If your group of friends is anything like mine, getting them all to both agree to and pay for a particular game is harder than herding feral cats. Maybe you're in a similar situation or maybe you're just on the prowl for some good multiplayer games to play in Steam Remote Play. Whatever the case, we've compiled a sizable list to help you out.

The good thing about Remote Play is that only one player in the group needs to own the game; the rest can try it out for free — at least in its current beta period. 

Let's choo choo on through, and hopefully, find you and your friend(s) a game you can play.

Terraria

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

You'll see this game mentioned on just about every list of co-op games. This co-op sandbox-adventure has loads of content for any group of friends to go to town on. Terraria has stayed on the top played Steam games for 7 years for good reason.

Grim Dawn

Price: $24.99
Steam Store link

If you're looking to scratch your ARPG itch, you could do a lot worse than Grim Dawn. Even without the expansion, you can find dozens of hours of whackin' and lootin' in Grim Dawn. If you're not too keen on its darker aesthetic but do want an ARPG, the next option may be more down your alley.

Torchlight 2

Price: $19.99
Steam Store link

It may be older than Grim Dawn, but Torchlight 2 still has a lot of staying power if you've never given the game a chance. There is more content to be found in Grim Dawn but Torchlight 2 has a robust array of mods available, including content, quality of life, and classes. This is still a solid buy today in 2018, and it can be modded for up to 8-player multiplayer.

Castle Crashers

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

Another staple co-op game sure to be on pretty much every co-op list, Castle Crashers is the poster boy for co-op beat'em ups. This is an easy one for all ages and kill levels to get into and have fun with.

BattleBlock Theater

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

Another game from The Behemoth, the same studio behind Castle Crashers. BattleBlock Theater's campaign is completely co-op and it also features a healthy selection of hectic PvP modes, for when you want to prove your better than your friends once and for all.

Rocket League

Price: $19.99
Steam Store link

Before you say, "Ugh, no. Too mainstream," take a breath and consider Rocket League as a co-op game with a low barrier of entry and a whole lot of speed. Rocket League may not be your first choice, but it's an easy game to get a group of people to agree to hop onto for a quick round.

Risk of Rain

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

Risk of Rain is a co-op game with an unquenchable bloodlust. Though not for everyone due to its extreme difficulty, Risk of Rain is an easy buy for roguelite fans or groups of friends who hate life. It's a hard game and it will knock you down a peg with ease, whether you've got 1 hour or 300 hours worth of gameplay logged.

Risk of Rain 2 is pretty good, too. It's currently $19.99 on Steam. 

Beat Hazard

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

This one always seems to slip through the cracks since it's been blessing Steam with its presence for eight years now, but despite its age, Beat Hazard continues to be a recommended purchase for co-op play, providing you and your friend(s) are good at shmups. Beat Hazard lets you use your own music or one of many radio stations to generate enemies, which is what makes this one so unique.

Ultimate Chicken Horse

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

Playing this game with a group of friends is an exercise in sadism. You and up to three other friends will be tasked with creating and completing the stages in Ultimate Chicken Horse, and you can bet at least one (or even all) of you will make them nearly impossible to beat, in the name of being the better platformer player. Ridiculously fun and honestly not as enraging as it sounds.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

An outlier among the other games in this collection, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes only requires one person to buy the game. There's a reason for that: Only one player is allowed to see the screen at a time, so only one can directly defuse the bomb. The other players must tell the defuser what to do based on the instructions in the manual.

If it sounds a little convoluted, that's because it is by design. Can you and your friends defuse a bomb? Maybe, maybe not. But you can certainly yell at each other trying.

Don't Starve Together

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

Don't Starve has stood as one of the more accessible survival games over the years, and the multiplayer expansion Don't Starve Together may be an even more enjoyable game than the base with the Reign of Giants expansion. Together contains both, plus the ability to die in the forest with your friends. If — as in my case — you tried the original game but didn't enjoy it much, you may still find this fun.

Left 4 Dead 2

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

You may be dissuaded from picking Left 4 Dead 2 up based on its age. It's been out for 11 years now, it seems like everyone's been through the game. Why bother? If you haven't played it yet, this is your reminder to pick up L4D2 to play with your friends. It's still fun to this day, but it's best played with friends. Any community for a decade-old game is bound to be elitist and this game is no exception.

