Whether you’re going home for Christmas or hosting a festive get-together, give the gift of video games this year with some of the best party experiences on the market. Here are 15 of our favorites.
15 Some Jackbox Games
The Jackbox games are legendary compendiums of mini-games, usually sold under the Party Pack mantra. The real genius is that players participate using their smartphones, with nothing more than a mobile browser. Boot up the game, connect everyone to Wi-Fi, and you’re ready to go.
Though the quality can vary from pack to pack, we’d recommend Drawful, Quiplash, and Fibbage as good starting points (all of which are available as separate downloads, if you’re that way inclined). I’m also a fan of Civic Doodle from the fourth party pack. Take a look at the full lineup, or just grab a pack or two.
The games are available on pretty much every platform, from the major consoles to Steam, Mac, and even iPhone or iPad.
14 What The Dub?
Another party game that relies on smartphone controllers, What The Dub tasks you with overdubbing voice lines from bad old movies for hilarious effect. It’s a game all about making fellow players laugh, where everyone gets a chance to vote on their favorite lines.
There are over 300 clips included, with your quips brought to life by a serviceable text-to-speech engine. It’s cheap (at only $7.99 on the Switch eShop) and available on both consoles and PC.
13 RiffTrax: The Game
While we’re talking about What The Dub, it’s worth mentioning RiffTrax: The Game from the same developer. The premise is identical: add commentary to clips for comedic effect, but this time with a RiffTrax twist.
For the uninitiated, RiffTrax was born from the ashes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the clips here all come from previous movies, shorts, and public service films featured by Mike Nelson and co. Instead of just providing your own lines, you can also pick from a selection of existing soundbites from the RiffTrax database.
12 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Mario Kart is a game that everyone can enjoy, particularly with Nintendo’s thoughtful inclusion of driving assists (which are perfect for youngsters). Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the definitive version of the kart racer, available exclusively on the Switch.
The game has been expanded with an additional 48 courses from older Mario Kart games thanks to the Booster Course Pass (which you can access as a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass subscriber). That’s a total of 96 courses, enough to keep everyone entertained over the holiday break.
11 Screencheat
Screencheat is a split-screen first-person shooter that takes the concept of screen cheating—peeking at other people’s screens in games like Halo and _Goldeneye_—and builds an entire game around it.
Everyone is invisible, and the only way you can tell where your opponents are is by screen cheating. Four players can go head-to-head on PC or consoles, with the Switch receiving a remastered release in 2018.
10 Halo: Master Chief Collection
Not everyone thinks Halo is a great party game, but I beg to differ. Particularly during the festive season, Microsoft’s flagship shooter hits all the right nostalgic buttons that’ll quickly have everyone humming along to that iconic soundtrack.
The Master Chief Collection includes optimized versions of the first six games through to Halo 4 including Reach and ODST. You can split-screen them all, jump into Firefight co-op modes, or turn the living room into an old school LAN party. Get it on Xbox and PC.
9 Super Mario Party Jamboree
Jamboree represents the thirteenth entry in the long-running Mario Party franchise, a digital board game that uses mini-games as its main hook. Roll dice, move around the board, and compete against four other players (and up to 20 online) to be crowned victor.
The Mario Party formula hasn’t changed a lot, but Jamboree received a worthy amount of praise upon its release in late 2024. It’s quickly become known as one of the best games in the series and is arguably better than the other two Switch releases.
8 Overcooked 2
Overcooked 2 is the definitive example of the “frantic co-op party game” where communication is vital and chaos is guaranteed. The premise is simple: prepare, serve, and clean up a restaurant by delegating and sharing tasks with up to three other players.
This all takes place across a variety of eateries, terrains, and even alien planets. These aren’t normal restaurants, and there are all sorts of tricky traps to overcome along the way that will inevitably lead to hilarity when everything starts to fall apart (which usually involves fire).
7 Use Your Words
If you enjoy Jackbox and What The Dub style party games, Use Your Words is another to add to your collection. It works just like the others, with smartphones acting as controllers for three to six players via a simple web interface.
The game includes four minigames in total. Sub the Title has you writing hilarious subtitles for foreign language films, Extra! Extra! involves writing silly headlines for newspapers, Blank-O-Matic is a fill-in-the-blanks type game, and Survey Says is a rapid-fire prompt game. Grab it on consoles and PC (there’s also a second installment in the works).
6 Gang Beasts
Gang Beasts is described by its developers as a “beef ‘em up” which perfectly encapsulates the game’s intentionally saggy movement system. Take part in a variety of game modes, from simple beat ‘em up arenas to soccer matches and cooperative brawls.
Movement is the real challenge here, and the control scheme acts as a great leveler. It’s clumsy by design, which leads to some hilarious moments as you grapple to hold on to the back of a moving truck or push your friends into an industrial grinder.
5 Moving Out
Moving Out is a game that follows in the footsteps of Overcooked, except instead of running a kitchen you’re in charge of carting furniture and other possessions into a moving truck. Chaos ensues as you work together to shift heavy items across a variety of slippery scenarios.
Much like Overcooked, the game devolves into chaos as you quickly realize that the most efficient way of working involves shortcuts like throwing pianos out of second-story windows. Up to four players can play at a time, and the game also features separate mini-challenges in the form of an arcade mode.
4 Tricky Towers
Tricky Towers is a competitive tower-building puzzler for up to four players. It’s a bit like Tetris in that you’ll be building your towers out of tetraminos, so if you’ve played Tetris before you’ll already understand some of the basics. But Tricky Towers is a very different game and one that poses quite a challenge to boot.
Falling blocks are subject to the laws of physics, which can change at any time while you’re playing. Matches don’t last long and there’s some single-player fun to be had when everyone’s gone home. The game is available on just about everything including consoles, Windows, Linux, and Mac.
3 Switch Sports
Are you nostalgic for the mid-2000s motion controls of the Wii? Remember how much fun it was bowling and playing golf in your living room when the original Wii Sports arrived? Switch Sports channels the energy of its Wii predecessor to bring living room sports to Nintendo’s hybrid console.
In addition to HD graphics, the game features eight sports: golf, tennis, bowling, basketball, soccer, volleyball, badminton, and chambara (swordplay). Bowling, tennis, and golf are the real highlights, but volleyball is also pretty fun. Just make sure you have enough Joy-Cons for everyone (and remember that the game won’t work on the Switch Lite).
2 Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
A game about bomb defusal and effective communication, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes splits the room into two teams: one person who is tasked with defusing a bomb, and everyone else who has a manual on how to do so. The game is over when you successfully disarm the explosive, or the explosive successfully disarms you.
The game requires a bit of adjustment in that it’s designed to work so that the team with the manual cannot see the screen. You can either print out manuals or use your smartphone for instructions. The game was initially designed with VR in mind, but it’s now available on everything including all major VR platforms, consoles, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux.
1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
Arguably one of the finest side-scrolling beat ‘em ups ever made, Shredder’s Revenge is the perfect local co-op experience for up to six players (which is just as chaotic as it sounds). It takes its inspiration from the arcade brawlers of the 90s, with modern quality-of-life improvements and a drop-dead gorgeous pixel art style.
You can play through the whole game in about three hours, and you’ve got an endless supply of quarters to use up. There’s even a separate downloadable campaign called Dimension Shellshock to grab once you’ve finished with the main story. Get it on consoles, Windows, and Linux.
Not enough local multiplayer fun for you? Check out our favorite couch co-op games that will hook even the non-gamers in your life plus some competitive titles too.
