The Best Co-Op Games On Steam

Key Takeaways

• Steam offers a wide variety of co-op games, allowing you to play with friends either in the same room or online.
• Some co-op games on Steam, like Cuphead and For The King, provide a challenging and fun experience that is better enjoyed with friends.
• Others, such as Deep Rock Galactic and Payday 2, offer unique gameplay experiences and the opportunity to work together with friends to achieve goals.

The Steam game library is filled with so many games that it would take a very long time to play every single one of them. Being on PC, Steam can be more accessible than the latest consoles, and its games regularly go on sale.

While it boasts a huge catalog of awesome single-player games, and watching friends play games can be fun, the platform’s co-op games shouldn’t be overlooked either. There are a lot of games on Steam that let you and your friends play together, whether you’re in the same room or online.

Updated on Movember 08, 2024 by Sanyam Jain: While there have been many co-op-specific games in 2024, there have also been a few that can be played solo, but they’re a lot more fun with friends. Core Keeper is one of the best examples of this, being a must-try game for every group of friends out there.

25

Chained Together

Hell Is Other People

Teamwork is definitely not optional in Chained Together. You’re chained to another person, and both of you have to harmonize your movements as you platform through literal Hell to escape it. One wrong move or miscommunication will see you both falling to your dooms (or near-dooms, depending on the game mode you choose), so your bond will truly be tested.

Each area has its own obstacles to get through, so you can never get too comfy. You can play with up to three other friends in local multiplayer, so if you’re up for an experience that’s as stressful as it is fun, Chained Together is for you.

24

A Way Out

When A Stranger Is Your Only Hope

A Way Out is a prison escape co-op game that has you and your co-op partner play as Vincent and Leo, new and seasoned inmates respectively. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and though the two of them hardly know each other, they have to work as a team to successfully break out of prison.

Even when you two are doing seemingly completely separate things, you’re aiding in getting the other past obstacles and puzzles. Unlike most other games, this one’s co-op mode is a mandatory feature rather than an optional one. You can play it together with Remote Play on Steam.

23

Core Keeper

Mine Your Days Away

Unlike most games that simply drop you in an open world, Core Keeper is one of the few games that relies on you actively deciding the world you want to explore. You’re initially dropped in a small room with some necessities, and you have to mine your way through everything. While there are some random open rooms, they’re scarce and spread far away from each other.

Featuring a bird-eye view, this game is the perfect blend of open-world, survival, and farming simulator. As you progress further, you can automate the farming of almost every resource in the game, and the process of doing that is quite fun and engaging as well.

22

Lethal Company

Make A Killing Or Be Killed

Lethal Company is one of those games that you could technically play solo, but the real fun comes from getting a group of friends together to amplify the experience tenfold. The game’s title refers to the Company, the place you work for. Your job is to consistently meet its assigned quotas, and it’s particularly strict if you don’t.

At the same time, since part of your job includes exploring unfamiliar moons, you’ll inevitably run into some entities that are less than friendly, to put it lightly. You have a range of tools and weapons to aid and protect you, but having friends around can raise your chances of success at night, whether they act as direct aids or unwitting sacrifices to slow down the creatures chasing you.

21

Once Human

The Perfect Blend Of Everything

Survival crafting is one of the most entertaining genres for co-op games, and Once Human is up there in it. In this game, you play as a Mayfly who ventures through the zombie-infested world. While the main focus is on combat, you also get to explore various facilities and look for hidden chests and puzzles all across the map.

The perfect blend of everything is what makes Once Human special. From spending a long time to defeat one giant boss to spending the entire day building your own house, farming, and taming animals, you can do it all here. It also gets new seasons regularly to keep everything fresh.

20

Content Warning

Where Fame Is Definitely Worth Your Life

On the surface, Content Warning’s art style might make you think it’s a cute, light-hearted game where you go on fun adventures with friends. Once you get into the actual gameplay, though, things change fast. It’s a horror game where you and your friends’ goal is to find and film spooky stuff in the Old World to upload to SpookTube and become famous.