PAYDAY 2

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

If you don't play PAYDAY 2, it's possible the only thing you've heard about it was the hubbub about microtransactions a few years back. It's been a long time since then though, and the game is a solid heister. You don't need to play the first game to dive right into this one and, provided your group can cooperate, there are hours upon hours of heists for you to tackle.

Dungeon of The Endless

Price: $11.99
Steam Store link

How about something a little different? Amplitude's Endless universe has expanded this way and that, with "that" being Dungeon of the Endless, a pseudo-tower defense roguelike. In this, players must hoard resources and expand based on the ever-increasing threats of the depth of the dungeon. A single round in this game can take several hours and it is very hard, but if your group's into roguelikes you could do a lot worse.

Borderlands 2

Price: $19.99
Steam Store link

Borderlands 2 is another old staple that still holds up today, especially multiplayer. Pushing through this game with friends is satisfying as firefights are intense and the weapon system is a ARPG-style lootfest. Not many games age as well as this one -- you can come back years later and still have a ton of fun.

Golf With Your Friends

Price: $7.99
Steam Store link

If you just want a game to pay a little attention to while chatting, this is an easy choice. Golf With Your Friends isn't exactly rolling in content variety and only contains 7 levels with 18 holes, but things are kept fresh through golf ball shapes and game modes. A very easy game to just sit back and play while having a couple beers and a laugh.

Human: Fall Flat

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

How about something a little less-in-your-face about its silliness? We've got some pretty quirky games listed here, but they're all a bit more obvious about it than the cooperative physics-based puzzle solving found in Human: Fall Flat. The one downside here is that there are not a lot of stages, but it's a good deal at this price. 

Project Zomboid

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

Don't let this game's graphics and the year it entered Steam Early Access fool you: Project Zomboid is a fleshed-out survival sandbox with hundreds of potential hours of gameplay, with continued support from its developer as it slowly shambles toward full release. If you and your group can accept the high learning curve, you can have a great time with this game.

Portal 2

Price: $9.99
Steam Store link

The Portal games are famous for a lot of reasons and one of those reasons is (Spoilers!) the stellar co-op campaign. If you haven't played Portal 2 and you want a game to play with a friend, you may as well throw the $2 at Valve and see what all the hubbub is about.

Barony

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

An other roguelike to add to the pile, Barony is the closest to a traditional roguelike of any of the games listed here. It looks old, it feels old, and it plays like an old game. That's perfectly fine: You'll be hard-pressed to find another game that takes the classic roguelike formula, turns it 3D and realtime, and allows for online co-op. This one's pretty niche but you're in for a good time if you're comfortable with classic roguelikes.

Endless Legend

Price: $29.99
Steam Store link

Though Endless Space is currently also on sale, I would recommend Endless Legend over it for its similarities to the Civilization series and its overall fun factor. This is a more traditional-style 4X game. Expand, form alliances, wage wars -- it's up to you. A worthy strategy addition to most gaming groups on a budget.

Resident Evil 5

Price: $19.99
Steam Store link

You don't hear much about Resident Evil 5 or 6 for a few reasons, but none of those reasons equate to them not being fun with friends. Resident Evil 5 is often overlooked in favor of 6 for co-op play because it retains the semi-tank controls found in its predecessor, but if you and a friend can adjust to that control style this is an intense and worthwhile co-op action game.

Resident Evil 6

Price: $29.99
Steam Store link

Like its predecessor, Resident Evil 6 is best played with a friend. Unlike its predecessor, it's got more modern, fluid controls and a whole lot of QTEs. This one is over-the-top in about every regard, to the extent I can't help but find it silly each playthrough. If you like classic Resi games, go with 5. If you can't deal with the antiquated controls, go with 6. The decision is as simple as that.

7 Days to Die

Price: $24.99
Steam Store link

One of the first titles in the survival game wave that paved the way for games such as Rust and ARK: Survival Evolved, 7 Days to Die still stands as one of the most played games on Steam and is just as fun now as when it came out. As with the two mentioned, 7 Days to Die allows you a great deal of freedom in your efforts to survive. Break, use, and do whatever you want to ensure your survival in a world overrun by over 50 types of zombies.

Orcs Must Die! 2

Price: $14.99
Steam Store link

The original Orcs Must Die! set off a chain reaction of action-tower defense clones, some good and some bad, but none really hold up to the sequel. Orcs Must Die! 2 is an improvement over the first game in almost every way, and has the added bonus of online multiplayer. It's easy to get into, easy to wrap your head around, and easy to spend too many hours in.

