The 12 Best Co-Op Games Of 2022

These days, video games are often thought of as a solitary activity, something you do to unwind after a long day of interacting with colleagues and customers, paying bills, and running errands. Gaming is certainly a good way to curl up on your own and escape into another world for a couple of hours (or longer, we're not judging you), but it's also a great way to spend some quality time with friends or loved ones.

For every sprawling open-world adventure there is another, more cooperative multiplayer game that will keep you and your gaming companions entertained until the last snack is munched and the last challenge completed. Gaming was always meant to be a communal endeavor. The very first video game, a version of electric tennis called "Tennis for Two," was designed to be just that: a two-player game (via APS News). Later, arcades provided a place for gamers to hang out, make friends, and drop quarters.

The epic quests and solitary wars against an army of foes might make headlines more often, but gaming need not be an entirely solitary endeavor. There is an entire world of cooperative multiplayer titles out there and they keep making more all the time. These are some of our favorites from 2022.

"Elden Ring" dominated the gaming conversation for much of 2022, and for good reason. By all accounts, critics and players have hailed is as a masterpiece and it took home the main prize, Game of the Year, at the 2022 Game Awards (via Game Informer).

It comes to us from game studio FromSoftware, the same folks who previously brought us "Dark Souls," with worldbuilding by none other than George R.R. Martin. While it is generally considered to be a solo experience, cutting a path through the landscape fighting monsters, "Elden Ring" does have a multiplayer component that allows you to call in reinforcements from your family and friends for particularly difficult battles.

Multiplayer in "Elden Ring" is limited, with one player serving as the host while others join the fray as phantom companions. First, they'll each have to gather a Small Golden Effigy, which can be found in the game's first area. The host will also need to locate a token, specifically a Martyr Effigy, which is commonly located around the world. Once you've gathered your friends, they are limited to the area in which you've summoned them. Once you've completed the primary task of that area, your phantom companions are sent home (via Games Radar).

Of course, the game modding community is always looking for a workaround and Forbes reports that user modder LukeYui has crafted a way to play true, unbounded, multiplayer inside "Elden Ring," just like the developers never intended.

"We Were Here Forever" is the fourth installment in the "We Were Here" series, a collection of cooperative first-person puzzle games. Unlike other games which give you the option of solo or multiplayer play, "We Were Here Forever" requires that you sit down with a buddy (or find one online) in order to progress through the story.

While some entries in the series have been a little lackluster, the common wisdom is that "Forever" is one of the best, even taking the Best Co-op slot in our own Best Video Games of 2022 list. The game drops you and a friend inside a haunted castle and forces you to work together to solve each challenge. As you move through the game, you'll leave the castle and travel to an abandoned village and other spooky environments while solving puzzles that can't be mastered alone.

The puzzles are designed to force cooperation, with navigational puzzles requiring one player to guide the other or visual puzzles in which each player has to describe what they're seeing to the other (via IGN). The idea is that you succeed together, or not at all. It harkens back to those earliest video game days when a second player wasn't an exception but the rule.

Kirby has long been a mainstay of the Nintendo lineup, headlining his own games and making appearances in collab games like "Super Smash Bros." Now, with the release of "Kirby and the Forgotten Land," Kirby makes his way to the first truly 3D world he's ever encountered.

When a rift opens up in the sky and sucks away the Waddle Dees, Kirby embarks on a journey to an alternate world in order to save them using his incredible lung capacity and copy ability. Unlike previous Kirby games, which were largely side-scrollers, "Forgotten Land" allows you to navigate segmented worlds at your leisure.

While the game can be played solo, the multiplayer option opens up a new flavor of competitive gameplay. Player two controls not another Kirby-like character, but one of the endangered Waddle Dees. Player 2 doesn't have the same abilities as Kirby, but the bandana-wearing Waddle Dee has its own ways of contributing to the fight.

Multiplayer isn't available at the start of the game but it's relatively easy to unlock. Once you've completed the first level, you'll meet Elfilin and touch a star, then the level ends and co-op play is enabled (via iMore). It's the perfect game to play with a young kid, allowing them to play a supporting role while you lead the charge.

From the very first moments, "The Quarry" is immediately recognizable as a slasher turned video game. You follow a group of teenage camp counselors on their way to a summer camp. You find yourselves in the stereotypical forested horror setting when you encounter dark forces that will absolutely claim your life or the lives of your friends if you're not careful.

Unlike conventional video games, "The Quarry" is a more passive experience, spiritually closer to a movie or choose-your-own-adventure novel. That feeling is helped by the star-studded game cast which includes "Scream" alum, David Arquette. It comes to us from Supermassive Games, a studio known for this sort of narrative game experience, and follows a similar philosophy to its predecessor "Until Dawn," also from Supermassive Games.

When playing solo, you control the actions of the characters and progress the story toward one of 186 possible endings (via Variety). But in multiplayer mode, each player controls the actions of their chosen character, adding a new layer of complexity and conflict to the gameplay. "The Quarry" is the sort of game you can play again and again, trying out different strategies to see what might happen. You can even play it even more passively, setting up conditions like "everybody lives" and letting the story play out on its own.

If you're sitting on the couch with your buddies and looking for something to play together, you can't go wrong with a good old fashion smash 'em up. "MultiVersus" offers just such an opportunity and attempts to answer the age old question of who would win in a fight between ...

"MultiVersus" features characters from a wide slate of popular media franchises. Crafted by Warner Bros. Games, it has access to all of the intellectual property under that umbrella. It's essentially "Super Smash Bros." with characters from Warner Bros. movies, DC Comics, Cartoon Network, and more. If you've ever wanted to know who would win in a fight between Jake the Dog and the Iron Giant, now's your chance to find out.

Available on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, players will move through the game in a series of brutal 2v2 battles, meaning you'll need a partner to get the most out of the experience. The game makers promise an expanding roster of characters, which means the game is never really over, and you can fight with your friends to your hearts' content. Best of all, it's absolutely free, with optional microtransactions (via Screenrant).

Despite having only hit store shelves on November 18, it should come as no surprise that a Pokémon game would make a best-of list. But the franchise isn't really known for its multiplayer capability, at least not in the core games. That's one of the main ways in which this latest installment shakes up the game.

In addition to the core story, which you're likely to primarily play alone, "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Pokémon Violet" introduced the Union Circle, which allows players to warp into a friend's game and exist in a shared world. You can battle together, adventure together, and you can even catch version-exclusive Pokémon you won't be able to find in your own copy (via Polygon).

Unlike many of the games in the series that came before, "Pokémon Scarlet" and "Pokémon Violet" allow you to traverse most of the game together with friends if you want to, which adds an entirely different layer to your quest to become the very best, like no one ever was. Come to think of it, Ash always had a friend or two by his side. Why shouldn't you?