Try Factorio!! It’s got a demo you can try to get a taste as well. I spent ~20 hours in the demo itself before I bought the game. Looooved it.
You gotta play a few rounds of Golf With Your Friends, it's hysterical!
I would also recommend picking up Tabletop Simulator, the amount of board games that game handles through the Steam Workshop is insane.
Starship Troopers: Extermination is PvE wave/extraction shooter, from the company that developed Squad. Looks pretty fun but if you are not into that universe nor have enough friends you'd need to rely on other players as well.( basically max 12 players in 3 teams atm.) Warning: early access so if you are not tolerant to EA type of development/update cycle just avoid.
There is a couple other PvE wave/extraction shooter as well, so give them a try.( Just google that term, usually around $30 and could go on sale.)
Rocket League, this one I played since launch and really good game to start before your group all come online and then move on to other games.(since it supports up to 4v4, but usually people only queue 2v2 or 3v3 matches.)
I think Starship Troopers is 16 max currently, based on a few extractions that showed that number.
Just hit early access so it's only got the one map with day/night variation, but man I've been having fun with it. Good lobbies almost feel like MAG games where squads are working independently on different objectives while still coordinating as a larger group. Always fun to be locked down at ore extraction and hearing the base squad losing their shit because some Tigers show up. Also sending out a squad to exterminate a plasma bug that's shelling your base from a distance. The game has a lot of potential, just hoping the developers can show up.
Only thing it desperately needs right now (that I haven't seen mentioned as a planned feature) staged reloads. Gunner class gets slaughtered during long ass reloads that have to start completely over when interrupted.
Either way, solid start to game. Hope it turns out as well as it seems it can.
Thanks for correction, oh yes I agree with the reloads. When I play Bastion during the peak of later waves it feels like my anxiety builds up every time the bullet count down when not in a safe spot. Make me kinda wish that class has the ability of Tribes heavy that can disk/grenade jump away from danger. (so a trade off of stim/health for extraction option.)
Edit: and for the no respawn extraction if I am not near squad for revive or covering fire I am usually toasted. We should have some ground vehicle to transport Bastions.
Barotrauma! I even set up a lemmy community for it.
Me and my wife have been really enjoying Bread and Fred. Your two oenguins tied together who have to use your momentum to climb a mountain. It's in the genre of "getting over it" where you can fall at any time and lose all progress. Two player only, it's more a couple game.
I dint see overwatch 2 on the list. I think the game gets an unfair amount of hate, it's one of my favourite games. One of the few games that is competitive but nit Grey army colours. Community is toxic, and it takes a long time to learn though. It can be an exceeding satisfying game, but unfortunately I think it only really gets fun at Plat and higher elos (similar to csgo in that regard)
Stardew valley is a great vibe game that I don't see listed. One if the best games for casual chat and play imo.
+1 for SD Valley, easy to pick up and play and great on handhelds like SteamDeck.
Active modding community too
Unrailed is a good one https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016920/Unrailed/
This is an odd one, but Powerwash Simulator has been an blast for me and my wife. We used to play a lot of Overwatch, but didn't like the new direction with 2. It somehow manages to scratch some of the shooter itch while being really chill.
If you enjoyed risk of rain 2 I would recommend the binding of Isaac which is another roguelike
Outlast Trials is the big coop fun surprise of the year for me. You can also still buy it 25% off on epic for like 20€ until today.
People should not ignore this game cause it is from the outlast series. This game has way less jumpscares and its more about the tension of being chased all the time. Also way less scary in coop than in solo. It's more like Deadbydaylight meets L4D2 mobs. Level and Character Design reminds me off Bioshock. The coop fun is comparable to Phasmophobia
If you like horror Outlast Trials is pretty good. It's a little short on content (there are 9 unique missions) but the experience is well worth the money, I'm hoping they add new content soon.
It's pretty fucked up in places but an excellent game.
Valheim is good even if you can't be on at the same time. Just slowly build out a world as you would in Minecraft and save the biome raids for when you can get the party together. It's flexible.
Vermintide and Vermintide 2 are great games in my opinion that expand and innovate on the L4D2 formula, being similar but still very distinct.
