Good Co Op Games On Steam offer incredible shared experiences, and polarservicecenter.net is here to ensure your gaming setup is always ready. Whether you’re troubleshooting connectivity issues or optimizing your gaming PC for peak performance, we’ve got you covered. Let’s dive into the best co-op games available, perfect for memorable moments and shared victories. Also, explore our website for valuable insights on Polar product maintenance and assistance, improving both your gaming and fitness endeavors.
1. Discovering Dirt-Cheap Co-Op Games
Looking for affordable co-op games that won’t break the bank? Here are some fantastic options under $10 that are perfect for getting your whole group chat involved on a Friday night.
2. Co-op Games Your Group Chat Will Buy
These games are incredibly easy to recommend. Just drop the link in your group chat, and watch everyone get excited about playing together. Be warned, some of these might lean more towards friendly competition than pure cooperation, but they’re all great for gaming together.
PC Gamer’s experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
3. Co-op Games to Snag on Sale
Beyond the freebies, there are several co-op games that, while normally pricier, frequently go on sale. Keep an eye out for these titles and grab them when the price is right.
4. Best Two-Player Co-Op Games
For those who prefer a more intimate gaming experience with just one other friend, here are some of the best two-player co-op games available.
4.1. Split Fiction
Split Fiction screenshot
Split Fiction showcases dynamic co-op action, with two characters navigating fantasy and sci-fi worlds, emphasizing the power of friendship, perfect for gamers who enjoy collaborative problem-solving.
Players: 2
Price: $50/£40 or Game Pass/EA Play
Style: Co-op action campaign
Hazelight Studio has once again delivered with another exceptional co-op campaign game. You and a friend play as aspiring writers, one a fantasy enthusiast and the other a sci-fi devotee, who find themselves trapped within their respective stories. Similar to Hazelight’s previous co-op hit, It Takes Two, Split Fiction constantly shifts the game genre, maintaining a thrilling pace. One moment you’re solving puzzles in a fantasy world by transforming into apes and fairies, and the next, you’re space marines in a 2.5D sidescroller, using guns and teamwork to break into a futuristic prison.
Just like Hazelight’s prior games, only one friend needs to own a copy of the game while the other can download the “friend pass” version for free to join in.
Read more: Split Fiction review
4.2. Styx: Shards of Darkness
Styx: Shards of Darkness – Styx hides behind a crate holding aknife while a guard looks out over a dock at night.
Styx: Shards of Darkness provides thrilling co-op stealth gameplay, allowing players to coordinate sneaky tactics and synchronized kills in a dark fantasy setting.
Players: 1-2
Price: $20/£18
Style: Co-op stealth campaign
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a rare gem: a co-op stealth campaign. Think of it as a two-player Hitman, but with goblins who love to swear. Each level presents a large map patrolled by various enemy types, allowing you to choose your approach. Whether you prefer poisoning food, dropping light fixtures on heads, or executing loud kills before disappearing into the crawl spaces, it’s a blast to play with a friend. As you unlock new stealth abilities and coordinate simultaneous kills, the experience becomes even more rewarding.
Read more: Styx: Shards of Darkness review
4.3. We Were Here
Best co-op games – We Were Here – A player holds a walkie talkie and candle while looking at a contraption with several levers.
We Were Here challenges players with immersive co-op puzzle-solving, requiring effective communication and teamwork to navigate escape room-inspired scenarios, offering both challenge and satisfaction.
Players: 2
Price: Free
Style: Co-op puzzle campaign
We Were Here is a puzzle adventure series designed exclusively for co-op play. Seriously, you can’t play it any other way. The puzzles draw inspiration from escape rooms and games like Myst, requiring you and your partner to communicate what you’re seeing and doing to progress. As noted in a review of one of the sequels, you and your partner are the true puzzle—figuring out how to communicate is the challenge and the reward.
The first game, We Were Here, is free, while the sequels We Were Here Too and We Were Here Together are each under $15. Additionally, there’s a spinoff series of short puzzle experiences, similar in length to the original game, called We Were Here Expeditions.
Read more: So far, co-op puzzle game We Were Here Forever is the best in the series
4.4. Outward
Outward – A player stands at the base of a purple mountain
Outward provides an immersive open-world RPG experience, demanding cautious exploration and strategic decision-making, enhanced by the camaraderie of a co-op partner.
