Family co-op video games offer a great way to get everyone together for a spot of fun. Whether your crowd contains grandparents or grandkids, there are plenty of co-op games that will be fun for everyone aged 5 to 95 to enjoy.
This is the first part of Spawning Point’s essential list of top family co-op titles. It’s filled with fun multiplayer video games appropriate for kids and adults of all gaming abilities and experience levels. Who knows, you may enjoy playing so much that you choose to make them a permanent part of your games night rotation.
You can read part 2 here: Six More Excellent Family Co-Op Games To Try
1. Overcooked!: All You Can Eat
Brought to us from the legendary studio Team 17, the developers behind such classics as the Worms series and The Escapists games, Overcooked! has taken the gaming world by storm since its initial release in 2016. The game places you and up to three friends (at least they may be friends when you start to play) in a kitchen with the goal of completing as many orders correctly within the time period. You will need to chop, boil, and fry your ingredients as well as assemble the meal and then serve and clean the used plates.
The joy of Overcooked! is managing to work as a team to achieve your orders, one player may take on the head chef role, giving instructions to other players to ensure efficiency in the kitchen. Leave something for too long and you may ruin the food or even set the dish on fire requiring someone to grab a fire extinguisher.
In the later levels with more complicated recipes and level designs that add additional challenges, things may get pretty heated in the kitchen, we’re sure Team 17 takes no responsibility for any broken relationships.
Overcooked! has since spawned a sequel that gives new levels and gameplay to dive into. Both games are available across multiple platforms and make a great choice for your next family co-op games night.
Here are some handy links to pickup Overcooked! All You Can Eat:
- Overcooked! All You Can Eat on XBox
- Overcooked! All You Can Eat on PS5
- Overcooked! All You Can Eat on Nintendo Switch
2. Moving Out
If you can’t stand the heat and need to get out of the kitchen, there are a plethora of games based on Overcooked!’s style for you to enjoy, featuring different jobs and situations.
Moving Out sees you working for a furniture removal company that doesn’t worry too much about how much damage they cause to the furniture or property, just how quickly they can get the job done. A sequel has also been released this year. Moving Out was also published by Team 17.
During the game you and your team will be collecting furniture and other items from a home and getting them into the moving van, pretty easy right? Well yes, but no, most items only require one person to move them but large items require two, like the sofa, refrigerator and beds, some of these will be on different floors or may have to be taken through tricky doorways. Or you can just rip the door off walls and throw everything through the windows, as you don’t get penalised for breaking stuff in the old house you may as well just go the faster most chaotic route possible. Just remember the sage advice of Ross Gellar and ‘PIVOT’.
Here are some handy links to pickup Moving Out:
3. Tools Up!
Tools Up! features home renovations with players needing to plaster and paint walls as well as remove and place carpets or wooden floors.
If you fancy yourself as Handy Andy but are more Tim Tailor then Tools Up! may be the game for you. Swapping the frying pans and chopping boards for paintbrushes and wallpaper paste, you and your team must first find some blueprints within the property then put down new carpet or laminate flooring as well as paint the walls. You may even need to remove the older décor and of course, clean up any mess you may make.
But the fun doesn’t stop there, not only does the game introduce more tasks as you progress, it also changes up the wacky levels as you progress. The first handful of levels will see you in an ordinary home but soon you may find yourself ice skating across rooms or collecting tools from a flowing river in the back garden.
One of the best parts about playing Tools Up! with friends is how easy it can be for things to go wrong. You can easily apply the wrong paint to a wall or put down the wrong coloured carpet and not realise until the rest of the house is completed. Also it is far too easy to accidentally kick over a tin of paint causing a mess, though it is easy enough to clean up it’s also very easy to slip in causing more chaos, and the less said about the ability to pick up other players and throw them the better.
Here are some handy download links:
4. Catastronauts!
Space, the final frontier, a fitting place to talk about our final Overcooked-esqe video game. With it’s Star Trek style uniforms and the organisation known as Space Fleet, Catastronauts! Is a super fun family co-op game that is great for those who love a bit of sci-fi. You and your crew are new recruits to Space Fleet and following a training program you attend your graduation ceremony. But when trainer is kidnapped by an evil alien space ship its up to you and your team to stage get him back.
Where Catastronauts! differentiates itself is with one big change in the gameplay, there is no time limit. You will find yourself in a battle against an alien ship, your ship is being fired upon and any damage will reduce your ships health bar, your goal is to blow the alien ship up before yours is destroyed.
You will need to fire all weapons as well as repair any damage and put out fires in order to keep your ship in tact. Just to make things more challenging, taking damage can also mean that some automatic doors stop working for a time, making it difficult to reach damaged parts of the ship.
Remember in space nobody can hear you scream at your friends to just put the damn fire out.
