent doing espionage and sick spy tricks, the other is a hacker who only sees what’s on their computer. Both players have to be locked in, communicating, and telling each other what they see to solve problems and accomplish their mission. There’s something incredibly satisfying about finding the answer to your field agent’s problem by solving puzzles and hacking into a system. Operation: Tango exemplifies teamwork better than most co-op games and can be completed in a sitting or two. Just make sure you play with someone who will be patient while you’re scrolling through all the hacking UI. — Kenneth Shepard

Journey is a little different than most of the games on this list in that you can’t queue up with a friend and guarantee that you’ll play through Thatgamecompany’s gorgeous playable screensaver together. You can play Journey by yourself, but throughout your trek through a desert up to a mountain in the distance, you’ll pass by other players making their own pilgrimage; you’re free to heed them as they try to help you find your way, or you can ignore them. However, Journey’s only form of communication is through chirps that don’t have a specific meaning, so you and your traveling partner will essentially create your own language by wordlessly chirping at one another as you move through the world. The expedition to the mountain is arduous, emotional, and beautiful to behold, and it’s also one that’s better when walking alongside another. Even if you don’t know just who it is you’ve been paired up with. — Kenneth Shepard

When talking awesome co-op experiences, it’s too hard to pick one Halo game. And luckily, in the year 2025 we don’t have to because we have the Master Chief Collection. Now you and a friend (or a few more, depending on the game) can play through all of Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, ODST, Halo Reach, and Halo 4 together without having to swap games or consoles. And thanks to plenty of updates, the MCC is the best way to enjoy the action-packed and bombastic campaigns found in each game. Sure, you can play them solo, but having a buddy in your Warthog is always better. -Zack Zwiezen

Like Halo, all of the Gears games—even Judgement—are fun co-op games. However, I’m going to specify Gears of War 3 for this list as I think it’s still the best game in the series and it features 4-player co-op, too. This was only seen one other time, in the previously mentioned Judgement, and while I can imagine it was a pain to implement, it makes Gears 3 so much fun to go back to in 2025. You can bring your whole crew and play Gears of War 3 all at the same time. And thanks to Xbox’s backwards compatibility and FPS boost, playing this aging cover shooter is as easy as chainsawing a Locust drone’s head off. -Zack Zwiezen

Really, any Borderlands game is made 10,000 times better when you bring a friend or two along for the ride. But personally, Borderlands 3 is my favorite to replay with friends these days and that’s mainly because of how good the combat and movement feel in this one. However, you could also check out Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, which plays just as well as Borderlands 3 but also supports crossplay and features a lot of cool magic and fantasy melee weapons. And best of all, when playing any Borderlands game in co-op, you will all be too distracted by each other to hear the cringey jokes. A win-win situation! — Zack Zwiezen

When the original Diablo arrived in 1997, the alluring pull of the Lord of Terror wreaked havoc on the work and school schedules of thousands, who couldn’t resist diving into the dungeons beneath the cathedral in Tristram with friends to slaughter monsters and score some sweet loot. The series and its emphasis on co-op continue to this day, of course, but if you ask me, the fun factor for co-op play peaked with the second game, 2000’s Diablo II. (To be clear, I like the tone, story, and core experience of Diablo IV, the series’ latest entry, but I also think the game is bogged down with live-service elements and obnoxious endgame grinds designed to keep you playing for the sake of keeping you playing, rather than because those grinds are actually fun or meaningful.)

Thankfully, Diablo II got a great modern refresh with Diablo II: Resurrected, a 2021 remaster of the 2000 game and its excellent Lord of Destruction expansion that makes hopping into Sanctuary with a friend and fighting the forces of evil on modern platforms a piece of cake. Diablo II is one of the most influential games of all time, cementing the very way we think about in-game loot in everything from Borderlands to Fortnite as having different color-coded quality tiers, and the appeal of its incredible classes, weapons, combat, and world is as apparent today as it was a quarter century ago. — Carolyn Petit