Players: 1-2
Price: $40/£35
Style: Open world RPG
Outward offers a unique RPG experience where you start as a truly vulnerable character. There are no map waypoints to guide you, and no level-ups to boost your stats. Fast travel is nonexistent; instead, you must navigate by landmarks and play as cautiously as you would in a real-world adventure. This creates a thrilling experience when shared with a friend.
As Chris wrote in his Outward review: “It makes minor setbacks feel like major obstacles to overcome, and it makes small victories feel like utter triumphs. Outward is harsh and occasionally frustrating, but it does what so few games do. It requires you to put real thought into the choices you make, and it makes those choices feel like they really matter.”
Read more: Playing Outward with a reckless co-op partner is a good way to test your relationship
4.5. Portal 2
Portal 1 – 2 robots carrying portal guns leap across a test chamber room
Portal 2 offers mind-bending co-op puzzle-solving, encouraging teamwork and spatial reasoning as players navigate complex test chambers with portal guns.
Players: 2
Price: $10/£9
Style: Co-op puzzle campaign
Portal 2’s co-op campaign is undeniably brilliant. Playing as the testing robots Atlas and P-Body, you and a friend explore the more dangerous aspects of GlaDOS’s testing routines—the ones too risky for human testers. The three-dimensional spatial thinking that defines the Portal series is amplified when you’re solving puzzles with a friend.
Portal 2’s co-op is most enjoyable when neither player knows the solution. However, finding two new players years after its release can be challenging. Fortunately, Valve’s map editor community has created a wide range of excellent new maps to explore and get stumped in together.
Read more: Portal Reloaded is the closest we’re likely to get to Portal 3
5. Best Four-Player Co-Op Games
Gather your squad for these exciting four-player co-op games, perfect for group adventures and shared triumphs.
5.1. Monster Hunter Wilds
A hunter poses with a large hammer as their palico cheers nearby in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds offers engaging mission-based hunts and free-roam adventures, encouraging players to team up and conquer giant monsters with a variety of oversized weapons.
Players: 1-4
Price: $70
Style: Mission-based and free-roam hunts
Monster Hunter may have a reputation for clunky multiplayer, but Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer is, at least, less fiddly than in the past. Wilds supplants Rise on this list thanks to the new link party system that makes heading out on free-roam hunts and sticking together with friends just a bit easier than in Rise.
Wilds is way more approachable game overall than other parts of the series, so it’s a good entry point to drag friends into as they learn to fight giant monsters with their choice of oversized weapon.
Read more: Monster Hunter Wilds review
5.2. Helldivers 2
A squad of heroic helldivers stood back-to-back, firing weapons at bugs in Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 delivers intense third-person squad shooting, where players must unite to defeat alien threats in an ever-evolving galactic war, demanding teamwork and strategic coordination.
Players: 4 (solo optional)
Price: $40/£35
Style: Mission-based squad shooter
Helldivers 2 became a sensation in early 2024. This fast-paced, third-person squad shooter is perfect for players who love cooperative action. The intergalactic war requires you to defeat horrific bugs, bots, mechs, and other extraterrestrial threats. You’re not an invincible hero; instead, you’re a grunt doing your best to survive and secure victory in each mission.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Helldivers 2 is its evolving galactic war, managed by an actual Helldivers 2 “Game Master” at Arrowhead Game Studios. This individual shapes the meta narrative, surprising players with difficulty tweaks and unexpected enemy appearances. The studio likens it to running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for millions.
Read more: Helldivers 2 review
5.3. Palworld
An image of two Palworld trainers seated by a campfire while their pal breaths a jet of flame onto the logs.
Palworld combines creature collecting with co-op crafting, allowing players to team up and build bases, battle bosses, and explore an open world while mitigating resource grind through teamwork.
Players: 1-4 (up to 32 on a dedicated server)
Price: $30/£25 or Game Pass
Style: Open world survivalcraft
Pokémon-imitating crafting game Palworld was a smash hit when it launched and for good reason. Co-op crafting remains super compelling and so does creature collecting, and wouldn’t you know it? They’re great together too. It’s all about the resource gathering grind to unlock new structures and crafting stations in a tech tree while upgrading your ever-expanding base. You’ll also have boss battles against other Pal tamers to pursue as you explore.
It’s specifically excellent in co-op because having several players and their Pals all working together alleviates a bit of the resource grind that would otherwise encourage you to participate in Palworld’s weird Pal labor exploitation side. If you need a new open world to build a base in with your group chat, check out our details on Palworld multiplayer to get set up.
