Best Local Co-op Games for PS5 & PS4

Why it's here: A co-op adventure with the solo button removed: two players, one split screen, a new toy every level as it vaults from sci-fi to fantasy, and only one of you needs to buy it. The studio pours its whole craft into the playing-together; whether the story between the set-pieces keeps up is the one thing worth checking.

Why it's here: A co-op platformer engineered so it cannot be played alone: the screen stays split for both halves, and every chapter hands the pair an entirely new toy, magnetism, time, a hoverboard, so the trick never repeats. It's the Game of the Year built for two on one couch, and one copy covers both via Friend's Pass. What holds all that invention back is the one thing left to settle.

Why it's here: A prison-break crime drama that never leaves split-screen: two players are on screen at once, often pulling separate jobs in the same room, so neither is a passenger. Built for a pair who'd rather share one cinematic evening than grind. Only one buys it, the other rides the Friend Pass. Whether that single tethered run is enough is what the detail page is there to answer.

Why it's here: A cooking line where the kitchen itself is the enemy: floors slide apart, recipes stack faster than four pairs of hands can chop, and the disaster is always your own doing. Built for a couch that wants to fall apart laughing together, with an assist mode for mixed-age tables. Whether the escalating chaos bonds the room or breaks it is the question worth opening.

Why it's here: A side-scrolling brawler that lifts the look and feel straight from the 1987 cartoon, then puts up to four turtles on one screen at once and scales the Foot Clan to match the sofa. Built for a packed living room that wants short, loud sessions, not a solo grind. Whether the brevity that makes it a perfect party night also undercuts it is the open question.

Why it's here: A hand-drawn 2D platformer where dying is barely a setback: a fallen player floats up as a balloon, and any teammate can punch them back into the run. Up to four share one screen, drop in and out at will, and ride into music levels that turn whole stages into rhythm. Built for a mixed-age room with a couch and one TV, though sharing that single screen is exactly where the harmony can fray.

Why it's here: A 3D platformer from the LittleBigPlanet line that quietly rewrites itself for a full sofa: drop-in couch co-op for up to four, and a thread of levels you literally cannot clear alone, built on throwing teammates onto ledges and yanking cords in tandem. Rated E, pitched at a mixed-age room. Whether those co-op-only stages are the draw or a leash depends on who's holding the second controller.

Why it's here: A puzzle-platformer where the controls are deliberately the punchline: each player steers a wobbly, jelly-limbed humanoid that can barely grip a ledge, and the second body on the couch turns every climb and lever into a two-person comedy of errors. Built for a patient pair sharing a screen who'd rather laugh than win cleanly. Whether that floppiness reads as the joke or the frustration depends on the pair.

Why it's here: The one to load when a couch pair wants to be tested, not soothed. A hand-drawn 1930s boss-rush that makes a second player a liability as much as a lifeline, bosses gain health, the screen floods, and a downed partner has to be parried back mid-fight. Whether two hands lower the wall or raise it is the point.

Why it's here: A pocket-sized action-RPG where a second cat drops in the moment a friend grabs a pad, no separate save, no setup, just two pirates loose in the Purribean archipelago. Built E10+ breezy for a veteran-and-newcomer pairing rather than a reflex test. The catch is what you trade for that ease, and whether it lasts long enough to matter.

Why it's here: A whole farm, shared. Up to four players split one screen and one calendar, so the day ends only when everyone agrees to sleep, one mining while another waters, all chasing the same season. The catch is the togetherness: nobody here keeps their own pace. Whether that bonds the couch or chafes is what the detail page digs into.

Why it's here: All nine Skywalker films folded into one open LEGO galaxy with 300-plus playable characters, built so a second player can drop in or out mid-mission with no online account and no setup. It is the easiest "Star Wars, together" handoff on this list for a parent and a young child sharing one couch. Whether that ease survives what local co-op does to the screen is the catch worth weighing.

Why it's here: The genre-defining sandbox with a quietly rare trick on this list: up to four players share one PS5 in offline split-screen, second through fourth joining as guests with no extra PSN accounts to set up. Built for a mixed-age room where a parent and a six-year-old can dig the same hole, though sitting four to a couch asks something of the screen itself, which the detail page settles.

Why it's here: A physics sandbox with no goal but wreckage: four players hold Square to drop in mid-mayhem, headbutt and lick San Angora into ruin, then turn on each other across seven mini-games. Built for a couch crowd that wants chaos over rules, T-rated and split-screen-native. Whether pointlessness is the joke or the ceiling is the call to make.

Why it's here: Less a game than a horror night with a scoreboard: pass one controller around a room of up to eight, each steering a counselor whose choices quietly decide who lives. The only grown-ups-only pick on the list. How much you actually do between the scares is what splits the room, and the reason to read on.