Gaming With Friends: 2025's Top Co-Op Titles Worth Your Time
From Donkey Kong's latest chaos to Borderlands 4, here's what's actually worth playing with your crew this year.
Scout Team
The market's doing something interesting today... wait, wrong article. Let me start over. Gaming with friends in 2025 has been pretty wild, and I've been diving into co-op titles between checking crypto charts. Here's what's actually worth your time if you're looking to game with your squad.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD dropped in January and honestly? It's pure chaos in the best way. Nintendo nailed the co-op mechanics - one player controls DK while the other handles Diddy, and the platforming gets genuinely challenging. The game runs smooth on Switch, and watching your friend accidentally throw you into a pit never gets old. At $60, it's not cheap, but split between two people, that's basically the cost of a decent dinner.
Borderlands 4 launched in October and Gearbox finally fixed the issues that plagued the third game. The writing's sharper, the gunplay feels tighter, and they added this new "Chaos Mode" where difficulty scales based on your squad size. Playing solo? Manageable. Four players? Absolute mayhem. The loot system got an overhaul too - no more fighting over legendary drops since everyone gets their own instanced loot now.
But here's the sleeper hit: Helldivers 2. This top-down shooter came out in February and it's basically friendly fire: the game. You're fighting alien bugs while trying not to accidentally call in an airstrike on your teammates. The community's been incredible too - random players actually communicate and work together, which feels rare these days.
Other solid picks include It Takes Two (still holds up), Lethal Company for horror fans who hate themselves, and surprisingly, the new Mario Party Jamboree. Yeah, I know, Mario Party. But they added online play that actually works and some genuinely clever mini-games. Who knew?