Be Careful Who You Play These Co-op Games With

What makes co-op games and co-op modes so fun is the human element of chaos. Even if you’re following a set story or working towards a common goal with your friends, depending on their personalities and sense of humor, a game won’t always go the way you expect it to. There are surprises along the way, some of them good, as a friend might figure out a puzzle or help you out of a pinch, and some bad, if they leave you behind to die instead or choose to troll you.

Some games out there are especially prone to being affected by the personalities of the people you play with. These are the games you’ll come back to again and again with different friends, because you’ll never know exactly what kind of experience you’ll have. Maybe you’ll succeed, because your entire group is full of veteran gamers who love to tryhard and get serious? Or maybe you’re just a hilarious group of friends who love to just have a good laugh and don’t care about the end, but rather the journey. Whatever the case might be, these are definitely some co-op games to consider for variety, depending on who’s on your team.

Chained Together

Be A Well-Oiled Machine, Or A Hilarious Failure

The premise of Chained Together is rather simple: you’re all prisoners, tasked with climbing up and escaping the hellish prison you’ve been condemned to. There’s just one crucial catch: all of you are chained together by the waist, and the way up is anything but simple. You’ll need to jump, walk, and climb in perfect sync, because one person missing a jump will be the bane of the rest of the group.

Depending on who you’re playing with, this is either going to be a chaotic experience marred with failure after failure, and some light-hearted blaming and gaslighting between friends, or it’s going to be full focus mode, as a highly competitive group tries to work with each other without any trolling. Either way, it’s going to be rewarding depending on the type of friends you choose to hang with.

A Way Out

Choose Between Leo’s and Vincent’s Approach

A Way Out is a two-player co-op game focused on two convicted gentlemen who must plan their escape and get back at the man who got them in their position in the first place. As you’d expect, both can be difficult personalities to deal with. Leo is hotheaded and believes the end justifies the means, while Vincent is more calculative and calm. At various points in the game, you’ll have to find balance and compromise and choose whose plan you want to go with: loud or cunning.

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Even though simulation games tend to emulate real-life experiences, they can be fun to play, especially the ones with a co-op mode.

The game plays out like a movie, so depending on the choices you make, the levels will play out differently, and according to the kind of partner you’re experiencing it with. Of course, there’s also the end part of the game, which will force both characters to make some pretty difficult choices as details are revealed, but I won’t spoil the details, as the twist hits harder when you experience it firsthand.

Minecraft

Rush To The Dragon Or Become A Casual Farmer

Minecraft is one of those games where you can do anything you want, so there’s always going to be vastly different playstyles depending on who you’re starting a new world with. You might be playing with a hardcore group that decides to rush getting an enchantment table, so they can get access to the best, enchanted gear in the game, and then deal with the Ender Dragon as soon as possible. Some even believe the game only truly starts once the Dragon falls.

Or, on the other end of the spectrum, you might find yourself with friends who only care about building vast cities in the overworld while flying around in Creative mode. Another group might also prefer to explore or start a farm and live out their days creating all sorts of nifty redstone contraptions. So, needless to say, there are a hundred different playstyles, and even between players who are very similar to each other, there can sometimes be massive differences. Personally, I tend to be in the first group, because having an Elytra as soon as possible just opens up exploration, which gives you access to more resources and building bigger structures.

Lethal Company

No Worker Left Behind… Right?

Lethal Company is one of those games where, no matter what, chaos is almost guaranteed in the first few sessions. As you and your friends get used to the different threats, you might evolve into a well-oiled machine that quickly gathers valuables, brings them back, and even uses the walkie-talkies to communicate dangers and remotely open sealed doors. With challenging levels, this is especially rewarding.

On the other end of the spectrum, you might have players sabotaging and trolling each other by baiting in monsters, killing someone with a shovel, or even leaving them behind by initiating takeoff from the ship. It’s games like these that will eventually reveal the true nature of your friendship, so be ready for anything, from tryhard focus to insufferable pranks.

GTFO

Your Teammates Can Be The Bane Of Your Existence

As someone who loves GTFO and thinks it’s a highly underrated game, I could totally see why some people would argue that there’s only one way to play this game, because it’s sort of true. If you want to progress in GTFO and clear all rundowns, you need to be focused and respect the game’s rules. A team needs to be in sync at all times, working together to share resources and ensuring that everyone brings along a tool that complements the general party setup.

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That said, there is still a lot of room for trolling in this game, especially at lower levels. You can close doors on your teammates and trap them in with C-foam, only for them to be chased by a horde of enemies. There’s also friendly fire; a tradition in my particular group was to always kill someone at extraction, which could sometimes lead to horrible failures where no one was alive, even though we cleared the level. This is just to say, despite its serious, hardcore appearances, this game can get hilariously infuriating or very serious and focused, depending on the kind of people you play with.

Stardew Valley

The Farm Must Grow, Together Or Separate

Another game where playstyle matters is Stardew Valley. There are so many paths to creating a farm and making money that starting off in a co-op is going to look wildly different every single time. It could be that players choose to work together and end up making the most developed, well-formed farmland by focusing on the same goal. Or, alternatively, you could also play further into the four-corners type farm where everyone just tends to their own plot of land, and nothing is shared between players.

Some might choose to focus on fish ponds and make a ton of money selling fish eggs, while others just want to have as many animals as possible. There might even be a player who’s hellbent on romancing every bachelor in town, while the rest of you are tirelessly toiling away at the farm. And finally, there’s always that one player who loves to sabotage everyone else and use their bombs to grief. Needless to say, the best way is probably to all work together, as this lets you unlock some of the quality of life features faster, but as always, people’s whims are going to dictate what they do in this game.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Evil Or Good, The Party Decides

The ultimate co-op RPG experience is without a doubt Baldur’s Gate 3, where every character’s class, dialogue choices, and actions will massively affect quests and NPCs. One wrong choice could condemn everyone to a party-wipe, if one of your friends suddenly decides to give attitude to Vlaakith, for example, or angers the whole goblin camp, or gets caught doing something they shouldn’t.

Murder hobo players mixed in with more cunning and slow-paced gamers is always the funniest combination: one moment, you’re in dialogue with someone, and the next, you’re fighting half of the Druid Grove because one of your friends who was busy looting everything accidentally stole something and decided to refuse responsibility. There is so much room for funny shenanigans and straight-up errors in the game that will severely impact the ultimate ending as well, that it’s no wonder a lot of people go for multiple runs of the game with a different group of people, just to see how different it feels.

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Best Free Co-Op Games You Can Play On Steam

Are you and your friend looking for free-to-play co-op fun? Then, try out the following fantastic games on Steam.