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🛋️Couch Co-op Games Anyone Can Join

This is the list for an evening when the people on the sofa do not all play games. Every pick runs on one screen from one copy, none of them needs an online account, and each has a role for someone who has never held a controller.

They are grouped from easy-going to chaotic. Start at the top with a new player, and move down once everyone is laughing at the same mistakes.

Easy-going: for a first-timer

The second player cannot really fail here, so nobody feels like the weak link.

  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022)

    • Switch

    Player two joins as Bandana Waddle Dee and can drop in or out at any moment. Falling off a ledge costs almost nothing, which makes it the kindest 3D platformer to hand to a beginner.

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  • Unravel Two (2018)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    Two yarn characters are tied together, and the thread between them is how you solve each puzzle. Slow, pretty and patient, with a mode that lets one player carry the other.

  • Rayman Legends (2013)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    Up to four players on one screen in one of the best-feeling 2D platformers ever made. The music levels are the ones everyone remembers.

  • It Takes Two (2021)

    • PC
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X|S
    • Switch

    Built for exactly two people, with a new ability for each player in every chapter. Ask for a little more patience from a new player than the others above, and you get the best co-op story here.

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Working together: talk or fail

Each player has a job, and the game only works if you say what you are doing.

  • Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (2015)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    One round spaceship with guns, a shield, a map and a steering wheel, and only as many hands as there are players. Running between stations is the whole game.

  • Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (2015)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    One person sees the bomb, everyone else reads the defusal manual. The best pick for a group that does not play games at all, because the 'controller' is mostly conversation.

  • Unrailed! (2020)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    A train is moving and the track in front of it does not exist yet. Someone chops, someone mines, someone lays rails, and somebody has to stop the engine overheating.

  • Overcooked! 2 (2018)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    Run a kitchen in which the counters move, the floor splits and orders keep arriving. Short levels, three stars to chase, and a lot of shouting.

Chaotic: once everyone has the hang of it

  • Moving Out (2020)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    A removals company where the fastest way to get a sofa to the van is often through the window. Assist options make it friendly for any skill level.

  • Human: Fall Flat (2016)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    Floppy characters, physics puzzles and climbing that never quite goes to plan. Funnier with every extra person.

  • Castle Crashers (2008)

    • Xbox 360
    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    A four-player side-scrolling brawler with levelling and silly humour. Button-mashing works, so new players are useful from the first minute.

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022)

    • PC
    • PS4
    • Xbox One
    • Switch

    An arcade beat-'em-up in the spirit of the 1980s and 1990s Turtles games, for up to six players at once.

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