Best Local Co-Op & Split-Screen Games On Xbox Game Pass

Acquiring

Xbox Game Pass

does not solely entail solo play-time. Fun experiences are just lying in store for duos with access to the console’s greatest

gaming

service. A decent amount of titles available on

Xbox Game Pass

(and EA Play) allow for the pleasure of local co-op. And as any gamer worth their salt knows, playing a game with a buddy using good old-fashioned couch co-op is one of the best joys to be had.

Whether the action occurs on a single screen or double the participation necessitates split-screen, these games ensure entertainment between friends. From sci-fi shooters to goofy physics-based playgrounds, Xbox owners can’t go wrong with these fun, local co-op titles.

Party Animals

While it might take some finagling to get local co-op set up in

Party Animals

, once you do, you are in for some high-flying good times. Similar to

Gang Beasts

, you control a little figure that must kick and bop other little figures off a platform until you’re the last one standing. And just as with

Gang Beasts

, the physics of

Party Animals

is hilarious. Your character flip-flops forward and pummels with such wild abandon, just watching it attempt to make sense of your button mashing is a joy.

And that joy is tripled with a friend by your side. You can work together to be the team that survives as the map closes in around you. The cherry on top is the “group photo” everyone gets to take after a match. You can all crowd around the

camera

and take some of the best, most awkward victory photos ever.

Quake II

As with most sequels (the good ones, anyway),

Quake II

improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way, including in its co-op offerings. The sequel’s campaign missions take you through even wilder arenas, from alien-looking ziggurats to mind-boggling sewer tunnels. The more open spaces, with the ability for you and your co-op partner to attack enemies from different angles, clearly showcase the thought put into

Quake II’s

level design. It’s bigger in scope.

And if you and your friends are more competitive by nature, you can hop into a local multiplayer match and duke it out among yourselves. One of the things that makes

Quake II’s

inclusion on Xbox Game Pass even more special is that it’s not just a simple port. It’s been remastered, with a more polished enemy AI and the inclusion of previously cut content.

Cassette Beasts

Playing

Cassette Beasts

alone is a delight, which is not to be understated because not many

Pokemon

clones reach the same levels of joy and entertainment as their inspiration. But one of the other great things about

Cassette Beasts

is that it comes with a local co-op feature! The game’s main character is accompanied by companion characters, and if one of your buddies is interested in taking on the world of retro monsters alongside you, they can step into the shoes of these companions.

While you might have to get through the first few bits of the game solo, it very shortly deposits a cooperative vehicle for your friend in the form of Kayleigh. At that point, you can have a second player jump in and take control. You can seriously have your cake and eat it too with

Cassette Beasts

; it’s a superb

Pokemon

-like and it’s couch co-op. What more could you want?

Goat Simulator

What’s better than chaotic goat madness? Chaotic goat madness with a friend in tow.

Goat Simulator

allows local couch co-op hilarity as players wreak havoc on a town and city as unhinged goats. Physics madness ensues as players garner arbitrary points for destroying property, leaping into the air, bleating, and other normal goat activities. The lack of structure in Goat Simulator is actually one of the game’s strengths. Two players can easily lose an entire day exploring the environment, uncovering secrets, and unlocking new types of goats.

GoldenEye 007

If you’re raring for a classic split-screen experience,

GoldenEye 007

has suavely stepped its way out of the past and into the present thanks to its inclusion on Xbox Game Pass. Don’t expect a swanky remaster;

GoldenEye

still shows its age. Controls feel floaty, and the graphics are definitely nothing to cry home about. That said,

GoldenEye 007

also shows its timelessness. Despite the clunky gameplay and blocky visuals, playing through this hallmark of gaming history is still a lot of fun, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the split-screen multiplayer component.

Grabbing some buddies and playing against each other couch co-op style is as enjoyable as it always was. In fact, there’s something incredibly appealing about how dated the game is when you have friends by your side to experience it with you. And you should be happy to note that aiming feels (a bit) better than it used to.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

If a dash of nostalgia and a jam-packed evening of beat ‘em up fun is what you want, you can’t go wrong with

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

. The titular Turtles are back, and they’re in top form. Playing as either Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, or April, you and up to four friends can roam the streets with the sole intention of foiling Shredder’s nefarious plans.

One of the great things about

Shredder’s Revenge

is how easily you can devote a single evening to it. It’s not a long experience that you have to dedicate an entire month to. It genuinely brings to mind the arcade cabinets of old and the delight of spending a night playing through each level. The only difference this time is that you can fight your way alongside the Turtles from the comfort of your own home now.

