10 Best Co-op Open World Games

At the heart of every memorable co-op experience is the ability to explore vast landscapes with your friends, conquer challenging obstacles as a team, and forge your own path.

From adventures in space, to the depths of a dusty medieval dungeon, having a completely open world at our fingertips fills us with excitement for something new, and has us asking ourselves: what kind of trouble are we about to get into?

Whether you’re taking down Goliath-sized monsters as a team, or trying to get the highest yield from your crops in your favorite farming sim, the best co-op games to play will have unique teamwork mechanics, immersive environments, and lots of content to have us coming back year-after-year.

With constant technological advancements in the gaming industry, new and innovative co-op games are plentiful, while the classics have proven older games still have much to offer. We’ll help you waste less time scrolling to find your next adventure, as we list the top 10 best co-op games with open worlds.

10 Enshrouded

The Last Ember Of Hope

Enshrouded is full to the brim with great features, including the ability to progress through the game with up to 16 players.

After a mysterious fog consumed and corrupted the realm of Embervale, it’s now up to you and your friends to survive against the creatures that now roam the landscape.

If you’re looking for an adventure, and you enjoy resource gathering, crafting, base-building and survival mechanics, Enshrouded should be next in your download queue. The storyline is well-written and invokes a sense of mystery as you’ll need to venture into the shroud to discover new knowledge to help you progress.

With stunning visuals, engaging combat, and an incredibly vast open-world, Enshrouded really is the whole package.

9 Palworld

Be The Very Best

Palworld offers a rich co-operative experience with smooth base-building mechanics, a great crafting system, and, of course, your trusted Pal companions. When it comes to co-op experiences, Palworld really does a great job in so many ways.

The combat is exciting and challenging, and there is a massive list of weapons like bows, assault rifles, plasma cannons, and shotguns.

In addition to awesome weaponry, each Pal you catch will have its own unique stats and abilities, which makes for some really complex and immersive battles.

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Once you pick the perfect spot for your base, you can build breeding and crafting stations, defensive outposts, and farms, recruit pals to help you complete tasks, and even start a guild with your friends.

Palworld has a ton of incredible content that’s perfect for groups in search of a long-lasting journey.

8 Diablo 4

Mephisto’s Daughter

Diablo 4 offers us a dark and captivating open world to explore, teeming with hordes of hell-spawn for you to vanquish with your friends.

With six different characters to choose from, each with their own complex skill trees, experimenting with your builds and synergizing with your teammates creates truly satisfying co-operative gameplay.

D4 offers full crossplay between PC, XBox, and PlayStation players, and you’ll even get a 10% experience bonus when you’re playing with friends.

One of the best things about D4 is that you have full control over what skills you want to use. Will your druid primarily use shapeshifting abilities? Or will you wield the power of elemental spells instead? Perhaps a mix of both.

With a well-written storyline, immersive combat, and exciting events happening constantly around the map, D4 has a ton of great content for you to enjoy.

7 Monster Hunter Wilds

The Forbidden Lands

Developed by Capcom, the Monster Hunter series has solidified its spot in the co-op game Hall of Fame. MH won the hearts of gamers by giving us foundationally great combat experiences that push us to perform, and a long-lasting, satisfying gameplay loop.

In Monster Hunter Wilds, the things you’d hope to see have been delivered.

A gigantic open-world with stunning environments that change with the seasons, and spawn different monsters depending on the time of the year alongside the new Seikret mount to explore it fully while also giving us the ability to glide when jumping from heights.

With a record-breaking release, monster hunters from around the world got to work, slaying beasts, and completing armor sets.

What makes this game a top choice for co-op enthusiasts, is the complex combat that urges us to call for back up from our friends. Find what weapon suits your personality the best, and set out to be the best monster hunting team you can be.

6 Terraria

Who Needs A Third Dimension?

Released in 2011, Terraria has grown a die-hard fanbase for great reason.

There is a massive world for you to explore; immersive environments including gemstone caves, floating islands, and even the underworld, and the combat is challenging and fun to tackle whether you’re alone or with a big group.

From powerful staffs that allow you to cast magic spells, bows, machine guns, or the powerful zenith sword, there’s no shortage of awesome weaponry, and you’re going to need all of it to survive. You’ll also need to gather resources, craft building materials and fortify your home base.

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One of the things that makes Terraria such a great co-op experience, is the ability for a group of friends to each create their own fully unique characters.