Read more: Palworld breeding guide
5.4. Lethal Company
Scientists in a lab
Lethal Company delivers goofy horror gameplay, emphasizing proximity-based voice chat and the humor of friends facing terrifying monsters in abandoned spaceships, requiring teamwork to meet company quotas.
Players: 1-4
Price: $10/£8.50
Style: Goofy horror
Lethal Company, one of the latest viral hits in the wacky social horror genre popularized by Phasmophobia, thrives on friends’ screams and proximity-based voice chat. Hearing a friend’s muffled voice suddenly turn into a terrified scream is where the humor lies.
The game involves looting scrap from abandoned spaceships to meet company quotas, but these spaceships are haunted by horrifying monsters. It’s a run-based game that’s best enjoyed with unlucky friends.
Read more: Lethal Company is a viral hit in no small part thanks to all the intense shouting
5.5. Satisfactory
Satisfactory – two players co-op while standing at the top of a large factory contstruction
Satisfactory delivers satisfying co-op logistics, allowing players to gather resources, build machines, and automate factories together, enhanced by its recent 1.0 release.
Players: 1-4
Price: $30/£28
Style: Open-ended crafting
Satisfactory initially seems like a galactic survival sim, but it quickly becomes a cooperative logistics game. Players gather resources and build machines to automate processes. This can be fun alone, but it’s even better with friends, as extra hands make the process more efficient.
Eventually, you can create fully automated planetary factories with AI assistants, self-driving delivery trucks, miles of conveyor belts, and train networks.
Read more: After 5 years in early access, Satisfactory is finally out—here’s what’s new in 1.0
5.6. Don’t Starve Together
Don
Don’t Starve Together enhances goth survival whimsy with co-op, allowing players to share responsibilities, strategize, and face seasonal challenges together, promoting teamwork and mutual blame.
Players: 1-4
Price: $15/£11 ($7.50 per person, includes two copies!)
Style: Open world survivalcraft
Klei initially hesitated to add co-op to Don’t Starve, fearing it would disrupt the game’s isolation and discovery elements. However, sharing the experience has proven to be even more enjoyable. The mutual blame when a deerclops destroys your camp adds a strategic layer to the game.
The core Don’t Starve experience is tweaked across Together’s modes—Survival, Wilderness, and Endless—to ensure balance. Endless mode is particularly enjoyable, allowing you to relax on Discord with friends while pooling resources to survive the increasingly brutal seasons.
Remember: Happiness is a fridge full of frogs legs.
Read more: Don’t Starve Together — the first five days
5.7. Back 4 Blood
Back 4 Blood – four players stand together with weapons ready to enter a door labeled
Back 4 Blood revitalizes the co-op zombie shooter, integrating modern conventions and a card-based progression system for deeper gameplay, perfect for crews seeking an alternative to Left 4 Dead.
Players: 1-4
Price: $60
Style: Mission-based FPS fest
Back 4 Blood proves that the co-op zombie shooter genre still has life. As a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, Turtle Rock brings the genre into the 2020s with features like aim-down-sights, sprinting, mantling, and a card-based progression system. Amazingly, it works well.
Back 4 Blood is ideal for a group tired of playing Left 4 Dead 2 for the billionth time. However, while it offers depth, it loses some of the simplicity. Mindless zombie shooting is available, but only after navigating the card system and choosing a loadout.
Read more: Best co-op 2021: Back 4 Blood
5.8. Deep Rock Galactic
A screenshot of Deep Rock Galactic showing 4 dwarves in hazmat suits standing in a row.
Deep Rock Galactic combines procedurally generated environments with hectic horde-fighting, resource management, and open-ended exploration, rewarding players with weapon unlocks and diverse dwarf classes.
Players: 1-4
Price: $30 or Game Pass
Style: Hectic horde-fighting FPSing
Deep Rock Galactic combines procedurally generated Left 4 Dead gameplay with resource management and open-ended exploration. Since its Early Access launch in 2018, developer Ghost Ship Games has enhanced it with new weapons, biomes, enemies, mission types, and challenges. Missions now offer weapon unlocks that change the playstyles of the four dwarf classes. The shooting feels great, and the voxel-based destruction never gets old.
Read more: Deep Rock Galactic is a doorway to infinite co-op adventure
5.9. Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Best co-op games – Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – A party of four players stands together with weapons drawn.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 expands on the Left 4 Dead formula with a new faction, robust class leveling, and loot systems, delivering bloody melee carnage and replayable levels.