Peggle

Peggle’s

“cooperative” mode relies on passing the controller back and forth, similar as to how co-op play would turn out on an arcade machine. But given how fantastic

Peggle’s

base game is, you shouldn’t mind how staggered this cooperation feels. Though first released in 2007, you do not feel a single day of

Peggle’s

age. Its gameplay loop is still immensely satisfying, and being able to share it with a friend just heightens the experience.

Together, you and a buddy work to eliminate all orange pegs with a limited number of shots. You can play as different characters, and each possesses unique abilities to make your goal that much more attainable. One ability allows you to fire multiple balls in one shot. Another allows you to path out ricochets from peg to peg. It’s straightforward fun you simply can’t beat.

Spacelines From The Far Out

Spacelines from the Far Out

is basically

Overcooked

in space, and if that doesn’t sell you on the premise, we don’t know what will. You and your friends play as stewardesses on these spacelines shuttling passengers from one planet to another. Your job is to make sure that everything is clean, your passengers are comfortable, and you don’t crash on the journey. A traveling health inspector, passenger accidents, and errant asteroids are all trying to stop this from happening.

It’s chaotic at times and perhaps doesn’t convey the exact same polish that you would see in a frenetic

Overcooked 2

level, but it’s still enjoyable, and the humor rampant throughout the whole experience is worth it.

SpiderHeck

SpiderHeck

is the neon-colored, spider brawler that

Super Smash Bros.

fans have been waiting for on Xbox Game Pass. But rather than picking different fighters with varying skill sets, you have laser weapons, both ranged and melee, scattered across the arena. When a round starts, you have to fling your spider to one of these weapons and get started brawling with your compatriots.

Gravity feels like it’s been reduced, so when you jump or web yourself up to a higher platform, there’s an element of uncertainty involving how gracefully you’ll get to where you’re going. You and your friends can hop into a match against each other, or you can all work together in a delightfully chaotic PvE mode against floating robot things.

SpiderHeck

is a blast, and it’s definitely the kind of title you can play with a friend if you want to energize your game time.

As Dusk Falls

If you’ve ever wanted to play a Telltale-esque game with a friend that isn’t some horror title from

The Dark Pictures Anthology

, then look no further than

As Dusk Falls

. While this thrilling narrative adventure doesn’t exactly break boundaries with its mechanics, it’s an undeniably fun experience to play with friends. You and up to seven other players can work your way through the story of a motel hold-up gone terribly wrong.

Votes are taken on which dialogue options to choose and quick-time events are performed jointly, so all players contribute to reaching the outcomes they desire. It can be a tense and hilarious experience at the same time.

As Dusk Falls

is the perfect example of a narrative-driven game that is fantastically suited for being played cooperatively.

Escape Academy

Every cooperative title within the Xbox Game Pass library was made with the intention of allowing players to enjoy the game with a friend. But

Escape Academy

puts them all to shame when it comes to how much of a blast it is to solve puzzles with a buddy on your couch. It brings the joy inherent in going through an escape room right into your own home. No one (well, we assume no one) wants to play an escape room alone.

The delight of finding clues and using logic to find solutions in a group setting is just too much fun, and

Escape Academy

captures this magic in a video game format. Go through the various schools of the academy and their themed puzzles with a partner, solving convoluted, yet intuitive problems as a team.

Escape Academy

is also a highly digestible offering as it only lasts a few hours before you can see it through to completion.

Pac-Man Museum+

Bring some retro vibes to your next couch co-op session by playing

Pac-Man Museum+

. Though not your conventional splitscreen cooperative experience, as the

Pac-Man

titles available in this collection entail passing the controller back and forth, watching your friend fail during their round of these arcade classics is just as entertaining.

Undoubtedly, the controls for these older games have lost some of their luster over the years, especially when translated to a controller instead of a joystick, but that’s part of the fun. From the original

Pac-Man

to more underrated titles like

Pac-Mania

or

Pac-Land

,

Pac-Man Museum+

has quite the anthology of games to revisit over and over again.

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

The goofy nature of

Totally Accurate Battle Simulator

(or

TABS

) is made twice as ridiculous with a friend in tow. Pitting the creatures on your battlefield against those arrayed by your bud on the opposite side is a hilarious experience. Watch as your googly-eyed monstrosities amble, lurch, and fall over themselves as they make sad attempts to fight their opponents. Gape in frustration as ranged units miss enemies that are right in front of them.

Cry out in shock as a single overpowered unit decimates a veritable army of mediocre units. TABS might be called a “totally accurate battle simulator,” but even just loading this game up and watching the main menu screen prepares you for the height of hilarity.

7 Days To Die

It’s tempting to take the easy way out with this one by saying that it’s essentially

Minecraft

for horror aficionados. The problem is that, really, that terse description isn’t at all far off the mark.

