Valentine’s Day may be typically filled with chocolates and flowers, but using the day as an excuse to spend time playing the best co-op games with your Player 2 is a much better way to experience the holiday.
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From the competitive to the easy-going, there are tons of co-op games to choose from that will appeal to even the most casual of gamers. For the gaming vets who have been searching for a way to get their significant others involved in the pastime, we can think of no better way than with a co-op game sesh justified by the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day, and your time should be spent together. If you’re both gamers, we’ve got a couple of options here that should test both your gaming skills as well as your relationship’s strength.
Check out all of our picks below, curated by WWG’s own team of nerdy hopeless romantics!
Minecraft (Tanner Dedmon)
It would be a crime against games and passion to not include Minecraft on a list of the best co-op games around, so we’ll go ahead and knock this one out first.
Minecraft, since its widespread device on every console and platform imaginable, has opened its blocky doors wide to all kinds of players. With simple beginnings that almost always start with bashing down some trees, players in a relationship will quickly start divvying out roles that involve gathering supplies and fastening those into some modest or extravagant living arrangements.
You and your Player 2 can design the home of your dreams complete with pictures on the walls, a flower garden filled with animals, and a convenient lava-pool-turned-trash-disposal in the corner, all from the comfort of some couch co-op.
Overcooked (Tanner Dedmon)
Quite unlike Minecraft, Overcooked is a game that’ll put any relationship to the test as soon as a co-op partner puts lettuce on the no-lettuce burger you almost finished and ruins the whole meal.
A co-op game that imitates the formula of past cooking games where players must grab the right ingredients to fill orders in a timely matter, the game puts a spin on the idea through different stages that become progressively more challenging the further players proceed into the game. From modest food trucks to outer space, Overcooked will take relationships places that they’ve never been before by forcing players to work together in a kitchen environment. Overcooked is available on most platforms including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam, and four players can even take part to make it a double date.
Snipperclips (Matthew Hayes)
Snipperclips is like the Nintendo Switch equivalent of Sorry! or Phase 10. Mechanically they couldn’t be more different, of course, but I compare them because all three games have the power to bring families (or partners) together, and them rip them apart.
In Snipperclips, you and your loved one will take control of adorable little paper characters who are able to cut into each other to change their shape. You have to work together to overlap and cut your characters into specific shapes in order to solve puzzles or fulfill stage requirements. Things start off with really simple “make this shape” and “transfer this ball” style objectives, but as the stages progress, you’ll find you and your partner shouting at each other and roaring with laughter as you attempt to carry out more demanding tasks.
You will fail so much, and it will always be the other person’s fault. We guarantee you’ll love every minute of it, though.
Fibbage (Matthew Hayes)
Fibbage is a game that absolutely any of you can play, since you can find it for dirt cheap on any console, or on PC. My wife and I have enjoyed many hours playing this game together, just the two of us, but it can also be played with a big group of people — all you need is a copy of the game and some smartphones to use as controllers!
Here’s how it works: Your game will present you with a hilarious or risque bit of trivia, with a major keyword or phrase left blank. On your phone, you’ll fill in that blank with a lie that you think other people might select, thinking it’s the truth. When everyone has typed in their answers, the screen will display five or six possible choices; all of them are lies except one. You want three things to happen: you want to score points by choosing the truth; you want to avoid all of the lies; and you want your partner to choose your lie, which will give you even more points.
It becomes a hilarious mind game. If you know your partner really well, then you very likely know that kinds of answers that they might pick, or the types of lies they might believe. Every single time one of you picks the other person’s lie, laughter, grins, and smug remarks are sure to follow. A couple of glasses of wine and a few games of Fibbage are all you need for a brilliant date night full of jeers and side-splitting laughter.
Portal 2 (Liana Ruppert)
Portal 2 is the perfect co-op experience, especially if you’re new to the relationship. If you and your player 2 can survive not killing each other IRL after playing side by side in the world of physics-breaking chaos, you can survive anything.
The single-player campaign itself is phenomenal, but the 2-player co-op experience in Portal 2 has a unique narrative that stands on its own. With hilarious one-liners, turrets that sound adorable despite trying to annihilate you, and of course a couple of nifty portal guns – you can’t really go wrong with this now-classic Valve title. Just don’t expect a third one any time soon.
Divinity Original Sin 2 (Liana Ruppert)
Divinity Original Sin 2 is a fantastic RPG co-op experience to explore an open-world, interact and build friendships with NPCs in-game, and take to epic adventures with up to four people.
“A flesh-eating Elf, an Imperial Lizard or an Undead, risen from the grave? Discover how the world reacts differently to who – or what – you are,” boasts the game’s studio. Both you and your partner can create individual characters by choosing the desired race and origin story, and then putting your own personal twist to your in-game counterparts. Take to the world of Rivellon and the challenges that await. Afterall, there’s no better way to prove that chilvary than by having your player 2’s back in the heat of battle.
Contra Series (Robert Workman)
One of the earliest examples of co-op gaming still remains the best, especially if you’re looking to save the world alongside your sweetheart. Whether you prefer Contra or Super C on the Nintendo Entertainment System, or Contra III: The Alien Wars on the SNES, you’ll find that each game has something awesome to offer when it comes to working together.
Personally, if I could pick one, it’d have to be Contra III. It’s short and sweet, so you can play a couple of rounds and still have time for dinner and a movie, and it’s exciting from beginning to end. Plus, it has a wide assortment of power-ups, so each of you can get a weapon you truly want. You can’t lose – well, unless you hog the Spread gun right from underneath your girlfriend. In that case, you’re on your own, buddy.
Plus, the Contra games offer a neat little perk. If someone’s down for the count and it’s “game over” for them, you can easily offer up one of your lives to get back in the fight. If that’s not giving your heart to someone, we don’t know what is.
Left 4 Dead 2 (Robert Workman)
Because what better way to say, “I love you” than blowing the heads off of an armada of zombies. Even after all these years, Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 remains a scare-filled, undead-blasting treat, and it’s the ideal multiplayer experience, as you and your partners have to work together in order to stay in one piece, whether it’s saving someone from one of the “special” zombies, or patching someone up when they really need it. (And you’ll be able to tell that they do.)
Though the game is ideal with a four-player group, you can easily start up a two-player session on either PC or Xbox 360/Xbox One (the game is backward compatible), and then set out to fight your way to the next checkpoint. Sure, there are a few challenges along the way, but that just tests your partnership for the better, so you know exactly where you can rely on one another when the going gets tough.
This one’s highly recommended for couples that are into horror-themed stuff (you know who you are), as well as action gamers that want anything but a quiet night in. Left 4 Dead 2 assures that things are going to get noisy – especially if you wake up the Witch.
