The Best Co-op Games for 2021 That You Need to Know About

Available on: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC

It Takes Two is the latest from Hazelight Studios, which made a name for itself with exclusively co-op experiences like A Way Out and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The studio’s latest attempt is its best, and that’s saying something. It Takes Two follows a struggling couple as they deal with an impending divorce. The couple’s daughter cries on dolls she made, transforming them into miniature knitted creatures. From there, it’s up to you and a teammate to make your way back to the house and, hopefully, fix your marriage in the process.

The story is touching, and it isn’t afraid to dive into the darker parts of its subject matter. Still, It Takes Two stands out with its gameplay. True to the name, every puzzle and enemy encounter takes two people to beat. Each character has access to a new ability with each level, forcing players to work together to progress the story. It Takes Two is co-op done right, and it shows just how powerful a cooperative experience can be when it’s built for two people.

Available on: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, Stadia

Outriders is an early hit for 2021. It comes from developer People Can Fly, known for its work on Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgement. Outriders brings together several elements from the studio’s previous games, combining a Gears of War cover system with Bulletstorm abilities and a Destiny 2-like loot system. All of these systems combine to create one of the most frantic shooters of recent memory, with the core gameplay looped backed up by RPG elements and exciting loot.

Although you can play through Outriders alone, it’s best with friends. The world tier system in the game allows you to adjust your difficulty, and you can drop into any story point from the home screen. That makes it easy for friends to drop in regardless of their level.

On top of that, Outriders has four unique classes. Each class regains health by performing a different action (the Trickster class, for example, regains health from getting close-range kills). With the class system, each squad member has a role to play in combat, encouraging parties to communicate and work together to win.

Available on: Switch

Monster Hunter Rise finally brings the series back to Nintendo via the Switch, and it’s the best one in the series to date. It’s basically Monster Hunter: World, just in your pocket. Rise brings over the many gameplay improvements seen in World, including a unified map for hunting monsters and the Wirebug tool, which allows you to quickly get around and activate some special attacks in combat.

Although taking down monsters is fun on your own, Monster Hunter Rise is best with a group of hunters. Combining attacks and abilities to deal as much damage as possible is part of the fun. You can team up with up to three other hunters online or through local co-op.

Monster Hunter Rise also introduces the Rampage game mode, which tasks you with defending a village from monsters by attacks, setting up siege weapons, and instructing NPCs. Monster Hunter Rise is a true successor to Monster Hunter: World, and that’s seriously impressive on Switch.

Available on: Android, iOS, PC

Available on: PC

It’s rare to find a game on Steam with an overwhelmingly positive review score, much less a game that’s already been reviewed by nearly 10,000 people (likely more when you’re reading this). Phasmophobia is an early-access game that came out of nowhere. The first release for Kinetic Games, Phasmophobia puts you in the shoes of a ghost hunter. In each investigation, you and up to three others will use cameras, UV flashlights, thermometers, and more to find and track a ghost. Your job isn’t to get rid of the ghost, though. Rather, you’re tasked with gathering evidence to pin down what type of ghost is responsible for the haunt.

Although Phasmophobia is very much a horror game, it’s a ghost-hunting game first and foremost. The majority of each investigation is spent setting up equipment and trying to get a read on where the ghost is at. There are scares, but they’re few and far between, and Phasmophobia earns every frightening moment. It’s like playing an episode of Ghost Adventures, just without Zak Bagans to keep you safe.

Even better, Phasmophobia has a VR mode, and you can team up with your friends regardless if they have a VR headset or not. For a game only a few weeks old, Phasmophobia is surprisingly polished, and it has a good amount of variety, to boot. However, it’s still an early-access game, so there are a few rough edges.

Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS5

Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch

In reality, moving is no fun at all. However, just like in Overcooked, when you turn it into a whacky game that forces you to work together in less-than-ideal situations, it can become a wildly good time. Unlike in Overcooked, Moving Out is way more physics-based, with every item you pick up being able to bump, knock over, and even break other objects. You and up to three other friends are a team of movers with multiple missions in the town of Packmore. They all have the same basic objective: To move all the objects in a house into the moving truck within the time limit. But it’s never that simple in practice.