If your content does well, you can buy upgrades to make your filming even better. The only caveat is that you have to actually survive the things you capture on camera first. Content Warning is more about outrunning the horrors rather than brute forcing through them. See which of your group is the best at running away!

19

Ready Or Not

Think Before You Shoot

Taking place in a different version of the city of Los Suenos, Ready or Not has you take on the role of a commander in the LSPD SWAT team. You constantly have to keep your guard up in your goal to take down dangerous criminals, and being a commander means you’re in charge of your team’s tactics.

If you’re looking for something more than a mindless shooter, Ready or Not is that game. You have to think strategically for both yourself and your team to succeed in your missions. If you underestimate the AI, you’ll find yourself dead pretty quickly. Though you can play the game solo with AI companions, the game was practically made for co-op with real people. Grab up to four friends and start shooting.

18

Crab Champions

Crabs And Guns Work Surprisingly Well

If you think you’ve played all the good shooters there are, think again. Playing as crabs is a funny concept, but Crab Champions is more than meme material. It’s a genuinely fun third-person shooter with fast-paced gameplay that has you think on your feet. The types of enemies you encounter and loot you collect change every run, so it doesn’t get predictable anytime soon.

You and up to three other players can play together to obliterate foes and attempt challenges. If you manage to beat those challenges, you unlock the different skins the game has to offer. No need to get out the wallet for anything; you earn everything just for playing the game.

Crab Champions is still in Early Access.

17

Grounded

Bug Bites Just Became A Lot More Lethal

Survival games can start feeling same-y after a while, but Grounded adds a twist to the formula by shrinking your characters down and having them fight for their lives against bugs. The insects are normal-sized to anyone else, but to you, they’re gigantic. Naturally, one of the goals is to find out how and why you’ve been shrunk down. But to get those answers, you need to survive.

You can play with up to three other people, and everyone can fulfill a particular role as you customize your skills and gear. You also have a base you can fortify to protect you from your insect enemies, but sometimes, they’ll come knocking at your door. Stay vigilant and work as a team to fend them off.

If you or a friend has arachnophobia, there’s an Arachnophobia Safe Mode in the options to make spiders look less spider-y.

16

Cuphead

Nostalgia Hits Hard

Cuphead is a platformer that you can play solo, but why do that when you can suffer with a friend instead? It has a co-op mode where your friend can play alongside you as Mugman. The game is known for two things: its wonderfully hand-drawn animation that’s reminiscent of older cartoon art styles, and its difficulty.

Don’t think that having another person playing makes the game easier; if anything, it makes it harder. That’s because the game accounts for it with more enemies and higher HP bars. That, plus the distractions of another character on the screen, might end up with more deaths than in single-player. But even though it’s more difficult, co-op is decidedly more fun in co-op. If you’re up for a challenge, try it with a friend.

15

For The King

Strategy, Roleplay, And Roguelike In One Game

For The King sees you, citizens of a murdered king, braving nature to stop imminent chaos from reaching your kingdom. The game has a little of everything; it’s reminiscent of both strategy and roguelike games, with some RPG elements mixed in. These ingredients make an extraordinary cake of tough but fun turn-based combat, several ways to maneuver battles, and near-endless replay value.

Your party members don’t have to be CPUs. All characters in your party can be replaced with a friend, and whether that helps or hinders you is completely up to your group. Put your heads together to determine what the best course of action is so that your success is guaranteed.

14

Deep Rock Galactic

Dwarves Versus Aliens

For something with a little more sci-fi, Deep Rock Galactic is a great choice. It’s an FPS co-op game that specializes in destroying both aliens and your environment. You and your friends explore — and most likely wreck — dark caves that house marvelous treasures and bloodthirsty enemies.

There are four classes to choose from, so each person contributes something different during your journey, and you won’t be able to predict what comes next with procedurally generated caves. Of course, the weapons you get to use are made for ultimate demolition. But whether you break everything or just your enemies is up to you.

