Whether you’re looking for something to wind down with after a long day or a game that’ll have your whole group in stitches, co-op games have never been in a better spot than they are right now. At Checkpoint Club, we’ve played through a lot of them during our weekly sessions, so here’s what we’d actually recommend if you’re looking for something new to play with your mates.
Portal 2’s co-op campaign is one of the best ever made. You and a friend play as two robots solving increasingly ridiculous physics puzzles together, and it’s one of those games where communication either makes or breaks you. Half the fun is watching your partner launch themselves into the wrong wall for the fifth time. It Takes Two is another standout – it won Game of the Year for a reason. Every single level introduces a completely new mechanic, so it never gets stale, and it’s built from the ground up as a two-player experience. You can’t even play it solo.
For something with a bit more action, Deep Rock Galactic is hard to beat – it’s a co-op shooter where you play as space dwarves mining through procedurally generated caves, and it’s one of the most welcoming online communities in gaming. If you want chaos, Lethal Company has been a favourite in our group lately. It’s a horror game on paper, but in practice it’s mostly just your friends screaming and running into walls. And if your group leans competitive, Counter-Strike 2 as a five-stack with people you actually know is a completely different experience to solo queuing with randoms.
But if you want something truly relaxed, Stardew Valley is still king. There’s no pressure to rush, no stakes, and you can genuinely just vibe on a farm together for hours. We’ve had sessions where nothing eventful happens at all and it’s still a great time. The common thread with all of these is that they’re better with people you know – and that’s kind of the whole point of Checkpoint Club. If any of these sound like your kind of thing, come check us out on Discord.