Large objects require more than one person to lift, like beds, for example, leading to chaotic moments of confusion as one person wants to go one way and you the other. Tossing objects is not only an option — it’s necessary in harder levels, and stuffing it all into the van is yet another wrinkle to the whole thing. Oh, and did we mention there are ghosts to deal with in some levels, too? If you’re looking for a game that just might test the limits of your friendships — or end up being a completely hilarious exercise in coordination — Moving Out is a great little distraction.

Available on: Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X

Available on: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC

343 Studios took over the Halo license (after Bungie split to create the Destiny series on its own) and decided to bundle all the original games together in one package. While it wasn’t quite what fans were hoping for at launch, the team has stuck with the game for the years following, even adding a few more to the collection, and it is now a fantastic way to experience nearly every game in the Halo franchise.

This bundle will let you and a friend tackle Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2 Anniversary, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, and Halo 4 in their best-looking and best-performing forms yet. No matter how you slice it, that’s a ton of co-op fun just going through the campaigns alone. These titles have been lauded as some of the best FPS campaigns ever made, and the extra polish these remasters get, especially in the first and second game, make them feel like brand new games.

Available on: Xbox One, PS4, PC

You can play the majority of Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 by yourself, but the real way to play the game is to invite three of your closest friends and brave the toughest missions together. Enemy scaling means that you’ll face tougher challenges, but with allies by your side to revive you if you go down, you’ll still be ready to brave the apocalypse and save the United States from total collapse.

Alongside the campaign, side missions, and endgame content, The Division 2 brings back the Dark Zone player-versus-player area. Long wolves might encounter trouble, but with someone watching your back as you search for the game’s best loot, you can survive and show other players what you’re made of.

Available on: Xbox One, PS4, PC, Xbox Series X, PS5

When it comes to cooperative open-world games, Borderlands 3 stands among the very best. Gearbox has created its biggest game to date, packed full of goofy characters to meet, objectives to complete, weapons to discover, and multiple planets to explore. It can be played as a solo experience, but longtime Borderlands fans know that things get much more interesting when you bring a friend into the mix. Using your Vault Hunters’ different abilities, you can deliver combinations of attacks to deal massive damage to enemies.

Several cooperative changes have been made compared to previous games in the series, as well. A level-sync system now lets you join a friend to play together, even if you differ widely in level. A loot-instancing option will give everyone in your group their own drops after beating enemies. If you want to team up with another player for couch cooperative gameplay, the game also supports split-screen.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

The game began with a bit of a rough launch, but Blizzard’s Diablo III has grown into a phenomenal action-role-playing game from the king of the genre. Its campaign is short but sweet, packing in a ton of action and several boss battles where you and some friends can tear through mountains of enemies in search of better gear.

With multiple classes to choose from, the Reaper of Souls expansion, and a steady stream of new content being released through “seasons,” Diablo III is a hobby-grade game that gets even better when you bring some friends along for the ride.

Available on: Xbox One, PS4, PC, Xbox Series X, PS5

Available on: Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X

Although the game was light on content at launch, Rare has continued to build Sea of Thieves over the past few years. Even with a now endless list of things to do, our initial take on the game remains the same: Sea of Thieves isn’t about what you’re doing, it’s about the people you’re playing with.

Its loose framework of going out on voyages to dig up treasure, fight skeletons, or transport cargo is just meant to create opportunities for fun and interesting player interactions, both with your own crew and with other pirates you meet out in the world.

It looks a lot like an MMO if you squint, but one that’s radically friendly and accessible in practice, focused on moment-to-moment play and creating stories instead of metagame progression. As such, we can’t think of any other games that are as custom-built for lighthearted, cooperative fun with friends.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

Overcooked 2 is easy to learn but tough to master. Don’t let its cutesy visuals fool you — Overcooked 2 presents more of a challenge than most co-op games. In increasingly complex stages and with increasingly complex orders, your job is to help run a kitchen and get orders out on time. Each round starts simply, with a coordinated team organizing themselves into stations to create an efficient cooking machine. As the orders and problems start to pile up, though, the kitchen quickly devolves into madness, where every correct order feels like a victory.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

While many of these co-op games are focused on fun, fast, lightweight experiences that are relatively easy to drop into with new players, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the opposite end of the spectrum: It’s an epic, fantasy, PC-style RPG with all the bells and whistles, but one that’s built from the ground up to be played cooperatively.