Players: 1-4
Price: $30
Style: Horde-fighting but with swords
Vermintide 2 confidently expands on the Left 4 Dead formula, adding a new faction of enemies and more robust class leveling and loot systems. Smashing rat men with a giant club feels satisfying, and the game’s five characters offer welcome build variety. Switching characters or classes makes levels easily replayable.
If you loved Left 4 Dead but have played it enough, Vermintide 2 is a great alternative. Despite newer co-op games like Back 4 Blood, Vermintide remains excellent for hours of bloody melee carnage. It has also received substantial post-release support, adding many levels to its already extensive campaign.
Read more: Vermintide 2: Chaos Wastes feels like a Winds of Magic do-over
5.10. Divinity: Original Sin 2
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – a party of three players enters battle together
Divinity: Original Sin 2 enables chaotic and player-driven co-op, allowing friends to influence the story, create unique outcomes, and explore a lush RPG world, complemented by a Game Master mode for custom campaigns.
Players: 1-4
Price: $45/£30
Style: Getting together for weekly D&D
You can play one of the best RPGs ever made with up to three other friends in online co-op. Chaos and player agency reign supreme in such a reactive world, meaning one friend could piss off a guard or reveal their undead identity at an inopportune time—but that’s exactly what makes Divinity 2 so great with friends.
You’re no longer dealing with a loyal party of characters you shape over time. You’re dealing with three other stubborn people, all vying for different outcomes. It’s a beautiful role-playing mess set in one of the most lush, engaging RPG worlds ever. And once you complete the campaign, the Game Master mode lets you create new campaigns from scratch with an extensive D&D-style dungeon master’s toolkit.
Read more: This Divinity: Original Sin 2 total overhaul mod has me itching to play it all over again
5.11. Sea of Thieves
sea of thieves bury booty
Sea of Thieves is a co-op hangout with stunning open-world exploration, enabling players to sail, drink grog, play instruments, and engage in ship-to-ship combat or treasure hunts.
Players: 1-4
Price: $20/£18 or Game Pass
Style: Cackling in the group call
Rare’s swashbuckling sandbox makes for a decent co-op game but it really shines as a co-op hangout. Sea of Thieves is one of the most stunningly beautiful open world games and it can be completely undemanding—board a ship with your friends, pick a direction, and just sail around drinking grog until you barf, playing musical instruments, and firing each other out of cannons. Or just chat for an hour while you cruise around taking in the picturesque sunsets. Nowadays, the game is regularly updated with new quests that are sometimes frustrating but frequently serve up some thrilling Goonies-esque moments of adventure, and will make you feel like a brilliant crew of swashbucklers.
For excitement you can chase down other crews for some bracing ship-to-ship combat, hunt for buried treasure, or take down a skeleton fort, but it’s just as enjoyable to treat it like a chat room with beautiful waves and the occasional Kraken.
Read more: Two Sea of Thieves players became Pirate Legends in a single day without getting sunk
5.12. Overcooked! 2
Overcooked 2 co-op – two players collaborate to construct pizzas in a castle
Overcooked! 2 is chaotic co-op where players must collaborate in increasingly complex kitchens, fostering both teamwork and the potential for hilarious disagreements.
Players: 1-4
Price: $25/£20 or Game Pass
Style: Head chef chaos
Overcooked is chaos incarnate. It’s the type of co-op game where you’re supposed to be helping each other so that you’ll all succeed, but you may never want to speak to the people you play with ever again by the end of it. Overcooked 2 shares the same penchant for destroying relationships, but before you hate each other, you’ll love playing this game together. The sequel adds new maps and new complexity. You can play multiplayer locally or online. Now you can make sushi, and there’s teleportation involved. Just like your standard kitchen, really.
Read more: Overcooked 2 review
6. Best More-Player Co-Op Games
For those with larger groups, these games support even more players, making them perfect for big gatherings and online communities.
6.1. Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley multiplayer – three players harvest pumpkins and other crops together in a small walled garden outside a cabin with a nearby orchard
Stardew Valley offers a relaxing group farming experience, enabling up to 8 players to share a farm, divide chores, and participate in seasonal events within a thriving veggie kingdom.
Players: 1-8
Price: $15/£11 or Game Pass
Style: Chill group farming
Stardew Valley co-op now supports up to 8 players all sharing the same farm. It’s a pleasant place to spend time together, dividing up the endless farm chores and watching your overgrown homestead slowly morph into a thriving veggie kingdom. Multiplayer works pretty seamlessly: you have your own houses, inventories, and relationships with the townsfolk, so your whole crew can mostly do their own thing, then come together for special season events. While you become the master of planting, I’ll be over here catching enough fish to keep us in money during the winter.
