I’m looking for RPGs to play with friends where each player has different roles and you need to cooperate to progress.
We tried playing MMOs but my friends won’t play on their own so they don’t work (especially with ffxiv as the msq is not at all “coopable”); the subscription would also be a dealbreaker. Do you know of anything with similar gameplay that is playable entirely in coop?
We enjoyed Monster Hunter World (but not Rise), although there’s not much actual cooperation as there are few interactions in combat.
The only game I found that seems it might be what I’m looking for is the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, but we can’t get it to work online (dolphin randomly freezes with netplay).
Baldur’s Gate 3. The default party size is 4. In single player it’s filled with NPCs. Might be a long commitment, but it’s a bloody good game. If you are more than 4 you can increase the party size with mods that can be installed from within the game. You could increase the difficulty to compensate.
Incidentally the first two games can be played in multiplayer as well, with up to 6 people. But although they are awesome as well they might be a little bit dated.
If you’re looking for F2P Path of Exile is one of the best. It’s an action RPG like Diablo (which is also great in multiplayer).
We did try BG3 when it came out, but were disappointed in how the coop interacted with dialogues and story events so we ended up dropping it. I kept playing it alone up to the start of act 2, but didn’t enjoy it so we never tried coop again. We are playing an actual DnD campaign tho.
I haven’t played PoE, but one issue I have with coop in action RPGs is that everyone is mostly doing their own thing independently of the other players and the classes are all damage dealers (which, side note, I feel like is the same in BG3 and DnD too). Does PoE have any options to play support roles? It does look fun tho so I might still try it, even if it’s not exactly what I’m looking for.
They’re quite dated now, but Neverwinter Nights 1&2 have a pretty robust multiplayer element.
Best description I could find is from this steam post reply by DrLoboto:
AFAIK, there are three different possibilities to play multiplayer:
- You and your friend play through the official campaign and/or and the first expansion Shadows of Undrentide, or a user-made adventure that specifically allows for multiplayer (not all of them do). The second expansion Hordes of the Underdark might be possible to play through in multiplayer, too, but I heard there are some issues. Of the DLC, I think only Pirates of the Sword Coast and Infinite Dungeons officially support multiplayer.
- You and your friend log onto a so called Persistant World (PW), which is like a mini MMO, an online world created and hosted by users which is usually accessible to everyone, so you might run into and interact with other players. Some of these are more action-oriented with pre-scripted quests, others are strictly roleplay, meaning you are meant to stay in character and not talk about meta stuff while playing. Sometimes administrators may take on the role of NPCs or monsters and entertain you.
- You and your friend either join another group or run your own game in which one of the users assumes the role of a dungeon master, taking control of NPCs and monsters and creating an adventure for the other player(s).
The more common options would be 1. and 2. In those case, you will both control your own character and you can form a party and fight together, but theoretically you can also split up whenever you want to (even while remaining in the same party) and explore on your own. In case 1. one of you will open an online game and host it for the other player to join (anyone who owns NWN can do this, you don’t need anything else or any particular knowledge), in case 2. you will both join the server of the according PW team. Note that in case 1. the pre-written adventures will often assume that the NPCs are always talking to the same character as the hero of the story; it’s not perfect but it works if you agree that one of you is the main character doing most of the talking for the main quests, or if you can live with the occasional confusion now and then. ;)
Divinity original sin is from the same developers as Baldurs Gate and is an absolute banger. Given that the coop Aspekt in dialogues is the absolute same. But the games main focus is IMO the combat which is purely incredible and the build diversity is superb. Also synergies between different players and build is highly encouraged since classes differ greatly in their abilities.
How do dialogues work in coop in Larian RPGs and what makes them so disappointing? Thanks!
To add to what the other commenter has added. All characters in dialogue are frozen in place and poeple not in dialogue can manipulate them or their surrounding and they can’t react to any of it.
Only one character does the talking and you have to actively listen in to hear any of it.
I just remembered Star Wars: The Old Republic. There everyone could participate and it would select randomly who would say the next line. That was nice.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is great with dialogues. All players choose an answer and it randomly selects who actually gets to say what they want. And the Sith Warrior and Sith Magician (can’t remember the actual class names) synergise great in terms of story and quest locations. The corresponding Jedi classes might as well.
Used to play it with my wife, until some small human took up all our time. We got lucky with the classes. We had a lot of fun. Other classes all seem to have separate starting locations. But with all the subclasses available to Warrior and Magician you should be able to get a good spread.
Wildermyth
Secret of Mana and its remake are both co-op once you unlock the second character.
holy god I forgot about this game
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Remnant is a coop soulslike shooter, if that’s up your alley. Fun bosses, some puzzles with unique rewards if you get the clues (some are really hard and you’ll definitely end up looking up guides for most of them), and build variety is okay. Haven’t played Remnant 1, but Remnant 2 is fun.
