

However, there’s still a decent stream of the best couch co-op games releasing fairly regularly and refusing to bend the knee to the norm, as well as some all-time classics that you can always fall back on.

With games like Halo, which built a lot of its reputation on local multiplayer, doing away with split-screen and more and more games adopting purely online components, you couldn’t be blamed for being pessimistic about the future of picking up and playing games with your friends in the living room. Throughout the 90s and most of the 2000s, couch co-op was the definitive way to play games together, friends staying over at each other’s houses for late night gaming sessions. In basic terms, couch co-op (also known as local co-op) allows you play games with friends right next to you in front of the same television, hence the “couch”. It’s a strange situation for anyone who grew up in the 90s, a decade in which countless friendships were put on the line in games of Goldeneye and Mario Party.

They’re even a selling point if they allow you to play with your friends from the comfort of your couch, that’s how uncommon they are. With the rise of online gaming, couch co-op games are perceived as going the way of the dodo.