They don’t even have to cooperate! The game allows for party members to be actively working against one another if they so choose. Between that social structure and a deeply systemic, simulation-focused design throughout, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is about as close as digital games have come to capturing pen-and-paper role-playing.

Available on: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Xbox One via backward compatibility

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

First-person shooters almost always offer team-based modes these days, with games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Counter-Strike becoming some of the foundational esports. Those games are built on their symmetry, however, starting players off on equal footing to provide a test of raw skill. Blizzard took cooperative FPS play to a whole new level with Overwatch, a team-based “hero shooter” where every player controls a different character with unique skills.

Overwatch follows from the team-based gameplay of Team Fortress 2, which divides players into specialized character classes, but goes even further by offering heroes that play radically different from one another, making team composition and collaboration crucial to success. Few shooters reward creative teamwork the way Overwatch does since its growing cast of characters and maps synergize and counter one another in a huge and ever-evolving combinatorial metagame. With such a range of characters and playstyles, Overwatch is the perfect co-op shooter for people that aren’t especially into shooters otherwise.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Android, iOS, Switch

It’s a classic Hollywood scenario: A field operative is locked in a battle with time as they try to defuse an elaborate bomb. Meanwhile, a support team frantically digs through manuals remotely to help their colleague get out alive. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is one of the first virtual reality games that really plays with the medium (you can play it without, but the experience lacks tactile suspense). One player, wearing a VR headset, must defuse a procedurally generated bomb, but has no idea how to do so. Everyone else in the game has to solve each of the bomb’s many puzzles, digging through physical manuals to help the defuser.

As you may have sensed, asymmetry is a running theme on this list. Putting players in different roles leads to fun and interesting cooperation, and this is a perfect example of how new technology can inspire wholly new types of play.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X, PS5

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox Series X, PS5

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

In most role-playing games, battles play out fairly predictably. You approach a monster, you exchange blows, and it’s over and done with. In Monster Hunter World, taking down monsters is an art that requires patience, skill, and a few hearty meals.

Not only can you team up with a group of friends to track down stunning beasts, but you’ll also experience some of the most intense and highly rewarding battles in gaming today. With each successful hunt, you grow stronger, and the materials you collect allow you to upgrade your weapons and armor so you can take on even bigger and badder beasties. It’s unforgettable fun playing solo, but it’s amplified when you jump in with some friends.

Available on: Xbox One, PC

Deep Rock Galactic is one of many Left 4 Dead clones. However, instead of sticking with the campaign-focused formula, developer Ghost Ship Games decided to take their first release in a different direction. In Deep Rock Galactic, you play as a space dwarf exploring a network of caves that have become overrun with aliens. The catch is that the caves are procedurally generated, and the environments are completely destructible.

Those random elements breathe a lot of life into Deep Rock Galactic. In a genre where games often fail due to repetitiveness, Deep Rock Galactic gives you something fresh each time you play. You can choose how deep you want to go, too. It’s possible with the fully destructible environments to drill your way through the caves straight to the objective. Alternatively, you can scout around for alternate paths, searching for weapon upgrades and anything else that will help you on your run.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Don’t Starve might be the most charming survival game out there. In a genre where every developer is concerned with realism, Klei Entertainment went in a different direction with Don’t Starve, honing in on the survival elements and ditching the realism for a gothic coat of paint. Don’t Starve Together is the same game, just with online and local co-op. Plus, it’s a stand-alone expansion, so you don’t need the original game to play.

Don’t Starve is a game that pairs survival of the fittest with adventure and exploration. You’ll quickly notice how random everything is every time you restart a new world. The first few worlds you create give you the chance to learn the game rather than focus on surviving. We won’t lie to you, Don’t Starve is a challenging and unforgiving game, but if you remain patient and willing to learn, you can benefit over time.

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC