My friends and I have been exhausting our current library of games and are looking for suggestions. It tends to be pretty hard for us to all meet at the same time. Usually we prefer to do stuff that we can finish in one session on the weekends because one person might have to leave as another person joins. Don’t mind if its new or old, but id prefer it not to be $60 if its going to be a 2hr stint
Games on our current rotation:
- Civ VI
- Deep rock galactic
- CS:GO
- War thunder
Don’t really play anymore
- Apex
- L4D2
- Payday 2
- Gmod
- Day of infamy
- Insurgency
- Project Zomboid
- Foxhole
- Risk of rain 2
- Don’t starve together
- Verdun
- Killing floor
- Minecraft
- Terraria
Valheim is good even if you can’t be on at the same time. Just slowly build out a world as you would in Minecraft and save the biome raids for when you can get the party together. It’s flexible.
Seconding Valheim. There’s nothing quite like starting with a simple objective, getting it derailed by a deathsquito or something and now you and your besties are trying to Oceans 11 the stuff you lost out of a hostile biome that you sailed to from across the map.
Have to host/rent a server though, unless the host is always on. Love Valheim, but we had a few server issues that forced us to move on
Slowly adding these to a list; I think I might start with Valheim and work my way down
I opened this thread to see if anyone recommended Valheim, because what you said is exactly what my group does. We’re all dads with jobs and we play when we can, but we schedule 2-3 hour video call sessions to fight the bosses.
When it comes to Valheim, you need the help, too. Those bosses can be brutal.
Try Factorio!! It’s got a demo you can try to get a taste as well. I spent ~20 hours in the demo itself before I bought the game. Looooved it.
Oh man, I forgot to add that to the list
I sunk so many hours just into the train system
PULSAR is pretty amazing if you have a few friends to play with. It really feels like actually running a spaceship together. You can shout things like “Divert all power to main turrets” and actually mean that.
I just got this game and I’m having a blast, this is the style of game I’ve been hungry for for a long time.
Pulsar is the game that I feel like was so close to being a great game but they gave up on it before it got there. Working together to run the ship is awesome but the world is SOOO empty. Like at least add mod support so folks can help or something. I want to love the game but that always stops me.
I’m too early in the game to know this well, but I feel the lack of mod support. This feels like a game that would really thrive with community support, but they have no plans on supporting mods or open sourcing it. They are currently working on a new project that they haven’t elaborated on yet.
Still, I got this game for $14 and if I can find some people to play with I’m absolutely going to get my money’s worth - this kind of game just doesn’t exist with this level of depth. I love the technical detail of how the ship works on and how the systems interact with each other.
Try Overcooked, cheap and fun, also might get mad at each other
I once did a weekend on the campaign of Borderlands 2 with friends, it was awesome. Also, PlateUp is a nice coop game to play over a WE
I can second PlateUp. Roguelike overcooked!
Tiny Tina’s Dungeons’n’Dragons campaign had us cracking all the way through. It stil stands out as an example of what good DLC can be
Borderlands is great for this. Tons of random missions for pickup sessions and can be played without the group without huge consequences. I like the improvements with BL3, but the earlier games are still great and usually on sale quite cheap.
100 percent. Borderlands 2 in co-op was amazing back in the day and it is still amazing today. I played it a bit with my wife about two years ago and we had a blast.
Overcooked, Overcooked 2, Movin Out, Out of Space, Cod Zombies, PlateUp!
Oh man the Overcooked series is great for multiplayer! Can really cause some heated disagreements at times though lol
Me and my wife have been really enjoying Bread and Fred. Your two oenguins tied together who have to use your momentum to climb a mountain. It’s in the genre of “getting over it” where you can fall at any time and lose all progress. Two player only, it’s more a couple game.
I don’t see overwatch 2 on the list. I think the game gets an unfair amount of hate, it’s one of my favourite games. One of the few games that is competitive but nit Grey army colours. Community is toxic, and it takes a long time to learn though. It can be an exceeding satisfying game, but unfortunately I think it only really gets fun at Plat and higher elos (similar to csgo in that regard)
Stardew valley is a great vibe game that I don’t see listed. One if the best games for casual chat and play imo.
+1 for SD Valley, easy to pick up and play and great on handhelds like SteamDeck.
Active modding community too
Golf with Friends is casual and at times frustrating fun. Don’t have to wait for each person to hit the ball before you hit yours either, so the games courses don’t drag on.
This has become a mainstay in game night rotation. Fall Guys and Kart Riders (Mario Kart clone, which is surprisingly good) as well.
Wreckfest is a good demo-derby racing game that is fun as well, but is paid.
Pummle Party: it’s basically a Mario Party clone for PC.
Check out Phasmophobia.
It’s a ghost investigation game that’s easy to pick up, and has some really awesome scary moments. It’s only about $14 and it’s got an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam.
That game honestly has one of the best communities I’ve ever seen in a game. I’ve rarely met people who were just asshats and even made a few friends playing.
Phasmophobia is especially great with a group of friends who are all going in blind. I have some great gaming memories thanks to the first handful of hours with this game.
I will 2nd Phasmophobia. I have like 500+ hours in game. Makes all the difference with good friends, for sure.
I don’t know how much of a good fit it might be but maybe Divinity original sin 2?
Great and fun co-op, but it’s long term investment.
I don’t know if that’s something that can be done in one session, but I have a group of friends that have been playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 every week for a couple months now, and they really enjoy it.
Solasta got a multiplayer update recently as well in the same vein.
I can always recommend Guild Wars 2. It is f2p but the base game still has alot of content with some restrictions to not get overrun by bots.
Big detailed world to explore together and do stories which you get every 10 levels. If you pick different races and decicions at character creation, it all converges after lvl 60.
You also unlock all waypoints for every starter zone from the get go, so you can play together immediatly.
It can feel very easy there so you might want to tackle zones above your level, but the game gets harder in the 80 zones, group content and the expansions. Especially in Heart of Thorns, where the whole jungle tries to kill you.
It has no subscription which makes it perfect to play and then take breaks and even if you outlevel your friends you get downscaled and still get loot, so you can help or the other way around.
My friend and I have fun playing Bro Force. It’s like contra. If you like beat em ups, the ninja turtles game or streets of rage 4 are fun.
- I’d recommend 9 parchments if you just want to play together. My roommate’s got a play list similar to yours and he’s obsessed with it right now.
- I’m not one for multiplayer, but if you ever do two player my favorite is wizard of legend. I usually play solo. If you play with friends it’s fun though since you can design complimenting loadouts and you get different dungeons.
- Trine is a puzzle platformer that’s fun but can be frustrating if you’ve got a “smash everything” friend with you. It’s 3 player IIRC.
My husband and I have easily gotten hundreds, maybe thousands of hours out of each of the Gears of War games. I would recommend the first three absolutely.
While I find the campaign OK, I love the Horde mode in the games.
