My friends and I have been exhausting our current library of games and are looking for suggestions. It tends to be pretty hard for us to all meet at the same time. Usually we prefer to do stuff that we can finish in one session on the weekends because one person might have to leave as another person joins. Don’t mind if its new or old, but id prefer it not to be $60 if its going to be a 2hr stint
Games on our current rotation:
- Civ VI
- Deep rock galactic
- CS:GO
- War thunder
Don’t really play anymore
- Apex
- L4D2
- Payday 2
- Gmod
- Day of infamy
- Insurgency
- Project Zomboid
- Foxhole
- Risk of rain 2
- Don’t starve together
- Verdun
- Killing floor
- Minecraft
- Terraria
Valheim is good even if you can’t be on at the same time. Just slowly build out a world as you would in Minecraft and save the biome raids for when you can get the party together. It’s flexible.
I opened this thread to see if anyone recommended Valheim, because what you said is exactly what my group does. We’re all dads with jobs and we play when we can, but we schedule 2-3 hour video call sessions to fight the bosses.
When it comes to Valheim, you need the help, too. Those bosses can be brutal.
Have to host/rent a server though, unless the host is always on. Love Valheim, but we had a few server issues that forced us to move on
The Valheim server software is super light, especially if you don’t have a ton of players at once. My Valheim server VM is running with 4gb RAM on Ubuntu 22 and doesn’t have a problem with 10 players at once.
Edit: Just looked at my server and it’s using 1.7gb RAM currently with two players online.
You could easily set up the server software on an old desktop or laptop and leave it running 24/7.
Seconding Valheim. There’s nothing quite like starting with a simple objective, getting it derailed by a deathsquito or something and now you and your besties are trying to Oceans 11 the stuff you lost out of a hostile biome that you sailed to from across the map.
They said they don’t really play Minecraft anymore ;p
Slowly adding these to a list; I think I might start with Valheim and work my way down
Try Factorio!! It’s got a demo you can try to get a taste as well. I spent ~20 hours in the demo itself before I bought the game. Looooved it.
Oh man, I forgot to add that to the list
I sunk so many hours just into the train system
I’ve heard Satisfactory now has blueprints and copy/paste as a feature. That was something I could never not have after factorio spoiled me.
Try Helldivers, it’s isometric twin stick shooter, with second game coming this year switching to third person kinda like Risk of Rain 2
Came here looking to suggest this; glad someone already has!
Try Overcooked, cheap and fun, also might get mad at each other
I once did a weekend on the campaign of Borderlands 2 with friends, it was awesome. Also, PlateUp is a nice coop game to play over a WE
I can second PlateUp. Roguelike overcooked!
Tiny Tina’s Dungeons’n’Dragons campaign had us cracking all the way through. It stil stands out as an example of what good DLC can be
100 percent. Borderlands 2 in co-op was amazing back in the day and it is still amazing today. I played it a bit with my wife about two years ago and we had a blast.
Borderlands is great for this. Tons of random missions for pickup sessions and can be played without the group without huge consequences. I like the improvements with BL3, but the earlier games are still great and usually on sale quite cheap.
Ready or Not is fantastic in co-op
It’s a blast but prepare yourself for the learning curve.
Speaking of learning curve, GTFO can be brutal
Golf with Friends is casual and at times frustrating fun. Don’t have to wait for each person to hit the ball before you hit yours either, so the games courses don’t drag on.
This has become a mainstay in game night rotation. Fall Guys and Kart Riders (Mario Kart clone, which is surprisingly good) as well.
Wreckfest is a good demo-derby racing game that is fun as well, but is paid.
I don’t think Barotrauma has been mentioned yet? Survival in a submarine, as far as I know. Haven’t played it, but it reviews well.
Ark and other survival/crafting games like 7days to die and Raft are great fun. Persistent worlds for collective fun.
There’s a new Starship Troopers co-op shopter out with 16 simulataneus players kilming bugs.
And Legion Td2 for a co-op campaign/bots experience.
Barotrauma is so fun. Everytime you think its going fine until it suddenly isn’t. 10/10 would drown with my friends again
I don’t know how much of a good fit it might be but maybe Divinity original sin 2?
