There’s something magical about sharing your first experience in a new game with a friend or two. Thanks to the rapid advancement in online gaming, cross-platform capabilities, and crazy holiday sales, it’s never been easier to jump in and play co-op games with your best buds. This year introduced some monumental single-player games, as well as a few competitive PvP installments – but today, we’re talking about those games you can kick back, jump into Discord, and laugh with your friends while playing. Here are our favorite co-op games of 2022.
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The 6 Best Co-Op Games of 2022
Whether you and your pals were into purging heretics, slaying demigods, or building the bases of your dreams, 2022 had some stellar co-op experiences to enjoy. Here’s our favorite picks:
Warhammer 40K: Darktide
Fatshark’s Vermintide 2 was one of the most impressive co-op shooters released, revitalizing the Left 4 Dead-style horde shooting genre and evolving it in ways many competitors couldn’t quite (and still can’t) replicate. Their newest installment, Darktide, takes Vermintide’s formula and warps it 40,000 years into the dystopian future, replacing sunlit valleys and medieval keeps with dark, gritty corridors and industrial mazes. The pulsating soundtrack and never-ending flow of pestilence and heresy is enough to keep any team of four on their toes, and the amount of content planned for the future is bound to keep Darktide in the spotlight for a long time.
Warhammer 40K: Darktide is available for PC and Xbox Series X|S
V Rising
Though V Rising is primarily a PvE/PvP game, it does have a peaceful mode where player vs player combat is disabled, making it a fantastic co-op experience. It’s also one of my favorite games of the year, so it gets a pass by default. Stunlock Studios has hit a bullseye as far as we’re concerned, creating an incredibly stylish and beautifully polished open-world survival game.. with vampires! You and your bloodsucking crew will scavenge for materials while satiating your hunger on anything with a beating heart, while downing over 30 unique bosses scattered around the game’s world. Each vampire can customize their skills and loadouts, creating their own personal builds to conquer the night.
Grounded
Ever wish you could play an open-world survival game in the tune of ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’? That’s Grounded for you, a charming addition to 2022’s co-op library that throws you and your friends into your backyard – except you’re very, very tiny. Packed with story elements that encourage exploration, base building, and features to unlock that open up new opportunities, it’s the cutest survival game you’ll play all year. Grab your friends and try to survive the dreaded backyard, just make sure you enable ‘arachnophobia mode’ if the creepy crawlies are too much to handle.
Grounded is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S
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Elden Ring
In typical From Software fashion, playing with your friends in Elden Ring isn’t as simple as tossing an invite out through your friends list. And even once you’re joined by your companions, you’ve essentially opened the door to be invaded by hostile players, turning a nice stroll in The Lands Between into a tense PvP duel. Yet, it’s hard to overstate the impact Elden Ring had on the world of gaming, taking home the Game of the Year award from just about every publication you can think of (except us, because we’re trendsetters here at Prima Games). Elden Ring is a no-brainer for this list, though, as joining your buddies allows you to share in almost the entirety of the game, which can be a life-saver after encountering some of the game’s less-forgiving boss battles.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S
Terraria
Sure, it wasn’t released this year, nor even this decade – yet, Terraria remains one of the most relevant and beloved co-op games of all time, as well as one of the highest-rated games in Steam history. For good reason, too, as Re-Logic continues to breathe life into their cult classic with new content updates even though nobody asked or expected them to. Terraria has an undeniable charm and, like most “survival-craft” games, is entirely too addicting to play. If you’ve experienced Terraria since its initial release in 2011, there’s no doubt you’ve gathered your friends together to start a fresh world at least a few times since then. It’s the game that keeps on giving, and it’s a co-op game that you simply can’t miss out on.
Terraria is available for just about every platform you can think of. Seriously.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
Is it cheating to throw an MMO onto this list? Maybe. An MMO expansion that wasn’t even released in 2022?! Probably. But we’re not ones to conform here at Prima, and Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker released so late into 2021 that it might as well be included in this year’s list. Endwalker dominated the world of MMOs in 2022, so much so that it won its second Best Ongoing Game and Best Community Support awards, plus a ton of others, cementing its “critically-acclaimed” status forever. Cooperative activities are endless in Final Fantasy XIV, and span far beyond the normal dungeon grind routine you’d expect from the genre. We could go on forever, but seriously, just do yourself a favor and check out the free trial that includes unlimited play time up to level 60 and the award-winning Heavensward expansion.
Final Fantasy XIV is available for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Related: Prima Games’ GOTY 2022: Truly, These are Games of the Year
2022 was a good year to have friends, and we all have those… right? For more Best of 2022 lists, check out more from us here at Prima Games.
