Games Jobs Direct / Multiplayer / Features
A selection of games that are at their best when played with friends.
Key takeaway: The best multiplayer games aren't necessarily the biggest or most complicated. They're the ones that create memorable moments, shared stories and plenty of opportunities for things to go wonderfully wrong.
Playing alone has its advantages. Nobody steals your loot, wanders off halfway through the objective, or insists their terrible plan is definitely going to work this time.
But would we really want it any other way?
Some of gaming's best moments come from having other people along for the ride, particularly when a game gives you enough freedom for things to go spectacularly wrong.
We've picked 10 games that are fantastic in their own right, but become even better when you bring some friends along.
Minecraft turns a shared world into a sandbox for groups of friends.
There aren't many games better suited to simply hanging out with friends.
Minecraft can become whatever your group wants it to be. Build an enormous shared base, explore caves, fight the Ender Dragon or spend several hours arguing about where the storage room should go.
The real magic is that everyone eventually finds their own role. One person builds. Someone explores. Another gathers resources.
And somebody inevitably fills the house with chickens.
Lethal Company makes every expedition more entertaining when friends are involved.
Lethal Company understands one of the golden rules of multiplayer gaming: panic is much funnier when it's happening to somebody else.
Your group explores abandoned moons collecting scrap, but the creatures inhabiting them make even seemingly straightforward expeditions unpredictable.
Proximity voice chat makes everything considerably better. Hearing your friend's screams suddenly disappear into the distance tells you everything you need to know.
There's horror here, but there's usually just as much laughter.
Baldur's Gate 3 turns major decisions into shared multiplayer moments.
One of the best RPGs in recent memory also happens to be an incredible multiplayer experience.
Playing Baldur's Gate 3 together introduces something a solo campaign can't quite replicate: another human being capable of completely ruining your carefully considered plans.
Conversations can go in unexpected directions, combat encourages coordination and major decisions become group debates.
The result feels remarkably close to sitting around a table playing Dungeons & Dragons – including the inevitable arguments.
R.E.P.O. turns co-op horror into chaotic team-based fun.
Another co-op horror hit built around the simple idea that everything becomes funnier when your friends are terrified.
In R.E.P.O., teams retrieve valuable objects from dangerous environments while trying not to attract the attention of the creatures lurking nearby.
Its physics systems turn even basic tasks into opportunities for disaster.
You could carefully work together and execute the perfect plan.
You probably won't.
Stardew Valley offers a much more relaxed kind of multiplayer experience.
Not every multiplayer game needs explosions, monsters and screaming.
Sometimes you just want to start a farm.
Stardew Valley becomes an incredibly relaxing social experience in multiplayer, letting friends divide responsibilities while building their little agricultural empire together.
One person can handle crops while somebody fishes, explores the mines or looks after animals.
Or everyone can completely ignore the farm and head into town.
We're not judging.
PEAK makes cooperation essential as players attempt to survive the climb.
If climbing a mountain sounds difficult, try doing it while depending on your friends.
PEAK turns a straightforward climbing expedition into chaotic co-op survival as players work together to overcome an increasingly dangerous mountain.
The mechanics encourage genuine cooperation, but it's the unpredictable situations created along the way that make it memorable.
Reaching the summit feels great.
Watching your friend tumble back down the mountain is sometimes even better.
Helldivers 2 makes coordination vital while friendly fire keeps everyone on their toes.
Few games make teamwork feel simultaneously this important and this dangerous.
Helldivers 2 sends squads into enormous battles against Terminids, Automatons and other threats, with players coordinating weapons, objectives and devastating Stratagems.
The catch?
Friendly fire is always active.
Your greatest threat might therefore be the enormous alien charging towards you.
Or it might be Dave accidentally dropping an orbital strike directly onto your position.
Big Walk is built around exploration, communication and chaotic co-op moments.
One of 2026's biggest new co-op successes is essentially about doing exactly what its name suggests: going for a walk with your friends.
House House's Big Walk lets groups explore an open environment, communicate through proximity chat and solve challenges together.
There are no armies to defeat or world-ending threats to stop.
It's about exploration, communication and the strange situations that emerge when a group of friends is given somewhere interesting to wander around.
Sometimes that's all a multiplayer game needs.
Split Fiction is designed from the ground up around two-player cooperation.
Hazelight has become incredibly good at designing games around cooperation, and Split Fiction might be its most ambitious example yet.
Built specifically for two players, the adventure constantly introduces new mechanics, environments and challenges that require both players to participate.
Neither person is simply along for the ride.
It's also an excellent example of why dedicated co-op design can be so effective. Instead of multiplayer being an optional extra, cooperation is fundamental to everything the game does.
Mario Kart World brings the competitive chaos that makes multiplayer nights memorable.
Sometimes you don't want cooperation.
You want revenge.
Few games can transform a friendly evening into accusations of sabotage quite as effectively as Mario Kart, and Mario Kart World continues that tradition.
It's immediately accessible, competitive without requiring hundreds of hours of practice, and unpredictable enough that everyone feels like they have a chance.
You can race together, explore together and enjoy yourselves.
Right up until somebody launches a Blue Shell.
Then the friendship is temporarily suspended.
The best multiplayer games aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest maps, longest progression systems or most complicated mechanics.
They're the ones that give you stories afterwards.
The impossible Helldivers 2 extraction. The disastrous PEAK expedition. The terrible decision somebody made in Baldur's Gate 3. The Minecraft world you've somehow been maintaining for years.
Sometimes your friends help you win.
Sometimes they're the reason everything goes wrong.
Either way, they usually make the game more memorable.
Keep Calm and waka waka...