Great and fun co-op, but it’s long term investment.
I don’t know if that’s something that can be done in one session, but I have a group of friends that have been playing Divinity: Original Sin 2 every week for a couple months now, and they really enjoy it.
Solasta got a multiplayer update recently as well in the same vein.
My friend and I have fun playing Bro Force. It’s like contra. If you like beat em ups, the ninja turtles game or streets of rage 4 are fun.
100% can recommend BroForce
I just got this game and I’m having a blast, this is the style of game I’ve been hungry for for a long time.
Pulsar is the game that I feel like was so close to being a great game but they gave up on it before it got there. Working together to run the ship is awesome but the world is SOOO empty. Like at least add mod support so folks can help or something. I want to love the game but that always stops me.
I’m too early in the game to know this well, but I feel the lack of mod support. This feels like a game that would really thrive with community support, but they have no plans on supporting mods or open sourcing it. They are currently working on a new project that they haven’t elaborated on yet.
Still, I got this game for $14 and if I can find some people to play with I’m absolutely going to get my money’s worth - this kind of game just doesn’t exist with this level of depth. I love the technical detail of how the ship works on and how the systems interact with each other.
You could try dead by daylight
I can always recommend Guild Wars 2. It is f2p but the base game still has alot of content with some restrictions to not get overrun by bots.
Big detailed world to explore together and do stories which you get every 10 levels. If you pick different races and decicions at character creation, it all converges after lvl 60.
You also unlock all waypoints for every starter zone from the get go, so you can play together immediatly.
It can feel very easy there so you might want to tackle zones above your level, but the game gets harder in the 80 zones, group content and the expansions. Especially in Heart of Thorns, where the whole jungle tries to kill you.
It has no subscription which makes it perfect to play and then take breaks and even if you outlevel your friends you get downscaled and still get loot, so you can help or the other way around.
Starship Troopers: Extermination is PvE wave/extraction shooter, from the company that developed Squad. Looks pretty fun but if you are not into that universe nor have enough friends you’d need to rely on other players as well.( basically max 12 players in 3 teams atm.) Warning: early access so if you are not tolerant to EA type of development/update cycle just avoid.
There is a couple other PvE wave/extraction shooter as well, so give them a try.( Just google that term, usually around $30 and could go on sale.)
Rocket League, this one I played since launch and really good game to start before your group all come online and then move on to other games.(since it supports up to 4v4, but usually people only queue 2v2 or 3v3 matches.)
I think Starship Troopers is 16 max currently, based on a few extractions that showed that number.
Just hit early access so it’s only got the one map with day/night variation, but man I’ve been having fun with it. Good lobbies almost feel like MAG games where squads are working independently on different objectives while still coordinating as a larger group. Always fun to be locked down at ore extraction and hearing the base squad losing their shit because some Tigers show up. Also sending out a squad to exterminate a plasma bug that’s shelling your base from a distance. The game has a lot of potential, just hoping the developers can show up.
Only thing it desperately needs right now (that I haven’t seen mentioned as a planned feature) staged reloads. Gunner class gets slaughtered during long ass reloads that have to start completely over when interrupted.
Either way, solid start to game. Hope it turns out as well as it seems it can.
Thanks for correction, oh yes I agree with the reloads. When I play Bastion during the peak of later waves it feels like my anxiety builds up every time the bullet count down when not in a safe spot. Make me kinda wish that class has the ability of Tribes heavy that can disk/grenade jump away from danger. (so a trade off of stim/health for extraction option.)
Edit: and for the no respawn extraction if I am not near squad for revive or covering fire I am usually toasted. We should have some ground vehicle to transport Bastions.
We had a lot of fun with V Rising. It’s a bit like Diablo I’d say, but with base building and crafting and the level is based entirely on gear, so if someone misses a few sessions you can just craft one extra set of the latest armor you unlocked and they are on your level instantly.
V Rising was such an amazing co-op play through. My friend and I expect to do it again soon since the new content dropped.
I’ll second vrising. It’s a lot of fun. Also if you play on a public server you or your friends can hop on whenever and don’t need someone hosting it. They have PvE and PvP server options.