Read more: Stardew Valley is so lovely, even its creator spent the pandemic hanging out there
6.2. Valheim
Valheim – a player stands in a grassy field hefting a pickaxe
Valheim simplifies survival games, removing tedious elements and focusing on exploration, crafting, and base-building, enhanced by co-op teamwork for planning adventures and constructing homes.
Players: 1-10
Price: $20/£16 or Game Pass
Style: Open world crafting
Valheim doesn’t reinvent survival games, but it gets rid of all the stuff we don’t like about them. This relaxing, but punishing PvE camping trip to Viking purgatory will never let you starve to death, and you’ll never need to pay a dime to repair your items. All the busywork is gone, replaced by a gorgeous, threatening world, and an elegant crafting system that lets you make everything from ugly lean-tos to the flippin’ Eye of Sauron. Teaming up with friends to plan adventures and build a home together makes the experience even better.
In his Early Access review, Chris sums it up nicely: “Valheim is an utterly engrossing experience that blends thoughtfully-designed survival systems with exciting RPG-like adventures, where each small nugget of progress sets the stage for the next.”
Read more: Valheim is making me love survival games again
6.3. Project Zomboid
Project Zomboid – A player on a city sidewalk is attacked by two zombies.
Project Zomboid delivers strategic apocalypse survival, where players can customize game settings for intense zombie encounters or focus on farming and exploration, enhanced by the tension of surviving with friends.
Players: Varies
Price: $20/£17 (4-pack for $60)
Style: Slow, strategic survival
Apocalypse survival game Project Zomboid has been shambling through early access for years but saw a huge resurgence at the end of 2021 when a major multiplayer update was released. It may not be a looker, but the simulation in Zomboid is deep and surviving with friends is heart-stoppingly tense. Thanks to a lot of custom game settings, you can trun Zomboid into an intense running and gunning game or dial it all the way back to an apocalypse effectively devoid of zombies where you’ll farm, fish, and fuel up your vehicle to haul across the map.
Read more: How to start a dedicated server for Project Zomboid
6.4. Minecraft
Minecraft Realms – various Minecraft characters worship or celebrate a giant Llama
Minecraft fosters creativity and exploration, enabling players to build settlements, explore caverns, and engage in endless activities with friends, supported by options for small-group hosting or large public servers.
Players: Varies
Price: $30 or Game Pass
Style: Open world survivalcraft
Of course Minecraft makes the list. You probably don’t need us to tell you Minecraft is very fun with friends, but on the off chance you’ve never experienced the joy of creating a little settlement or exploring miles-deep caverns with 8-20 of your best buds, it’s still as good a time as any. The Minecraft of today has hundreds of hours of stuff to do (or thousands if you’re a natural builder).
If you want the quick and easy route to multiplayer with friends, Minecraft Bedrock Edition is the one you want. You can host a game with up to four players or rent an official Realms server that supports up to 11 players at once. If you’re aiming bigger and want to explore the endless world of public Minecraft servers, then you’ll want to go with Minecraft Java.
Read more: How to download Minecraft on PC and install the version you need
6.5. Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Halo 3 – A damaged sci-fi jeep dodges plasma rounds from an alien tank
Halo: The Master Chief Collection delivers replayable FPS campaigns, offering wide-open spaces, diverse combat options, and co-op support for easier progression on harder difficulties.
Players: Varies
Price: $40 or Game Pass
Style: Co-op campaign or PvP matchmaking
The Halo series may have the most replayable FPS campaigns ever. Each game has a handful of levels that put you in wide open spaces, free to tackle enemies when and how you choose. Steal a ghost or warthog and careen around the map running over Covenant enemies are they dive out of the way. Seek out a rocket launcher to blow them to smithereens. Hide behind cover and ping down their shields with headshots. Harder difficulties are made easier with a co-op partner, since as long as one of you is alive, there’s a chance to respawn. In the Master Chief Collection, you can even toggle on a scoring mode and modifiers that tweak enemy behavior (or make them explode into confetti). It’s a good time.
Now that every game in the Master Chief Collection has arrived on PC and has crossplay with Xbox, it has become one of the ultimate co-op packages in games. And of course, all of the games are on Game Pass, too.
Read more: I wish 343 would leave Halo: The Master Chief Collection alone
6.6. Grand Theft Auto Online