With a procedurally generated world, a thriving community, and thousands of awesome mods, Terraria’s replayability is off the charts.

5 Sea Of Thieves

Become Legends

If you’re going to sail the open seas in an open-world, it’s nice to have some company.

Sea of Thieves offers us an enthralling co-operative experience where even something as simple as sailing from one island to the next requires you and your friends to work together, raise and lower the anchors and sails, help each other navigate, and keep an eye out for other pirates or storms.

What would a pirate game be without ship battles? This is where things get really exciting. When engaged in ship combat, you and your friends will have to multitask, and it’s not a bad idea to have dedicated roles.

You’ll have to have someone at the helm steering your vessel, while another player is ready to attack with cannonballs. Don’t expect to come out of a fight unscathed either. Be ready to repair holes in your ship and bail out the water, or you can kiss your treasure goodbye.

Another great thing about Sea of Thieves is it gives you the option of a non-PVP experience with the Safer Seas mode where you won’t have to worry about clashing with other squads.

This gives you the opportunity to focus more on things like treasure hunting, exploration, fishing, and completing quests.

4 Minecraft

The World Is Yours

Whether your focus is farming and building a community, or venturing through the deepest and darkest caves, Minecraft offers phenomal co-op gameplay. Having full control over your experience is the main reason gamers keep coming back for more.

There’s something special about starting a new world with your friends, and exploring brand-new procedurally generated worlds. When it comes to co-op mechanics, there’s really not much that Minecraft doesn’t offer us.

You can work as a team to gather resources and survive unexpected creeper and skeleton archer attacks, build a giant fortified castle spanning miles, or create a peaceful farming community, and spend hours decorating your house.

If you can dream it, you can do it, and that’s the beauty of Minecraft.

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3 Valheim

Sandbox Survival

You’re not just here to survive, you’re here to prove yourself worthy of Valhalla. You and your friends will play Vikings that have been killed, and sent to Valheim to conquer the forsaken enemies of Odin, in an attempt to gain favor with the gods.

When it comes to exploration, Valheim does a lot of things really well. With a procedurally generated world full of diverse bioms, resources to gather, and prime base-building locations, it’s an exceptional choice for co-op fans but also for anyone willing to brave it alone.

As you discover new resources, you’ll unlock recipes that will allow you to craft building materials, armor, weapons, and consumables.

The landscapes and locations of shrines and bosses will change every time you start a new playthrough, and you can share a world with up to ten friends, which means Valheim has a seemingly endless amount of quality gameplay.

2 Schedule I

Don’t Get High On Your Own Supply

Still in early-access, Schedule 1 has made a massive wave in the gaming world. As a small-town drug dealer, your mission is growth. You’ll start with nothing and have to make connections, produce drugs, sell your product and fend off not only the competition, but the law.

Schedule 1 is one of the best co-op games right now for people who are looking for a light-hearted experience that’s more about the laughs than anything.

You and your friends will be able to share your resources, develop a customer base, purchase new properties and weapons, and even launder your money.

Another great thing about Schedule 1 is that each type of drug will have its own unique effect on whoever takes it, ranging from swollen heads, to speed boosts, or even making the user explode.

Your party is bound to end up in some hilarious moments that you’ll be talking about for years, making Schedule 1 totally worth the purchase.

1 World of Warcraft: The War Within

LEEROY JENKINS

From the original release of World of Warcraft in 2004, to the newest expansion, The War Within, the game has given gamers thousands of hours of quality content. With 11 major expansions in total, the impact WoW has had on the gaming industry is undeniable, and a big reason for that is the social and co-operative aspects of the game.

The introduction of the new Delves system allows you and four friends to fight your way through mini-dungeons for the chance to get your hands on rare gear, mounts, gold, and cosmetic items. You’ll also be accompanied by a helpful NPC companion that provides various types of support, and can be leveled up to unlock new abilities.

This new system enhances your co-op experience by forcing you and your friends to make thoughtful decisions about gear selection, what roles to play in order to have the strongest team, abilities and skills, and customizing the type of support you receive from your trusted NPC.

Don’t want to be stuck with just one character that’s strong enough to be useful? The new warband feature solves that problem with account-wide progression, so you can manage multiple characters with ease, transfer items, switch to a different character and jump back into the fight with your friends.

The War Within builds on over two decades of MMO success, and offers a polished feel to the World of Warcraft that we love.

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