One of the best things in life is sharing your hobbies with friends. And wouldn’t you know, video games are a very shareable hobby!
Whether you play locally, sharing floor, snacks, and arguing about controllers, or online because of unfavorable arrangement of space-time continuum, gaming can be a great hobby to enjoy in a group. Exciting action games, shared stories, solving puzzles together, or just goofing around with engaging systems, it’s all available to you!
| Game | Release | Genre | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Grand Theft Auto V Premium Online Edition | 2015-04-14 | Adventure | Rockstar North |
 | Minecraft | 2011-11-18 | Action | Mojang Studios |
 | Halo: The Master Chief Collection | 2014-11-11 | Action & Shooter | 343 Industries |
 | Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition | 2017-09-14 | Adventure | Larian Studios |
 | Red Dead Redemption 2 | 2018-10-26 | Action | Rockstar Games |
 | Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Series X/S, Windows 10) | 2021-11-09 | Racing | Playground Games |
 | Forza Horizon | 2018-10-02 | Racing | Playground Games |
 | Monster Hunter World | 2018-01-26 | Action | Capcom |
 | Rocket League | 2015-07-07 | Indie | Psyonix |
 | It Takes Two (Xbox Series X) | 2021-03-26 | Action & Adventure | Hazelight Studios |
 | Ark Survival Evolved | 2017-08-29 | Adventure | Studio Wildcard |
Minecraft
| Release date: | 2011-11-18 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Mojang Studios |
Minecraft is an absolute must on a list like these, right?
There can’t be a collection of fantastic multiplayer games without Minecraft featuring on it, so let’s just deal with it right now. Minecraft is as solo and as multiplayer as you want it to be. The Bedrock version available on Xbox One can handle up to 4 players in split-screen, and up to 8 online.
MC comes in two main modes. One is Creative, which gives you instant access to all materials and the freedom to move around just building stuff together. The other is Survival mode, which makes you work for every scrap of material you need. It’s a great option, if you want to share a more focused gameplay in addition to a wildly flexible creative sandbox experience.
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Halo: the Master Chief Collection
| Release date: | 2020-11-17 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | 343 Industries |
Ah, Halo. The game which has sold so many Xboxes back in the day.
The series, which has continued to sell them for 20 years, in fact. Whether you want to relive the classic glory days, or see where the whole buzz comes from, consider Halo: The Master Chief Collection. It contains Halos from the original (but remastered) to Halo 4, with the Reach and ODST side games included.
Years later, Halo games remain some of the top-tier first-person shooters out there, and there is a reason people love the vehicles, too. The Master Chief Collection handles up to 2 players in local co-op or 4 online for co-op modes, but there’s also a larger PvP multiplayer if you’d love to get more human targets on the map. Which is fair, when it comes to FPS multiplayer, the more the better.
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Divinity: Original Sin 2
| Release date: | 2017-09-14 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Larian Studios |
If instead of blocky survival or intense firefights, you’d rather get something story-driven and turn-based, turn your gaze to Divinity: Original Sin 2.
DOS2 is a fantastic role-playing game from Larian Studios, and not only does it have excellent gameplay, it also has serious multiplayer chops, handling up to 4 players in co-op, but they don’t need to work together, antagonisms are encouraged!
DOS features very flexible mechanics, thanks to which you can find powerful, useful, or just fun interactions between any combination of abilities, environment, and items at your disposal. There are several schools of magic, a few martial skills, and you’re free to mix and match them to your liking, because outside of the starting load-outs, the game is classless, you define your heroes.
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Red Dead Redemption 2
| Release date: | 2019-11-05 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Rockstar Games |
The Red Dead Redemption games are some of the finest Old West-themed games to ever grace gaming platforms.
The large, vivid open worlds helped millions of players live out their western-movie fantasies as a noble-hearted outlaw struggling to do the right thing at the onset of the modern age. The only thing lacking was the ability to have your own posse. Until Red Dead Online.
RDO was unlocked sometime after its prerequisite, RDR2, and it delivered something fantastic. The ability to create your own outlaw, to party up with your friends to survive out in the wilderness or cause some mischief in town, it’s fantastic. There are many subsystems and a hefty bag of premade content, but you could also just roleplay being a down-on-their-luck group of friends.