Tabletop Simulator

Price: $19.99
Steam Store link

This is a bit of a strange one since Tabletop Simulator itself isn't a game, but a mini-platform for tabletop gaming. The amount of games available via Tabletop Simulator are nearly endless, making this a fantastic purchase for any static group of friends who have trouble deciding on what to play or want to play board games without having to pick up after themselves.

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These are definitely not all of the co-op games you can get for relatively cheap on Steam, but these are some I can personally recommend. I hope you've found at least one game you find worthy of your Steam library.

Finding fun and engaging local, couch co-op games can be very difficult. I am a strong supporter of local co-op games, though I am often disappointed in the limited selection. To help you in the painful process, I have rounded up my top 5 favorite games based on their local co-op experiences.

Beyond Two Souls

From the wonderful mind of David Cage comes Beyond Two Souls by Quantic Dream. Beyond Two Souls is an interactive drama created with motion capture starring the very talented Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. The game follows the story of Jodie, a young girl who from birth has been followed by a supernatural entity named Aiden Throughout the story Jodie and Aiden take turns being in charge as they interact with the non-player characters. Each player has different abilities given their chosen character and each character can severely alter the direction the story goes in.

While I admit that couch co-op game in which each player has to take turns playing, isn't the greatest two-player experience, I do have to applaud Quantic Dream for implementing a two-player option in such a unique story-based cinematic style game.

Army of Two the 40th Day

I would never consider myself a person who is very interested in shooters, but Amry of Two the 40th Day by EA Montreal really impressed me. Having played the first Army of Two game I was not looking forward to the sequel, though many of the issues I had with the first game seem to be corrected in the second.

What is wonderful about this series is that it's specifically intended to be played cooperatively, which is a great idea that is rarely implemented by other developers. Army of Two employs a cover system in which each player must work as a unit to defeat the enemy. This system works very well and it really stands out among other two-player shooters in which a two-player experience feels almost slapped on at the end of production. Even if war themed games don't interest you, I would look into Army of Two the 40th Day.

Never Alone

Never Alone is a puzzle platformer by One Up Games. In this story based of Alaskan Folklore, two players control the protagonist, the young Iñupiaq girl, Nuna and her Arctic fox. In some two player experiences it seems like player two is just tagging along, though in Never Alone each of to characters have their own unique abilities that make solving puzzles possible, thus each player contributes to the experience.

This game is not only beautiful, but important, as stories of this nature are not often told. It is definitely worth looking into.

BattleBlock Theater

BattleBlock Theater brought to you by The Behemoth, is a very comedic platformer. Shipwrecked on a strange island and imprisoned by the most adorable cats, you and up to four friends must survive the deadly performance the cats have planned for you and rescue your dear friend Hatty Hattington. BattleBlock Theater has an absolutely beautiful design.

It's colorful, looking cluttered or too vibrant, and every puzzle rewards with hilarious jokes. This game is best appreciated with another player, so I really don't recommend you play this game by yourself.

Octodad and Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Octodad by Panic Button Games is absolutely brilliant. In Octodad the player controls the protagonist through seemingly menial tasks while trying to keep the fact that he is actually an octopus a secret. This becomes very difficult given is eight very awkward and carefree octopus legs. In co-op mode, up to four players can control a set of Octodad's legs, which is the equilvalent of turning the difficulty setting to insanity.

While I haven't played Octodad with four people, I have played two-player which was hilariously great. The humor in this game is wonderful, and it's even better to share the experience with friends.

What about you? What are your favorite co-op experiences? 

In an exciting move, Xbox One announced a list of 65 indie companies they are working with to create games for the recently released platform. The Behemoth is one of them. Unfortunately, that's literally all we know for now. 

Seriously guys? Not even a hint?

Yep, Seriously.

All we know is that they've been tapped to work on a game for Xbox One. 

Short and sweet: We're on the list of devs working on some secret something or other for #XboxOne ;) http://t.co/NLLfsk5kE7

— The Behemoth (@thebehemoth) February 27, 2014

Which (of course) means it's time to ask:

What do you think the latest genius game from The Behemoth will be? 

Bear in mind, these are the developers that brought us Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theater. 

So far, their Twitter followers and I are totally on the same page. 

@thebehemoth something called castle crashers 2 pretty please?

