Summary
Multiplayerco-op gamescan be wonderfully wholesome and silly team-building experiences. They can also turn allies into enemies and ruin friendships. Chaotic co-op games can be as frustrating as they are hilarious and make for a great way to spend a noisy evening with friends.
Sometimes working together is more stressful than working against each other. At least if a loved one is on a different team there is the potential to shoot them in the game and exact revenge, but in co-op games often real-world yelling is the player’s only recourse. These co-op games create pure comedy out of the frustration of working together.
Fall Guyshad a massive moment during the pandemic and has since then continued to be a less popular, but still culturally relevant part of thebattle royale genre. These beans complete death-defying feats on obstacle courses that would make the average human faint.
But for a truly challenging experience, why not try playing the soccer level or other team-based randomly chosen levels with a loved one who is easily distracted or doesn’t quite get the co-op part of the game. Patience ceases to be a factor, and blame can get thrown around pretty liberally. It’s a surprisingly intense game for a fun game about cartoon beans.
A Way Outis a different version of co-op brutality that only reveals itself as the game goes on. Vince and Leo have to work their way through a prison breakout, intense chase sequences and violent encounters.
Players need to rely on each other completely in this game. While Hazelight Studios’ next co-op game,It Takes Two,perfected the enriching and narratively satisfying co-op experience, almost all the ingredients are there inA Way Out. Even if they hadn’t quite worked out all the bugs yet.
Love challenging2D puzzle platformers? ThePico Parkseries is a simple, yet clever take on puzzle platforming that requires adaptability and teamwork. But as with the other games on this list, high-stakes teamwork can really put those friendships to the test.
Pico Park 2requires a level of teamwork and often precision that few games do. Don’t let its fun-cutesy aesthetic fool you. It can be incredibly challenging as in each level the rules change, and part of the puzzle of each level is working out exactly what the goal and fail states are. Everyone must make it to the end in most instances, so if a teammate decides to be uncooperative it can ruin the entire level for everyone else.
Heave Hois a chaotic multiplayerphysics gamein which players must make their way to the flag. The controls are deliberately counterintuitive, and the player only controls the characters' spindly flailing arms. It’s not a race to the finish; everyone needs to make it to the flag or nobody wins. This leads to a lot of frustrated yelling and accusations of sabotage.
The art style is charmingly clunky and rough around the edges, with large geometric shapes forming the platforms and obstacles of each level. The level design gets more complex as the game goes on, introducing objects that must be transported and spikes that can kill the tiny potato-like characters.
Following in the tradition of the originalOvercooked,Overcooked 2is the type of co-op game that creates new enemies and tests friendships to their limit.Hospitalityhas always been cited as one of the most stressful industries to work in. Add environmental hazards such as shifting kitchens and roads that run straight through the kitchen, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
It is possibly the most fun players will have yelling at their loved ones about sushi. As these impossibly cute little chefs make their way around these diabolical kitchens, the full-blown panic of a timed dinner service makes for a surprisingly fun, if ridiculously stressful, co-op experience.
Chained Togetheris the game that inspired this list. It is the pinnacle of games that will test friendships to their breaking point until the game is turned off. Players must climb their way out of hell on a verticle obstacle course that could have been dreamed up byBennet Foddyhimself. Not only that but they are chained together and must rely on their teammate’s competence and group communication to get through some of the most challenging platforming found in a co-op game.
Even the optional checkpoints are not very forgiving, and one wrong move can send players back down, undoing their hard-fought progress. As players get higher, new obstacles are introduced that involve new kinds of platforming, and sometimes the only way to work it out is to try and risk plummeting back to the beginning. That being said, it is all part of the joy of the game, that bittersweet moment a player experiences falling through the air, chained to their loved ones, regretting their life choices.
