The PC & Modern Multi-Platform was never a family machine. There are 5 here worth knowing — It Takes Two, The Jackbox Party Pack, Harry Potter Quidditch Champions among them — and if the genre is what you are after, another console is the better answer.
Not a console, and that is the point: no generation boundary, no exclusivity, and a back catalogue that goes back forty years and never stops working.
This is not one of its strengths. Nothing is guaranteed to work, and the couch. Local multiplayer and pick-up-and-play remain the one thing consoles still do better.
Filtering to family means the game has to work for a child and an adult at the same table without either of them being bored. That is a much harder design problem than a difficulty slider.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.
Something you can put in front of anyone. The best family games make the skill gap not matter rather than pretending it is not there.
Edge. Family games rarely go anywhere uncomfortable, and a few of them are too generous to hold an experienced player for long alone.
Saying a console is weak at something is more useful than padding a list. If family is what you actually want, these machines are built for it:
It Takes Two is the usual first answer, and there are 5 in the library we cover.
Not especially. The N64, GameCube, Wii are better answers for this genre.
Age ratings cover content but not difficulty or frustration, which is what actually ruins a family session. Five minutes of unedited play footage tells you more than any rating.
With mixed ages, co-operative usually wins. The competitive ones that work are the ones where being in last place is still entertaining.
From the games this site covers on the PC & Modern Multi-Platform, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.
Or browse the whole PC & Modern Multi-Platform library.