I have very fond memories of the first Halo on the OG Xbox. It was very cool to be able to do the campaign together with a friend.
I will happily take this opportunity to complain
/startrant that the abandonment of couch co-op is the worst thing to ever happen to gaming. There are some great couch co-op games out there, BUT NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. Seriously, the number of goddamn games that expect you to HAVE TWO COMPUTER AND TWO SCREENS SO YOU CAN PLAY CO-OP WITH SOMEONE ELSE IS TOO DAMN HIGH. /endrant
I highly recommend Broforce, any of the Larian studio games (Divinity Original Sin, Baldur’s Gate 3 etc…), Battleblock Theater, Castle Crashers, Cuphead, For The King, Hypercharge Unboxed, It Takes Two, Portal 2, Overcooked, SpiritFarer, Stardew Valley, Untitled Goose Game, Wobbly Life. Wish there were more.
It is the damndest shame that the Halo Master Chief Collection doesn’t have local co-op, still upsets me to this day.
There are some great couch co-op games out there, BUT NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. Seriously, the number of goddamn games that expect you to HAVE TWO COMPUTER AND TWO SCREENS SO YOU CAN PLAY CO-OP WITH SOMEONE ELSE IS TOO DAMN HIGH.
The issue is that not enough people play couch co-op to justify the effort that goes into making it work. It’s a subset of a subset of gamers that play couch co-op even once, let alone on a regular basis.
Along with what others have said:
- Speedrunners
- Just run and do parkour faster than the other players
- Nom Nom Galaxy
- Land on an alien planet and build a soup factory. Collect ingredients and fight against another corporation.
- Crawl
- One player is a hero running through a dungeon, the other players control monsters trying to kill them. Whoever kills the hero then becomes the hero. Whoever kills the boss first wins. Great soundtrack and art.
- Ultimate Chicken Horse
- Design a shared platforming level with traps, so that you’re able to get to the end but the other players can’t.
- Magicka 1 and 2
- Wizard game, create spells by mixing elements and blow up a bunch of goblins.
- Stikbold!
- Dodgeball game, a decent bit of skill involved. Can fight each other or against AI.
- Tooth and Tail
- An RTS game that works well on controllers, you control an army of woodland creatures and have to kill / eat the others. Great soundtrack and art. Can play versus or against AI.
- Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
- Work together to pilot a spaceship and kill monsters and save people.
- All the Lego games
- Wizard of Legend
- Wizard roguelike
- Boomerang Fu
- Fight each other by throwing boomerangs
- Treadnauts
- Fight each other by driving tanks on walls
- Unrailed
- Try to keep a train going by building the tracks as it’s moving.
- the Trine games
- Cooperative adventure / puzzle game.
- Guns, Gore & Cannoli
- Arcadey shoot lots of zombies game.
- Kingdom Two Crowns
- Build a town to protect against the evils outside
- Spelunky
- Roguelike, delve into a cave searching for gold and riches
I actually have a Steam collection for this. It’s mostly games I play when I have a handful of friends over. My favorites in the collection are:
- Boomerang Fu
- Duck Game
- Heave Ho
- Human Fall Flat
- Jackbox Mega Picker
- Keep Talking and and Nobody explodes
- Party Animals
- Pummel Party
- Overcooked 2
- Screen Cheat
Broforce is too much fun with friends.
Hammerwatch is a pretty fun top-down pixel dungeon crawler. There are other Hammerwatch games and it’s also on consoles.
The “Lara Croft and the ________” games are a bit older but are fun puzzler dungeon co-op’s. I really liked Temple of Osiris. I think these are also on consoles, but may be older consoles.
Stick Fight is a silly brawler. Also on consoles.
Party Golf is a fun and varied party game. Also on consoles.
It’s older and I may be misremembering, but I think Hoard is co-op. It’s on Steam still and you play as Dragons in a top-down gold hoarding thing. May be on consoles, but older ones. Pretty sure PS Plus Premium streaming has this under PS3 classics.
Hunted The Demons Forge is NOT local co-op on Steam but it is on PS3 and you can do it via PS Plus Premium streaming without a PS3.
On the rare moments that my friends come to my house we play some couch coop, most of the time is brawlhalla, but sometimes we play other games like hot shot racing, horizon chase, trick towers, etc.
