We put together our preferred picks for the best local two-player co-op games available to play across console and PC right now.
Want to know the best games able to be played locally by two people? We've rounded up 10 of the best across a range of different styles and genres.
Some games are best experienced together , sat next to your partner or best mate, trying to work out a specific puzzle solution or perform a certain task. Such instances can seem like a rarity these days due to the severe lack of video games that emphasise – or even fully support – local two-player co-op. However, if you’re willing to look hard enough, there are plenty of modern couch co-op gems that serve as the perfect excuse to jump into a virtual world or have fun with a friend.
If this sounds like a great time to you, we’ve got you covered with our picks for the 10 best two-player games you can play in 2025. From retro-style run-and-gun platformers to modern masterpieces that see you shrunken down to the size of an ant; the following is a list of local multiplayer treats perfect for playing together in the same room.
Split Fiction
Kicking us off is the shiniest, newest example of what a video game can achieve when placing split-screen multiplayer firmly at the forefront. Like previous Hazelight games, Split Fiction can only be played as a co-operative game – either locally using two controllers or online across PC and console. It’s the third and arguably best example yet of game director Josef Fares’ promise to always make co-op the heart of Hazelight Games, this time casting players as two writers trapped within a simulation of each other’s stories that span the worlds of fantasy and sci-fi. Expect the style of gameplay to change up near enough every 10 minutes in this genre-blending 2025 GOTY contender.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure
PlayStation’s beloved Little Big Planet series got an isometric co-operative upgrade in 2020, just in time for the PS5’s launch. It swaps the franchise’s traditional 2D platforming for a much more open and ambitious canvas, allowing two players to roll, hop, swing, and slide their way through a variety of inventive worlds. Some of the best levels require players to move and act to a piece of music, challenging your ability to make your way through a level while balancing a beat. Couple this with some amazing graphics – even five years on – an avalanche of costumes to wear, and specific levels that can only be played with either two or four players, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure is easily an underdog of the local co-op scene.
It Takes Two
Just when you thought Hazelight Studios couldn’t push its preference for split-screen co-op any further, it comes along and delivers one of the most inventive genre takes in It Takes Two. This is a story about two parents who must come together to get back to their child after being shrunken down to miniscule size. What follows is a microscopic adventure that sees Cody and May work together to traverse bedrooms, gardens, and more – all in incredibly creative fashion. It Takes Two has since set the benchmark for what other narrative-driven co-op experiences should try and achieve, easily earning its reputation as one of the best ever.
Overcooked
Very much the go-to co-op game for many players, Overcooked is also the ultimate relationship test for both partners and friends. Your goal is to work your way through a series of increasingly crazy kitchens, completing as many food orders as possible by chopping, cooking, and plating as efficiently as possible. The problem (more often than not) is that the tools you need aren’t always available to your chef, requiring you to communicate with friends clearly so as to achieve the best score. As well as a recipe for co-operative success, Overcooked reinforces just how stressful the act of cooking can be. Just make sure you leave all culinary disputes in the kitchen.
Cuphead
Studio MDHR’s hard-as-nails run-and-gunner is just as challenging as it is beautiful, tasking you and a friend to chip away at all kinds of quirky bosses as both Cuphead and Mugman. It would have been enough for the creative boss fights to see the game through, but layered on top is a hand-drawn art style that looks just as authentic and believable as any legitimate 1930s cartoon. Providing you’ve got the patience and luck to overcome the toughest of boss challenges, Cuphead is a rewarding local co-op experience that is infinitely rewarding and a true visual treat for the eyes.
Rayman Legends
Traditional 2D platformers made on a AAA budget are extremely rare these days, hence why the latest and greatest example is still probably Ubisoft’s utterly excellent Rayman Legends. It’s one of the tightest-feeling, best-looking platformers ever made, mostly leaving the regular Rayman format behind in favour of a side-scroller that properly gives the likes of Super Mario Bros. a run for its money. Whether you’re playing levels backwards, in time with familiar music, or in competition with a dark shadow version of Rayman himself, Rayman Legends is a generous 2D platformer that’s even better to play with a friend.
Portal 2
As a standalone product, Portal 2 is already one of the best stories and puzzle-platformer experiences you can play in a game. However, developer Valve wasn’t content with providing just this, and so doubled down even further by also including a totally separate and wholly unique co-op campaign too. In it, players take on the roles of robots Atlas and P-Body, venturing through the depths of the Aperture Science Facility and completing even more puzzle rooms devilishly constructed by GLaDOS. If you thought the portal-themed puzzles were tricky before, this co-op campaign makes communication essential, truly testing the skills of you and a friend in both slick and stylish fashion.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes
There were several Lego game candidates we could have chosen to put on this list, but in the end we went with the instalment that truly took the series up a level. Lego Marvel Super Heroes felt like a revelation at the time for all the ways it mixed together the worlds of The Avengers, X-Men, and other colourful Marvel heroes, before seeing them come together on the big screen was even a possibility. This is the same style of action-platformer as other Lego games before it, only now you get to enjoy it within a fully explorable, brick-ified version of New York City alongside a friend. It might now be over 10 years old, but this colourful Lego game still has the juice.
Streets of Rage 4
If you’re an older player craving a way to recapture that classic arcade beat-em-up experience or are someone simply wanting a co-op game you and a buddy can beat in a few hours, then Streets of Rage 4 is for you. It’s very much a continuation of the beloved 90s franchise, only now with a new comic style aesthetic, two new characters to play as, and even more ways to beat up a seemingly never-ending supply of street thugs. Streets of Rage 4 is still one of the smoothest looking and playing beat-em-ups to have released in the past few years, made all the better by the ability to play with a friend with drop-in/drop-out local co-op.
A Way Out
A clear homage to the likes of Prison Break and wider gangster cinema, A Way Out casts players as an unlikely duo of inmates who must escape prison and survive on the run. It serves as Hazelight Studios’ first proper foray into the realm of split-screen co-op, only able to played by two players from two unique perspectives. It’s a more grounded story than the studio’s two games that would follow, It Takes Two and Split Fiction, but in several ways is still a masterclass in creating scenarios in which pairs of players have no choice but to work together. It’s a story that could only ever be told and presented this way, delivering one of the most memorable endings ever in a co-op game.
