I’ve been trying to do more co-op Steam games with my son now that he’s of an age where he can handle a full on Xbox One controller and all the buttons without getting too frustrated.
The obvious choice is the many excellent Lego games in co-op, and we’ve finished Lego Movie and Batman 3 and Lego Jurassic park (which was surprisingly novel with the dinosaur mechanics). Even though they are undeniably great, there is a “sameness” that sets in with the Lego games after playing 4-5 of them. So we’re taking a break from those at the moment.
I’m looking for less obvious co-op / split-screen Steam games, with full controller support, appropriate for kids of this age, nothing too overtly violent or adult.
Here are a few we’ve tried and enjoyed:
Ibb and Obb → excellent co-op vertically mirrored platformer, but it gets quite difficult toward the end and we lost interest. This sort of game is almost exactly what I’m looking for though, minus the difficulty spike at the end.
Overcooked → probably better with 3+ players, also a bit too frenetic for my son’s tastes, though I enjoyed it!
Renegade Ops → I love this game but it didn’t appeal to my son as much. Clearly I have raised him poorly.
Virtua Tennis 4 → stupidly hard to get running in current versions of Windows, sadly, but lots of great mini-games
Awesomenauts → not bad, we played some, but full on MOBA is a tough sell
Castle Crashers → We LOVED this. Kinda played through twice, once on Xbox 360 before my son could really play along. This is almost exactly the kind of game we’re looking for. A classic, too.
Foul Play → underrated co-op brawler with the crowd/play mechanic. Very solid.
Battleblock Theater → Started off strong, but too much focus on extra-puzzly-puzzles which we get frustrated with.
Pixeljunk Shooter → pretty excellent, though tends toward overly puzzle-y stuff as you get deeper in
Human Fall Flat → freakin’ hilarious, but gets super hard with the dual-hand dual-stick climb mechanic they add early on. :(
Metal Slug 3 → I think this is too frenetic for where my son is at at the moment. But clearly a classic ;)
Gauntlet (the recent reboot) → we enjoyed this a lot, maybe we should even play it again now that I think about it.
Castlestorm → this has co-op? I should try it.
Sky Force Anniversary → actually I forgot I had this, need to try it as it has co-op
Also, before anyone recommends Terraria or Minecraft… I don’t even like those games. I just wanna have some fun, man, not painstakingly recreate a whole civilization from scratch using 2D building blocks. That’s like… work… and stuff.
Any other recommendations for split screen controller play on Steam, that’s appropriate for kids of age 6-8? What have you enjoyed playing with a young lad or lass of that age on Steam? Feel free to riff on anything that sounds in the ballpark!
Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends are pretty excellent. Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed is excellent too, and a good substitute for Mario Kart 8 if you don’t have a Wii U.
Not feeling the “fall off a cliff” difficulty level of Spelunky – frankly we like our games easy, or at best mildly challenging – but definitely gonna buy Lovers.
Well, my 5 yr old daughter can get to Olmec in Spelunky. Once you grok the systems, it’s a fun challenge, and not too difficult, as long as you don’t have your sight set on winning the game.
My ten year old nephew just finished Portal and Portal 2 single player, and he immediately invited me to a game of Coop Portal 2, and it is an absolute blast. One of the most pleasurable experience I’ve ever had in gaming. We’ve had about 2 hour long sessions so far. Hopefully there’s many more to go.
Might be just a little young. My son and I started playing the one on Xbox together when he was about 10. Lots of guns and weapons, obviously, but not gory.
Hmmm…think there is a bit more language in this one than 2017/2025. Shame you can’t get those on PC.
One of my favorite but most overlooked coop games is Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Great for both novice and experienced games, awesome music, super collaborative gameplay, etc.
Depends on your personal views on violence. I love this series, but haven’t played that entry on PC. You might be able to turn off the spray of fluid when you shoot bugs? But generally, the insects get instant rigor and bounce around the environment a little. It’s very violent from a munitions stand point and shooting tons of insects/robots, but it isn’t gruesome/gory.
I was really conservative with what I let my son play, but we first played this series when he was about 10 like I said. You might be a couple of years off on this one, but you know your child better than I do. If they have expressed wanting to play shooters because their friends do, this might be just the thing. If they have not, might be best not to spark that interest just yet.
I like the Monaco style, but find it confusing to figure out WTF is going on while I’m playing. However, thanks for reminding me about it – I’ll have to try that with my kids.
In my opinion, as Clay and LMN8R have said, Lovers… might be the finest coop experience one can get. The mechanics aren’t too complex; not overly simple either. But we found the game to be hugely challenging, even if failing was sort of fun. At first.
I’d be interested as well by suggestions: when my nephew was a little kid, all the coop games turned out to be too challenging and/or too complex, and we ended up playing versus games mostly - Dead or Alive was a favorite of his. You bet. I am an horrible uncle.