— Eric Arraché (@kowabanga) February 27, 2014

Spill and speculate! What do you want to see next? 

I was involved with the BattleBlock Theater beta. Unfortunately, due to a particularly grueling work schedule I had somewhere in the area of 45 minutes to play it. Needless to say I was underwhelmed.  Weeks later it released and on a stroke of boredom I purchased it and started playing co-op only to find that I was wrong.

BattleBlock Theater is made by Behemoth, the same people that brought us one of the best downloadable games in memory, Castle Crashers. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that BattleBlock Theater is fantastic. From the witty script to the misleadingly adorable art style, the game rarely makes a considerable misstep.

**Hatty Hattington and his friends.**

Presentation:

Behemoth brings their signature hand drawn style back for BattleBlock and it has never been better. The animations are adorable and fluent and everything from a simple jump to helping a buddy up a ledge looks great. The game looks flat, yes, but that’s the point; the simplicity of the style only makes the game more charming.

All of the avatar options are a combination of cute and silly, and there are TONS of options. There’s an in-game currency where you can buy new “friends” (which are just customizable heads) with which you can play. They range from stuff like a little crying panda head, to a weird robot with sharp teeth. They’re creative, entertaining and pointless (in a good way).

Speaking of charming, this game is hilarious in a way that makes me embarrassed to call myself an adult (which I rarely do anyway).

Will Stamper, who has worked with Behemoth on previous titles, does an amazing job as The Narrator regardless of the fact that 50% of the jokes in the game are poop related (they’re funny every time). Let me ask you: Have you ever heard a game with a line that is, and I quote DIRECTLY, “He pooped himself to death on his way to the bathroom”? I’ll answer for you: No. It was hilarious. As are the little quips The Narrator says during the levels from stuff like: “You died doing that? Even I could do that,” to the always welcome “OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS!” The dialogue, while sophomoric and ridiculous, is ultra funny.

**All of the spikes... They're terrifying and deadly.**

Gameplay:

BattleBlock really shines with its gameplay. The platforming is tight and responsive, and the difficulty increases gradually so it feels natural. At a certain point it does become very difficult, to the point where it can be mildly agitating, but never flat out frustrating.

You’ll find yourself replaying the same level over and over again to get all of the little green gems that double as the in-game currency. And don’t even talk to me about missing a ball of yarn, which can be traded to your kitty captors for new weapons. On top of that, sometimes the sort of boss of BattleBlock Theater, Hatty Hattington, will toss out a golden hat that nets you an additional 10 green gems – it’s a big deal guys. Every level is truly different and equal parts addicting, difficult and rewarding.

The platforming puzzles gradually ratchet up from simple, to complex and only towards the end of the game do you start to realize how many times you’ve died trying to do the same thing over and over. Fortunately the checkpoints are forgiving, and will almost always put you near your partner while playing co-op (which is where the game truly shines). Every once in awhile you’ll be able to make it through a particularly difficult puzzle without dying and the joy will literally bring you to your feet, unless you’re heartless – you’re not heartless, are you?

The biggest caveat of the game is how easy it is to die. It's not big enough to break the game or anything, but there have been countless times where my co-op partner has accidentally jumped on my head and forced me into pit of death. It's shockingly simple for your "friend" to accidentally kill you, and it kind of gets old after while. 

**The art is equal parts bizarre and awesome.**

Replay Value:

BattleBlock is more or less endless. Yes, the story mode is finite, but there are two modes, and beyond that it always lives online. What’s that? You’re bored of online? Oh, well check out some custom made levels then! Or better yet, make one yourself. There is always something more to do in BattleBlock Theater and this is coming from a guy who so rarely likes multiplayer games that I refuse to buy a game at full price without a single player game longer than 10 hours. BattleBlock pulls off multiplayer in a way that is inoffensive and fun, instead of it being grating and frustrating.

**It's... so beautiful!**

Verdict:

Based on the beta portions I played I wasn't sold on this game. At the end of the day, I loved Castle Crashers so much that I felt like I would be making a mistake if I didn’t give BattleBlock Theater the same chance. I think it’s apparent that I’m really glad that I did.

Have you played BattleBlock Theater? If you haven’t what’s wrong with you? Go buy it! Then tell me what you think of it and maybe I’ll give you an oil change (with that fancy synthetic stuff) and throw in a tire rotation for free!