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Outward is an indie open world RPG with survival mechanics. With mods, you can play with more than 2 people. It’s janky, but it has an old school approach to game design that feels refreshing. For instance, the ingame map is just a map, not a gps. You orient yourself with the on-screen compass and landmarks off in the distance. The levelling system is completely non-standard compared to modern rpgs, as it is classless, has skill trees (with passives and actives), and uses money, not XP, to level. So every red cent counts. The story is honestly not impressive. Not because of the presentation, but because there really isn’t much there. If you end up playing this, is because the exploration and builds are fun. Having to deal with environmental threats while you’re low on resources (e.g: can’t see but you ran out of lantern oil, freezing but don’t have a campfire, starving or dehydrated but have no food) adds a lot to the game, because combat is not easy until you get a good build going.
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Valheim could work if you’re up for it. Though not much of an RPG, it can be played like one with the right mods and world settings. You can tone down the survival aspects and increase the combat aspects. Nearly 0 story though. My only gripe in this regard with the game is that build variety only comes online in the latter half of the available content. Before Mistlands, everyone is either melee or range. Once you get Eitr, you can combine melee or range with magic. With mods though, you can get classes and unique enemies to hunt down.
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Same as before, Project Zomboid can be played like an RPG with the right mods, but you won’t find much of a story besides the ones you shape yourself in-game. There’s a lot to building a character, and you will get attached to them since infection is certain death, and then you have to roll up a new character. B42 just released on the unstable branch, but is only single player atm. B41 can be played multiplayer, and it has thousands of mods for you to tailor the experience. I’ve had a lot of fun playing on private servers with my friends. I treat it as a survival game, and they treat it as an RPG.
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Return to Moria might work? It’s not much of an RPG, but it has a loose story to egg you on. No builds, however.
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Wasteland 3, though its similar to BG3 I think. Haven’t played it online, and I think it’s limited to 2 people. Build variety is up there though, and the story is great.
Not really much to offer, now that I realize. If BG3 wasn’t your cup of tea you might not have a lot to choose from.
Outward
Outward looks interesting. I’m not completely sold on it because of the open-endedness and survival elements, but we might try it as it’s cheap.
Edit: we tried it for ~8h and liked the start but didn’t really get anything (combat, progression, etc.), so we dropped it as we weren’t enjoying it.
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Sea of Stars recently added coop I think
Guild wars 2! Giant map to explore and alright story in the free to play part.
Even if you pick different backrounds and race you can port to the other starting maps and the story connects everything later on.
It also gets more difficult so dont think it is always easy like in the starter zones.
And it is one of the old school f2ps thats still good without paying if you wanna try it out.
But if you spend money on an expac you keep it and dont have to pay for a savegame like WoW.
One of the rare MMOs that values your time and money.
Guild Wars2 is very good.
It downscales your level if you go back to older areas, so you can play with lower level friends. (Though it’s still pretty generous, and the high level friends will be more effective). So if your friends aren’t playing much, you can still coop with them when they do play.
There’s a lot of content. Most of the maps have stuff just happening. There’s also instanced content for 5, 10, or … I think private convergences can go up to 20?
There’s not really a gear grind. When you hit max level (which is pretty easy) good-enough gear is very easy to get. A smidge better than that is a little expensive but still very feasible. The fanciest gear is numerically the same, but let’s you reskin and swap stats for free, which is nice.
Tales of Vesperia was always a favorite couch co-op RPG of mine. With the Steam release, you can even play the game remotely with everyone via Steam Remote Play Together. It’s not an MMO, and the exploration is single player, but up to 4 players can control the party members in battle. The only major gripe I have with the Steam version (applies to all versions of the remaster) is that if playing in English, some of the voice work that was added in to the remaster is noticably inconsistent with the original dub, since there was about a 10 year gap between recordings. But if that’s not a deal breaker (can always opt for Japanese audio), I’d definitely suggest it.
I was actually playing it and had no idea it was playable in coop. Depending on how well remote play works it could be a good choice. Thanks.
The player with the highest upload speed and most stable connection should be the one running the game on their machine. You could use Steam’s family feature to create a “family” and share the game with the friend with the best Internet connection so that they don’t have to purchase it.
Note that some games explicitly block family sharing (usually titles that have their own launcher). I haven’t checked if this applies here.
Checkout Moon Hunters
Mana series might be up your alley although a bit dated, up to 3 players. similar graphics to crystal chronicles. I’d recommend Secret of Mana (HD), I think you can recruit two party members before the first dungeon. it the voice acting is bad, you can switch to Japanese dub
This is a tricky one, RPG and co-op generally don’t mix. Larian games have attempted that a few times, though they’re a deep dive. I’d recommend Original Sin 2 from their selections.
Then there’s hack&slashes, I played Grim Dawn with co-op once, but that’s more of a damage competition than something you really need to think about to progress.
Cassette Beasts added co-op recently, but unfortunately I haven’t had time to try
Then there are games like Borderlands, Dying Light or Dead Island which are far more action-y but do have levelling up and skills to unlock
Monaco is 80% off right now. May be worth a look.
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While they are really fun as co-op, they’re not RPG, but puzzle platformer.