13

BattleBlock Theater

Chaotic Cat Shenanigans

BattleBlock Theater separates itself from most other platformers with its sense of humor. It doesn’t take itself seriously, and that makes you want to keep playing and see where else it can go. In the game, you’ve been captured, and you’re expected to entertain cats who’re watching your every move.

There are 300 friends you have to rescue as you platform and battle your way out of your predicament. There are countless obstacles, enemies, and traps you have to maneuver around or destroy to win. The game also has a co-op mode where a friend can join you locally or online to beat the evil cats together. There are also nine arena modes that you and three friends can play locally if you’re feeling more competitive.

12

Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime

Kill Them With Kindness… Literally

This game was made to play with others. Even if you choose to play alone, an AI companion joins you. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a colorful neon space shooter where you must rescue space bunnies who were kidnapped by Anti-Love agents. A single person can’t control all the mechanisms in the ship, so you and your friends have to rely on each other to do the right thing at the right time with the different tools.

The levels are randomly generated, so they’ll never be predictable. Whether playing this builds camaraderie and trust or ends in arguments is up to you and your friends, but it’ll be a fun time either way. You can play with up to three other friends locally.

11

Portal 2

More Fun With Portal Puzzles

Portal 2 is a classic if you love puzzle games. It once again stars Chell and GLaDOS from the first game, as well as a personality core companion named Wheatley. However, the two-player co-op mode it offers actually has a completely unique story to the single-player mode.

You still have to solve puzzles with your portal guns, but you must put your heads together and collaborate to make it through each challenge. And once you’re done with the campaign, there are a bunch of user-made custom maps that you and your friend can try to beat together. You can play with a friend either locally or online.

10

Sons Of The Forest

Survive The Horrors Together

Sons of the Forest is a sequel to The Forest, and though it’s in Early Access, you can still have plenty of fun with it. It’s an open-world survival game where you’re up against cannibals, mutants, and the forces of nature. It’s even more entertaining when you’re playing with others, and you can do so with up to seven other people online.

Whether you play with friends or let the public join your game, there’s a lot to do together. You can take down enemies, uncover the mysteries of the island, and build things for survival. Or just mess each other’s progress up and kill each other. Either way, it’s a time to remember.

9

Payday 2

Heists Are More Fun With Friends

Committing crimes with your friends in real life isn’t recommended, but you can go wild in Payday 2. It’s a first-person shooter that comes with character customization and a skill tree. Your goal is to make money by doing a variety of heists, from robbing banks and taking hostages to cyber crimes.

You have to work with three other people online to successfully pull off your heists, and whatever skills you invest in will set you apart from them. Even if you choose the same type of heist, the scenarios don’t play out the same, so there’s always something new to experience. Plus, trying to commit crimes with other people will almost surely lead to some chaos.

8

Overcooked Series

How’s Your Performance Under Pressure?

The Overcooked series is all about coordinating with your friends and racing against the clock to get things done. You have to work as a team to prepare different kinds of dishes for hungry customers, and while it may sound simple, the steps become more complex with each stage. Yelling at each other during the chaos is part of the fun!

Up to three friends can join you in Overcooked. The first game only offers couch co-op, but All You Can Eat and Overcooked 2 have options for both local and online co-op play.

7

It Takes Two

Test Your Teamwork

As its title suggests, It Takes Two was made specifically for co-op between you and someone else. The game’s story follows two characters whose relationship is on the verge of collapse, and you and your friend each control one of those characters.

You have to help each other get from place to place with special abilities, and work together to complete the chapters in this challenging platformer. It Takes Two lets you play co-op locally and online — you can download the Friend’s Pass for free so that two people can play online, even if only one of them owns the game.

6

Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes

A High-Pressure Game That Challenges Your Communication Skills

Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes is another game made for multiple players, specifically those who enjoy puzzle-solving and fancy themselves as good communicators. The person who has the bomb is the Defuser, while everyone else is an Expert. These Experts have to instruct the Defuser on how to disarm the bomb. The catch? The Experts can’t actually see the bomb.

Of course, there’s a time limit, so you have to work fast and communicate properly with one another to survive. The game can be played with two to four friends, and you can play it locally or online as long as you have some way of talking with each other.