10 Must-Play Co-Op Games for People With Real-Life Schedules

Orbitals sends Maki and Omura far into space to save their home in a co-op adventure styled after early ’90s anime. About half the game is platforming and puzzles on foot, and the rest happens on their ship, where one player pilots while the other mans the turrets.

Each player wields one tool at a time, and the puzzles make you talk things out…which, for better or for funnier, does make this game double as a test of how well you and your partner communicate under pressure. It’s co-op only, so you never have to decide whether to play solo, and it can be short enough to finish in a single long sitting.

6

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Asteroid Base

Time to beat: 5.5 hours

The shield is down. Someone’s manning the wrong cannon. A kidnapped space bunny needs rescuing. Wait, what? Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime puts you and up to three friends in charge of a neon battleship in a galaxy menaced by the forces of Anti-Love. The ship has eight rooms with different jobs — so get ready for an evening of yelling about who’s on which station with your crew. Each randomly generated level has you rescuing imprisoned animals or surviving waves of increasingly dangerous enemies. Every section gives you a boss battle. This one doesn’t have network support, so save it for local matches with partners, roommates, and siblings home for the holidays.

5

A Way Out

Hazelight Studios/Electronic Arts

Time to beat: 6 hours

A Way Out hands you one half of a prison break, and gives the other half to your partner. You each play one of two convicts in an adventure that unfolds across 37 chapters and five acts — making this one easy to pause whenever you need to take a break. Even better: the Friend’s Pass system lets you invite a friend to play even if they don’t own it. (Both players do need to be on the same type of platform, and console players will need an active PlayStation Plus or Game Pass Core subscription for online functionality, so make a note to check that before game night.) While this can be a six to eight hour experience, the game does feature decisions and alternate routes that may stretch gameplay to about 10 hours, so plan your prison break for a night when nobody has to leave at nine.

4

Cat Quest 2

Image: The Gentlebros

Time to beat: 7.5 hours

Cat Quest 2 pairs a cat and a dog for an open-world adventure. Fancy exploring dangerous caves and ruins? Whacking monsters alongside a partner who covers your back? Chasing down side quests the map has already marked for you? While you can play this solo by swapping between the canine and feline heroes, in local co-op things feel a bit more manageable: You and a friend each control one animal. (The flexibility is nice, though: If your partner has to leave mid-session, you can wrap up a quest yourself.) Quick pro tip to make this a better experience for the both of you: Grab nearby quests before you enter a dungeon, since many dungeons have quests attached. When you’re short on time, you won’t want to have to deal with backtracking.

3

Split Fiction

Image: Hazelight Studios/EA

Time to beat: 13.5 hours

Ever wanted to step right inside a story you’re actively writing? Split Fiction drops two writers into the sci-fi and fantasy worlds of their stories. You and your partner play Mio and Zoe, a sci-fi author and a fantasy author lured to a publisher by a book deal that goes sideways, which gives each of you a turn as the genre expert. The only way out of the simulation they’re trapped in is to work together. Only one of you needs to own the game, since the second player can play the whole game with a free Friend’s Pass. Bring the friend who annotates their paperbacks.

2

It Takes Two

Image: Hazelight Studios/Electronic Arts via Polygon

Time to beat: 13 hours

Cody and May are headed for divorce…but then they wake up as dolls in their own backyard, where a talking relationship book named Dr. Hakim sends them on a quest to fix their marriage. It’s an unconventional take on couple’s therapy. Will it work? It Takes Two turns that setup into a campaign where the couple has to work together. Each chapter hands you new abilities, from throwable nails and a swinging hammer to opposite-polarity magnets and rewinding time, so the mechanics keep shifting under your feet. Each chapter works as its own evening — one week, you’ll be wandering around a garden tree where talking squirrels are at war with wasps; another, you’ll be storming a toy space station guarded by a plush space baboon. Like Split Fiction and A Way Out, you only need one copy: The second player can grab a free Friend’s Pass.

1

Gears of War: E-Day

Image: The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios

Time to beat: 14 hours

If your friend group can protect one night a week, this is the campaign to spend it on. Gears of War: E-Day is the longest campaign The Coalition has built. In it, Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago are on the front lines of a desperate fight for survival as the Locust Horde erupts from underground, fourteen years before the original Gears of War. You can play solo, in two-player split-screen on console, or online with up to four players. Online co-op requires a Game Pass subscription that includes online multiplayer, so check everyone’s account before the first night. If your squad can’t commit to fourteen hours, the game also has a wave-survival mode called Horde Siege that gives your team another option. Block the calendar now, and send the invite before the Locust do.