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There are a lot of local and online best Co-op Games on Steam Deck where you can hang out with your friends. Now that you can order a Steam Deck and get it in a few days instead of waiting for months, it’s a good time to ensure the best Steam Deck games get the attention they deserve. That is, if you can get past the slightly awkward wording, because there aren’t really Steam Deck games in the traditional sense.
The company that made it, Valve, is always quick to point out that it’s basically a handheld computer and not its own platform. Some games might not run well enough on it, or they might be too dependent on mouse and keyboard controls to play well, but a big chunk of your Steam library should be playable as soon as it installs. We’ve put together a list of the best Steam Deck games for playing with friends.
Some of these experiences occur in the co-op mode of a competition game or a single-player story game, while others are built from the ground up with cooperation as an important part of the fun. So, let’s look at our favourite co-op Steam games you can download now.
Best Co-op Games on Steam Deck
Streets of Rage 4
Whether you’ve played the series before or not, this is a fun game for everyone. There are a lot of characters to unlock and choose from, as well as a 2-player online co-op, a 4-player offline co-op, and a few different modes to try out after you finish the story.
The art style is beautiful, and there’s no better feeling than figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses and the combo system. The fight is still going on in Wood Oak City. After what happened in Streets of Rage 4, our heroes decided to get ready for more danger. Overall, it is one of the best Co-op Games on Steam Deck that you can download from the Google Play Store.
Moving Out
Moving Out is one of the best co-op games you can play on the Steam Deck, and it’s a lot of fun. The chaos is always there, but the chill approach ensures everyone has a good time and doesn’t start to want to hurt each other. The right amount of levels are there, and the game looks good. It goes well with other co-op games and should be in the collection of anyone who likes the genre.
A Way Out
Without a doubt, A Way Out is the best co-op game you will ever play. It’s a great experience that was built from the ground up to be 100% cooperative, and it creates a unique synergy that even classic cooperative games like Left 4 Dead can’t come close to matching. The truth is that A Way Out not only stands up to the best co-op games on the market, it beats them. It’s best not to know much about this game before you play it so you can be blown away by how it looks.
Don’t Starve Together
Don’t go hungry. Not everyone can play Together. It’s hard and focuses on survival, which are probably things that will turn away casual gamers. On the other hand, gamers who like challenges and games similar to Minecraft or Terraria should consider getting Don’t Starve. This game’s selling points are its complex system for making things, random worlds, and pretty, hand-drawn graphics. If you have a friend to share this pain with, you’re in for quite an adventure.
Borderlands 2
Borderlands 2, the follow-up to the hit first-person shooter game Borderlands from 2009, is designed to be the most fun when played with other people on Steam. The setting and story occur in a far future dystopia where all the dystopias unite to make one mega dystopia. In Borderlands 2, the future is a mix of a Mad Max/Road Warrior-style “survival of the fittest” dystopia and a RoboCop/Blade Runner-style “corporate control gone wild” dystopia.
Payday 2
Payday 2 is a first-person game about robbing banks with a small group. This brings the look and feel of a first-person shooter into the city. The tasks are all about turning off alarms, knocking out guards, avoiding or turning off cameras, and staying away from police and SWAT if things go wrong. Missions are picked from a menu, which is a clever way to do it. In the game Crime.net, you log in to a made-up part of the dark web and choose from different contracts.
Helldivers
Helldivers is a top-down shooter that Sony first released as a co-op multiplayer game for the PlayStation 3 and 4, as well as for the Vita, which is a handheld game system. Now, it’s also one of the best games to play with other people on Steam.
It’s a set of procedurally generated maps where players must work together and try not to kill each other. You’ll have to blast your way through bullets, enemies, turrets, and vehicles on a jumbled map to reach the mission goal of a given level, call for transport, and fly off to risk life and limb all over again.
Far Cry
The Far Cry series is kind of like a collection of short stories. Think about how each episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror takes place in a different setting with a different cast and storyline, but they are all told from the same point of view.
This is Far Cry. But it ties the different stories together so that they are all about a single person in a vast wilderness or plains where survival, scavenging, and being outnumbered and often outgunned is the norm. So the fact that Far Cry 5 has a co-op mode is a real game-changer.
Wavetale
Wavetale works just as well on the Steam Deck as it does on the water. Wavetale is an emotional platformer at its core, but the best part is riding your friend the merperson, who moves like you do, across the rolling ocean. It’s a lot of fun, especially once you learn how to chain together jumps and hook shots to move faster through the flooded world. Wavetale was first released for the doomed Stadia before it found a home on computer. The inputs for the Stadia controller match those for the Deck, so it feels like it was meant to be here all along.
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection
Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection’s PC version didn’t look perfect when it came out, especially when it came to cutscene animation, but it’s still one of the best-looking games you can play on the Steam Deck. That doesn’t mean it runs slowly, though. With some tweaks to the settings, you can get an average of 40fps or more without giving up some of the better graphics options. Like a few other games on this list, Uncharted: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: Lost Legacy were originally made for a PlayStation gamepad, which makes them easy to control with the Deck’s paddish.
Final Words
These are some of the best Co-op Games on Steam Deck. You can play it with friends in any way you want, from couch co-op to online co-op. You can connect gaming consoles to a screen outside the Steam Deck to improve the experience. Most of these games are very cheap to buy on Steam because they are heavily discounted. Steam Deck has become the main way that many players play games.