Summary
- VR gaming offers diverse multiplayer experiences for up to 4 players in games with co-op, PvP, and horde modes.
- Titles like No Man's Sky allow up to 16 players to explore an open universe together or pursue individual quests.
- Phasmophobia and Hellsweeper VR provide immersive co-op experiences for players to hunt ghosts or engage in combo-focused combat.
One of the best things about VR gaming is the ability to get into a game with friends and hang out with their physical avatars. There's a lot of potential for social interactions and multiplayer gaming of all kinds in VR. Developers have only scratched the surface of the kind of connected experiences VR and XR could provide, and yet fans already have some excellent examples of VR multiplayer games.
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Whether players are looking for competitive PvP shooters, co-op dungeon crawlers, or social deduction games, VR has some great options. For those looking for a pure co-op experience where they can work together with their friends, this topic will highlight the VR games that offer content, quality, and most importantly, fun, for two or more players.
1 Dungeons Of Eternity
Raiding Party
- Released: October 5th, 2023
- Developer: Othergate
- Platforms: Meta Quest 2/3/3S, Steam VR
For players with some good co-op friends, grinding through Dungeons of Eternity for ever-improving loot can be a lot of fun. The co-op dungeon crawler mixes a little sci-fi with its fantasy aesthetic, and tasks players with delving into dungeons from a relaxing home hub to get ever more loot and passive perk points.
While it starts well, the game lacks a little variety once players have experienced the varying types of dungeon crawl, and the replayability comes from the enticing loot grind. It won't satisfy the grind for hundreds of hours, but there's still a lot of fun to be had for a party of 2-4 co-op friends.
2 Legendary Tales
Co-Op Loot Crawl
- Released: February 8th, 2024 (1.0)
- Developer: Urban Wolf Games Inc.
- Platforms: PSVR 2, Steam VR
The VR action RPG Legendary Tales is one of the few VR titles that offers the depth of character customization, through skill trees and random loot, that players would expect from the genre. The game has a physics-based combat system that feels highly reactive, and players can spec their character to take full advantage of the physical parrying and melee, or opt for ranged weapons, gesture-based magic, or any combination of those.
This makes Legendary Tales an engaging ARPG to play solo, but it's even better with friends. The game supports up to 4 players with drop-in co-op that lets players go through the full campaign together, and it's definitely advisable to bring friends for some of the game's more challenging bosses.
3 Arizona Sunshine 2
Zombie Shooting Together
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 78 /100 Critics Rec: 80%
- Released
- December 7, 2023
- ESRB
- M Due To Blood and Gore, Crude Humor, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
- Developer(s)
- Vertigo Games
- Publisher(s)
- Vertigo Games
- Engine
- Unity
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Zombie
The Arizona Sunshine series is one of VR's most popular franchises, offering satisfying first-person zombie shooting with an uncommon level of polish. Arizona Sunshine 2 tells an original story, without much reference to its predecessor, but it picks up where Arizona Sunshine left off in terms of gameplay. There's a greater variety of weapons that all feel good to use, and more challenge with larger and more impressive zombie hordes to slay.
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As with the original, the full single-player campaign is playable with a friend, and there's a wave-based horde mode to dive into as well. Facing down a horde standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a friend is an unmissable VR experience. For co-op players who enjoy this, the remake of the original is well worth playing with a friend, too.
4 After The Fall
Hell Frozen Over
After the Fall
- Released
- December 6, 2021
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M
- Developer(s)
- Vertigo Games
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Virtual Reality
After The Fall is a co-op horde shooter from the developers behind the Arizona Sunshine games. It takes influence from flat-screen games like Left 4 Dead to create an immersive horde shooter for up to 4 players. The game takes place in a frozen-over LA, with a layer of permafrost covering the environment and a chilly, zombie-like foe known as the Snowbreed overrunning the place.
While After The Fall was originally released in 2021, it's one of a handful of longer-running multiplayer VR games where players can jump in and find random players to join without much trouble. Playing with friends is the best way to experience After The Fall, though. It may have been a while since its last major update, but mowing down hordes while hunting for upgrade discs is still as fun as ever.
5 Into Black
Surviving Together
- Released: October 10th, 2024
- Developer: The Binary Mill
- Platforms: Meta Quest 2/3/3S
Into Black comes from veteran VR developer The Binary Mill, creators of Resist and Gun Club, among other highly regarded VR titles. At its core, Into Black is a sci-fi survival-crafting game, but the variety of gameplay on offer goes beyond that description, expanding its 1-to-4-player campaign into a full-blown sci-fi adventure. Players can work together to gather resources, upgrade equipment, and fight off alien threats in a variety of biomes that each have their own mechanical quirks and light puzzle elements.
Despite some technical hitches that hamper the latter part of the experience, the campaign is a highlight for co-op VR, and the game also offers modes outside the campaign for players that want more, like resource-gathering missions and even a PvPvE mode.
6 Phasmophobia
Ghost Hunters
Phasmophobia
- Released
- October 29, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Blood, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Kinetic Games
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror, Puzzle
Phasmophobia has gone from strength to strength since its original early access release, across both flat-screen and VR. It's now more fun than ever to get into a lobby with three other friends to hunt some ghosts. While it's a great game on the flat-screen, VR brings another level of immersion to Phasmophobia, whether that's actually talking into the spirit box or waving a crucifix desperately in a spirit's face.
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The added layer of immersion allows the spookier moments in the game to shine, even with the tension-cutting presence of friends. Perhaps the best thing about Phasmophobia is that whether players want to play co-op or alone, flat-screen or VR, they can do so all in one seamlessly integrated version of the game, including cross-playing with flat-screen and VR players together.
7 Hellsweeper VR
Co-Op Carnage
Hellsweeper VR
- Released
- September 21, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
Hellsweeper VR's intense combination of melee, guns, and magic in its combo-focused combat ballet is impressive enough solo, but it only gets wilder with two players combining their abilities. The game takes freedom of movement further than most VR games, with wall-running, air-jumping, and slow-motion backflips all possible. It combines this with a combat system that lets players pull off Devil May Cry-esque combos like launching an enemy with a sword and air-juggling them with dual-SMGs.
With two (or three) players, the carnage that can be created in the game's myriad combat arenas is a visual feast, and post-launch updates have upped the fidelity on both Quest 3 and PSVR 2, as well as adding new weapons and progression systems to play with. There are hours of co-op fun to be had in Hellsweeper.
8 No Man's Sky
Universal Co-Op
No Man's Sky
- Released
- August 9, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Fantasy Violence, Animated Blood
- Developer(s)
- Hello Games
No Man's Sky is one of the most expansive co-op games available in VR. For players who love exploration, survival, base-building, and sci-fi worlds and creatures, there are potentially hundreds of hours of playtime across an open universe. No Man's Sky takes an interesting approach to its co-op system. Players can join a lobby together, see avatars, and interact while experiencing parallel progression (i.e., separate saves and quest progress), allowing up to 16 players (or 32 on PC) to join in this way.
There's also a more direct form of co-op that players can join from the summonable Space Anomaly multiplayer hub. From there, players can start instanced missions where other players can join, progress quests together, and share progress and rewards. This approach allows for both direct co-op and more laid-back social co-op, where players are free to pursue their own objectives, which is a relatively unique multiplayer experience.
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