Here are some handy download links:
- Catastronauts on Xbox
- Catastronauts on PlayStation
- Catastronauts on Steam (for PC)
- Catastronauts on Nintendo Switch
5. Playroom VR – 6 Excellent Minigames in 1
One of Sony’s newest superstars is Astro Bot, with his excellent PSVR platformer title Rescue Mission and the PS5 built-in title Astro’s Playroom he’s easily becoming a household name. But Astro and his friends have been around a little longer than that, The Playroom VR launched in 2016 along with the PSVR headset as a free collection of mini-games to show off the headset’s capability.
Six games are included all of which can be played solo by the headset wearer or other players can also join using the TV screen.
Cat & Mouse sees the VR user as a cat hiding behind a curtain attempting to catch out the mice who are trying to steal cheese.
Monster Escape pits the VR user against robots, positioning you as a kaiju-like monster smashing through a city while chasing down smaller robots. This culminates in an epic battle, with the robots throwing items at the monster in an attempt to defeat it.
Wanted sees the VR player taking on the role of a sheriff looking for criminals in a Western saloon, the other players are shown a wanted poster and have to describe the criminal or point them out so the sheriff can shoot the right robot.
Toy Wars is another co-op game with TV players using robot suits to attack the alien invaders on the ground while the VR player uses a mounted cannon.
Ghost House is how we would imagine a VR Luigi’s Mansion game, the VR player must enter various rooms of a haunted house with a ghost vacuum in hand, and the other players use the TV screen to identify where the ghosts are for the ghost hunter to capture.
Robots Rescue gives the VR player control of Astro himself as he goes to rescue other robots in a platforming level using various gadgets from the DualShock 4 as well. A 2nd player can control another robot in a flying vehicle that can suck up coins and even some boxes to be used as projectiles. Robots Rescue was so well received that it was later expanded into the standalone title Astro Bot Rescue Mission, although unfortunately the co-op mode did not make it to the full game.
Each of these delivers a unique co-op experience, as the VR player will often see things from a different angle allowing for more variety in gameplay if the headset is passed between players.
We really hope to see more of Astro Bot in the future, especially if some more party games could be included.
You can pick up this whole game for free at The Playroom VR
6. Sackboy™: A Big Adventure
Following the successful reinvention of Kratos in 2018, Sony turned its attention to another one of its iconic characters to give them a new spin. With 6 Little Big Planet games under his felt belt, it was time for Sackboy™ to have a big adventure into the realm of 3D platforming.
Many staples from the LBP series have remained including the cardboard cut-out characters and backgrounds, the collectible bubbles and oh so many outfits and pieces of clothing. But this time around the people of Craftworld are enslaved by the villainous Vex who uses them to build the Topsy-Turver machine, Sackboy™ escapes and must travel across 5 worlds of multiple levels to save his friends and their world.
Sackboy™: A Big Adventure can be played mostly solo or with up to 4-player co-op, there are, however, a handful of levels that have to be played multiplayer, as players have to help each other reach otherwise inaccessible areas and work together to defeat their enemies.
Each person plays as their own individual character, but by visiting the in-game shop (run by the hilarious ZomZom), players can purchase unlocked outfits and items to create their own unique style.
The game also features the voice talents of Dawn Jones as the helpful guide Scarlet and the evil Vex is played but the legendary Richard E. Grant, who’s clearly enjoying playing the villain. There is plenty in Craftworld for all to enjoy.
You can purchase Sackboy™: A Big Adventure now on PlayStation 5
7: Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes
Well it’s there in the title isn’t it, what more do you need to know?
Ok, I guess we can explain a little more. Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes sees you and your friends trying to diffuse virtual bombs by completing puzzles on the bomb casing before the timer runs out. But the developers at Steel Crate Games haven’t made it that easy. The idea is that only one player is meant to be able to see the bomb, they may be in VR or just the only one facing the screen, the other players can access an online bomb defusal manual and must tell the player how to complete the puzzles. It’s all about good communication and fast scrolling.
For this game, you will need a minimum of 2 players but there is no maximum, the more you have scrolling through the guide hopefully the quicker you can find the answers and avoid getting blown up. The bombs start out easy with only a handful of puzzles to solve, but later levels have many puzzles to solve all with unique solutions making for a very tense game.
Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes has become incredibly popular since its launch in 2015 and at the time of writing holds a brilliant 10/10 on Steam. As mentioned the game can be played in VR on both PC and PSVR but it is also available in its non-VR form on Xbox, Switch and even on mobile so there’s no excuse to not try this fun yet stressful party game.
Here are some handy download links:
- Download Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes on PlayStation
- Download Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes on Steam
- Download Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes on Nintendo Switch
- Download Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes on XBox
Ensuring Everyone Has A Great Games Night
At the end of the day, the ultimate family games night is fun for everyone. It’s just about choosing a game that’s great for all parties, and testing the waters to see which one everyone enjoys more. Don’t be afraid to test out a game for a bit and then switch to another if it isn’t proving popular – if you have a PlayStation®Plus Premium monthly subscription, for example, you can access the vast majority of these games included within your monthly subscription, and some of them can be streamed, rather than downloaded, saving precious hard drive space.
What are your favourite multiplayer family games? Which console do you think is best for families? Drop us a comment and let us know!