Favorite 🧙 Co-Op Campaign Games
Gaming is better with a partner, but it can be hard to pick something that everyone is excited about. Luckily, I have just the things.
The 5 games below are "co-op-campaign", meaning a group of dedicated gamers can play together for months at a time.
Each game is scored on my 4-point rating system. Please let me know if you'd like to nominate an addition!
⬅️ Or, head back to All Collections
Gloomhaven
Great adaptation of a complex board game. Missions were cool and varied with only a couple of very frustrating ones. Would have been nice to be able to roll back individual actions, but being able to restart rounds was easy enough. Had a ton of fun playing with friends and exploring the world.
Great adaptation of a complex board game. Missions were cool and varied with only a couple of very frustrating ones. Would have been nice to be able to roll back individual actions, but being able to restart rounds was easy enough. Had a ton of fun playing with friends and exploring the world.
Terraria
Sort of remarkable in its mechanical depth. Seamlessly blends exploration, combat, and base building for a delightful experience. The power curve is great, always giving you something to build towards. There's a lot of opportunity to customize your approach, so there's really something for everyone. It also does a great job using in-game achievements to direct your progression through the bosses; it would be easy to feel lost without that. But, the UX really shows its age. Inventory management in base is a total pain, and crafting is basically impossible without consulting the external wiki. These issues didn't stop me from enjoying it, but I'd easily jump in for another 40 hours if they streamlined everything.
Sort of remarkable in its mechanical depth. Seamlessly blends exploration, combat, and base building for a delightful experience. The power curve is great, always giving you something to build towards. There's a lot of opportunity to customize your approach, so there's really something for everyone. It also does a great job using in-game achievements to direct your progression through the bosses; it would be easy to feel lost without that. But, the UX really shows its age. Inventory management in base is a total pain, and crafting is basically impossible without consulting the external wiki. These issues didn't stop me from enjoying it, but I'd easily jump in for another 40 hours if they streamlined everything.
Across the Obelisk
Best described as "4 player Slay the Spire", there was a lot to like about Across the Obelisk. The 4 character classes and variety of perks and skills mean there's a lot of customization and replayability. Building a deck is always fun and there's a lot of card variety. Multiplayer works well and the tiebreaker mechanic on split votes was a ton of fun. But, for a game we played as much as we did, there wasn't as much variety as I would have liked. The maps always have the same layout (though the events on each node are random) and the end-map bosses are always identical. I would have liked to see more variety in regular enemies, too. The UI is decent but the descriptions on effects was sometimes lacking, making it hard to understand exactly what was going to happen (tough for a card game). Ultimately it was a great choice for my gaming group and I'm glad we played it.
Best described as "4 player Slay the Spire", there was a lot to like about Across the Obelisk. The 4 character classes and variety of perks and skills mean there's a lot of customization and replayability. Building a deck is always fun and there's a lot of card variety. Multiplayer works well and the tiebreaker mechanic on split votes was a ton of fun. But, for a game we played as much as we did, there wasn't as much variety as I would have liked. The maps always have the same layout (though the events on each node are random) and the end-map bosses are always identical. I would have liked to see more variety in regular enemies, too. The UI is decent but the descriptions on effects was sometimes lacking, making it hard to understand exactly what was going to happen (tough for a card game). Ultimately it was a great choice for my gaming group and I'm glad we played it.
Torchlight II
It was fun enough, but I didn't feel like I had a lot of interesting choices to make. There were maybe _too_ many skills and stuff? Also, lots of bum armor. Sort of played by the seat of my pants, so I didn't feel the need to dig in much. Decent enough, but there are better options
It was fun enough, but I didn't feel like I had a lot of interesting choices to make. There were maybe _too_ many skills and stuff? Also, lots of bum armor. Sort of played by the seat of my pants, so I didn't feel the need to dig in much. Decent enough, but there are better options
Wildermyth
I liked the concept and art style a lot, but it didn't land for me. I liked the way that characters aged and changed over time, which felt novel. Building their stories over time also felt good. Combat was mostly good, but each campaign started pretty slowly until you got abilities for your characters. The overworld ate up a lot of time without being especially compelling. The dialogue was inconsistent at best and was noticeably procedurally generated; that made it occasionally charming, but stilted more often than not. End-campaign combat was the highlight and there was decent depth, but it took a while to get there. There are only three classes which I think limits the diversity of the gameplay. It felt like we saw most of the possible archetypes in our time with the game.
Note: I played the whole thing in 4 player multiplayer, had some rough edges. We played a couple campaigns, enough to feel like we had seen most of what the game had to offer.
I liked the concept and art style a lot, but it didn't land for me. I liked the way that characters aged and changed over time, which felt novel. Building their stories over time also felt good. Combat was mostly good, but each campaign started pretty slowly until you got abilities for your characters. The overworld ate up a lot of time without being especially compelling. The dialogue was inconsistent at best and was noticeably procedurally generated; that made it occasionally charming, but stilted more often than not. End-campaign combat was the highlight and there was decent depth, but it took a while to get there. There are only three classes which I think limits the diversity of the gameplay. It felt like we saw most of the possible archetypes in our time with the game.
Note: I played the whole thing in 4 player multiplayer, had some rough edges. We played a couple campaigns, enough to feel like we had seen most of what the game had to offer.