Squad! super fun game to play with friends. It's an FPS that isn't as hard to learn as Arma and more milsim than an arcade shooter like battlefield.
My husband and I have easily gotten hundreds, maybe thousands of hours out of each of the Gears of War games. I would recommend the first three absolutely.
While I find the campaign OK, I love the Horde mode in the games.
World War Z Aftermath is a great multiplayer game and also cross-platform!
Insurgency Sandstorm is my go to. 8 player co-op vs ai bots, but with a degree of realism. A well placed headshot will drop an enemy instantly but the same can happen to you.
I feel like there are too many to list, but an obvious one that I don't see mentioned is Halo. The Master Chief Collection is pretty great, and has a ton of content that can all be consumed in short sessions (except for certain levels on legendary difficulty).
It is also still on sale on Steam for a little longer, if you don't have it already.
Golf with Friends is casual and at times frustrating fun. Don't have to wait for each person to hit the ball before you hit yours either, so the games courses don't drag on.
This has become a mainstay in game night rotation. Fall Guys and Kart Riders (Mario Kart clone, which is surprisingly good) as well.
Wreckfest is a good demo-derby racing game that is fun as well, but is paid.
I've had a lot of fun playing Grounded. Both with friends and solo. Someone needs to host the session but it is a shared save file that keeps up to date very well. So, any individual can play at any time or up to 4 can play online together.
Saving this post because it's right up my alley so now I have many new games to check out. Project Zomboid is still going strong for us, but here are some others that our group has enjoyed:
Heave Ho: super crude 2D graphics, but absolutely hilarious gameplay
The Ascent: beautiful cyberpunk-themed isometric shooter
Broforce: very entertaining pixel-art 2D platformer/shooter - we played this through to the end, which is rare for us
Overcooked: very entertaining 3D game, not sure what I would even call the genre - a "work" game?
Unrailed: similar to uncooked, but a different kind of "work"
SWAT 4: old 3D FPS, but still good
I would recommend Vermintide, its like left 4 dead but you're bashing rats
On that note I'd recommend Darktide. Why? I dunno, I just like it better than Vermintide.
Have they fixed all the issues with Darktide? It was really rough on launch.
I am far too casual to care to keep a running list of issues and their status. What I can say is:
Really? I love the setting of darktide but couldn't commit to it like Vermintide. Has there been a fair amount of improvements since launch (I haven't looked)?
You could try dead by daylight
Overcooked, Overcooked 2, Movin Out, Out of Space, Cod Zombies, PlateUp!
Oh man the Overcooked series is great for multiplayer! Can really cause some heated disagreements at times though lol
I would like to add Sanctum 2 as a fun game. Also
Try Helldivers, it's isometric twin stick shooter, with second game coming this year switching to third person kinda like Risk of Rain 2
PULSAR is pretty amazing if you have a few friends to play with. It really feels like actually running a spaceship together. You can shout things like "Divert all power to main turrets" and actually mean that.
I just got this game and I'm having a blast, this is the style of game I've been hungry for for a long time.
Pulsar is the game that I feel like was so close to being a great game but they gave up on it before it got there. Working together to run the ship is awesome but the world is SOOO empty. Like at least add mod support so folks can help or something. I want to love the game but that always stops me.
I'm too early in the game to know this well, but I feel the lack of mod support. This feels like a game that would really thrive with community support, but they have no plans on supporting mods or open sourcing it. They are currently working on a new project that they haven't elaborated on yet.
Still, I got this game for $14 and if I can find some people to play with I'm absolutely going to get my money's worth - this kind of game just doesn't exist with this level of depth. I love the technical detail of how the ship works on and how the systems interact with each other.
I don't know how much of a good fit it might be but maybe Divinity original sin 2?
Solasta got a multiplayer update recently as well in the same vein.
We had a lot of fun with V Rising. It's a bit like Diablo I'd say, but with base building and crafting and the level is based entirely on gear, so if someone misses a few sessions you can just craft one extra set of the latest armor you unlocked and they are on your level instantly.
V Rising was such an amazing co-op play through. My friend and I expect to do it again soon since the new content dropped.
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