7DTD

is in the vein of your typical post-apocalyptic zombie survival sim, replete with survival mechanics to contend with alongside the shambling hordes of the undead. However, there are two core differences that set it apart from the crowd.

The first is the most obvious —

7 Days to Die


features

an incredibly robust building and crafting system wherein the sky’s the limit. The second is that every seven in-game days, a bloodthirsty horde of zombies zeroes in on and assaults your precise location, giving you ample motivation to make full use of said building mechanics to construct a defensible fortress. It’s a great deal of fun when played alongside friends, and while the Xbox port of this PC title suffers from the occasional performance hiccup, the addition of split-screen multiplayer gels incredibly well with this spine-tingling survival horror experience.

Halo Infinite

Is it the conventional co-op experience players fervently wish would have shipped with the campaign? Not precisely, no, but

Halo Infinite

does at least feature splitscreen functionality in the multiplayer suite.

So while you may not be able to smash Grunts into a fine paste with your best pal, there’s something to be said about being able to pile into a Warthog together for an adrenaline-pumping flag run into the opposing team’s base alongside the person you’re sharing the comfort of your couch with. Couch co-op is part of the DNA of the

Halo

series. Without screen-peeking, you wouldn’t be able to call it

Halo

.

Gears 5

The

Gears

series was one of the premier line of games touting the universal appeal of local co-op, so why not try your hand at the latest entry in the series.

Gears 5

is the pinnacle of everything the

Gears of War

franchise has achieved. Its story contains multiple callbacks to the original while still forging ahead and carving out its own chunk of the mythos.

The gunplay has never felt better, and new open-world environments spice up the

Gears

formula. Nothing is as good as playing

Gears 5

with a friend, and it supports both local splitscreen and online co-op. Kait Diaz’s journey is one of the most harrowing yet faced by a

Gears

protagonist, but it’s definitely an enjoyable action title for fans.

Doom

Who could forget id Software’s classic FPS title when looking at the best co-op offerings on Xbox Game Pass? Though the original

Doom

shows its age in every demon-filled hallway, it’s a game that has aged like wine. It’s incredible to roam through those installations with a pal, shooting every monstrosity that dares to show its face around a corner.

The increased difficulty levels can also make it more of a challenge if you feel like you’re breezing through missions. Doomguy’s initial foray into the gaming sphere was iconic, and you and a friend can blast your way through it for one hell of a good time.

It Takes Two

We’ve all been there. Your parents are getting divorced, so they fall into a coma and navigate through a shared fever dream in which they’ve become miniaturized wooden or clay action figures and are forced through a series of fantastical and action-packed adventures at the behest of a sadistic anthropomorphic self-help book. Because that’s how you fix problematic marriages. Everyone knows that.

This is precisely the tale told in the latest and greatest from modern visionary Josef Fares of Hazelight Studios, but really, the wacky plot undersells just how

good

the cooperative gameplay elements are. Hazelight has essentially fabricated a deeply engaging theme park of cooperative goodness in here, and no two stages are even remotely alike save for a common thread of well-executed platforming mechanics.

In a nutshell, each player is introduced to a unique mechanic that’s specific to them in each level, and these mechanics have to work in tandem in order to progress. It takes two. Get it? Good. For example, where Cody’s given a sticky sap launcher, Mae’s given a squirrel-tech flamethrower that ignites said sap in a glorious conflagration to remove obstacles or take down killer wasps. Each new stage is almost an entirely new game unto itself, and it’s an absolute delight to discover its mechanical impetus alongside a good friend.

It Takes Two

is likely the most innovative cooperative adventure to come out in a decade, and it might hold that title well into the next one.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley


is the perfect selection if you’re looking for a more low-key vibe for your co-op session. Things play out largely as one would expect — it’s the same chill, retro-styled farming simulator with a dash of dungeon crawling and a healthy bit of dating sim thrown in for good measure, but coordinating your daily activities with another player (or three) adds a delightful bit of nuance. Co-op players live in additional cabins on the farmstead, can marry one another, and some of the game’s bigger decisions (such as attending a festival) are rendered collaboratively.

Terraria

Many have described

Terraria

as a pixelated, 2D version of

Minecraft

, and while that is a severe generalization, it is an apt comparison when used to describe how much fun

Terraria

can be. Like

Minecraft

,

Terraria

is all about creativity and adventure. Players are dropped into the world and left to their own devices.

One particular edge it holds over

Minecraft

is in terms of progression mechanics —

Terraria

very much feels and plays much closer to an RPG than

Minecraft

does, with somewhat traditional boss encounters and equipment systems that are sure to satisfy your inner role-playing enthusiast.