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Forza Horizon 4
| Release date: | 2018-10-02 |
| Genre: | Racing |
| Developer: | Playground Games |
Forza Horizon 4 sadly doesn’t feature a split-screen on Xbox One, which is a bummer for a racing game, but it nevertheless allows up to six players to team up online to experience the game’s expansive content together or just realize their need for speed in one of the game’s many events.
Better yet, a FH4 server can hold up to 72 players, which is quite a decent population.
The map of Forza Horizon 4 is a best-of compilation of locations and tracks from Great Britain, all ripe for free exploration and full of dedicated events to take part in. The game offers hundreds of cars from various manufacturers, and not all of them are the usual sports cars, either. There are even some buggies, normal city cars, and some retro pieces, too. Plenty to choose from.
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Monster Hunter World
| Release date: | 2018-01-26 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Developer: | Capcom |
Monster Hunter: World is perfectly playable solo.
It can be quite pleasant, in fact, if before a big hunt, you take your time to walk around, observe the wildlife, and chill. The hunts themselves are fun solo too. However, a Greatsword user and a Hammer user playing polo with a monster’s face, while a Hunting Horn player buffs them up to a silly degree? Perfection, fun, excitement!
The party size in MHW is four players, with nothing like class restrictions, so you could run four Longswords if you wanted to, optimization is damned. The game even adjusts the difficulty, so while things will likely be easier in some aspects, you don’t need to worry it’s going to be anything near a cakewalk. Sadly, accessing MHW multiplayer isn’t the most straightforward in the…world.
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Rocket League
| Release date: | 2015-07-07 |
| Genre: | Indie |
| Developer: | Psyonix |
Rocket League is one of the most fun, easily accessible games out there, perfect for a quick round with friends, or a riotously entertaining gaming evening.
The game started as, basically, soccer with jet-powered cars instead of humans, but has since received more modes, including hockey and basketball-inspired ones, as well as an easy way to make custom games.
Rocket League matches are very short, only about 5 minutes, but also very intense and chaotic in the best way possible. The game supports both local and online multiplayer, with up to 4 people in split-screen. You can go from 1v1 up to 4v4 against AI or another team online, and truly, with 8 cars flying and zooming all around the field the game looks, feels, and plays amazingly.
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It Takes Two
| Release date: | 2021-03-26 |
| Genre: | Co-op |
| Developer: | Hazelight Studios |
You can’t play It Takes Two alone. Not because it’s scary, it isn’t, although some things are emotionally devastating.
No, ITT can’t be played solo, because its ingenious design relies on two people playing together to overcome complex obstacles. As May and Cody, two parents-turned-tiny dolls you’ll experience a magical adventure in your own house and save your marriage.
Although May and Cody have some basic abilities baked in, they get a whole new set of them with every new region of the house they visit, and they tend to fundamentally change how the game is played. One moment you have magnets strapped to your back to play with physics, another time you play a gardener. It’s incredibly, meaningfully diverse, but you need your Player 2.
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Ark: Survival Evolved
| Release date: | 2017-08-29 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Studio Wildcard |
Remember how we started the list with Minecraft and mentioned its survival aspect?
Well, it’s the key element in ARK: Survival Evolved, so much so that it’s part of the title! The premise is relatively simple: you wake up on a shore of a strange land with a cybernetic implant in your hand. Good luck crafting your way to survival. Also: dinosaurs and fantastical beasts are here.
A wonderful aspect of ARK is that many of the creatures you encounter can be tamed and used as guards for your base, mounts, and some are large enough for you to build something on their backs! When you play ARK in Xbox One you can enjoy a 2-player split-screen, but up to 4 people can play together online. If you’d like to ride dinos to shoot dragons with lasers, ARK is your game.
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Rainbow Six Siege
| Release date: | 2015-12-01 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Ubisoft Montreal |
Rainbow Six: Siege is a tense, fact-paced team-PvP game about skilled operators fighting in tight quarters.
It’s also pretty much a hero shooter, with good team composition and tight teamwork are extremely important. A usual match involved one team barricading or defending a location, and the other team trying to break through, hence the “Siege” part of the title.
On top of hero-action, the maps are very destructible, which opens up many interesting tactical options. Perhaps your enemies demolished a wall, so now you have to put up a temporary barrier. Maybe you can spy through a bullet hole in the door or wreck the floor under someone. It’s a great experience if you dig tense shooters, and it supports 5-player online co-op.
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This concludes our brief list of Xbox One games which not only are great in their own right, but also features excellent multiplayer to enjoy with your friends. Hopefully, you found something to your liking!