PS4: Need your suggestions for Local Cooperative Action games

[Man_Over_Game]

The title says it all.

My wife and I like to play games together. However, there's a shortage of games that fit what we both like. She likes to not be tied down, and I like to be challenged. So far, we've only really been able to find the Borderlands series as scratching that itch. Otherwise, we're playing something like Super Mario on another console.

We tried a bit of Diablo 3. While I love it, she didn't like how chaotic combat was, how easy it was to lose your character, or the fact that you're tethered to other local coop players when you play. She said she might try it again, but she can't deal with the CoOp tethering, and she'd have to play it solo, if ever.

We're fine with FPSers, as long as there's more to the gameplay than shooting things. Borderlands, for example, had enough diversity to make it feel like more than just a generic FPSer.

Do you guys have any recommendations?

[Zevox]

About the only thing that comes to mind for me is the Tales games, if you're into JRPGs. I quite liked Berseria, but there's also Zestiria, which seemed good from what I played of it (I got distracted by something else and have yet to go back to it).

Beyond that, well, maybe it's just that my tastes and local co-op games don't overlap often, but I honestly can't think of any that even have the option.

[Antonok]

Have fun with that. The PS4's CPU isn't the best so the tethering in particular is going to be an issue. The only ones I can think that might fit would be Terraria or Portal Knights.

Terraria would be a great fit. Both can go do whatever in the world, and since I believe Expert Mode came out here recently for consoles, it definitely has challenge to it.

Portal Knights is fun, but both players are stuck together on the same island.

[Cespenar]

Dark Souls 3, perhaps? The two-player action brings it very much down to a "regular" difficulty game, in my experience, so it might be enjoyable for both of you.

I'd also second Terraria as well.

[Gray Mage]

Would games like Don't Starve Together or Enter the Gungeon fit the bill as action games? I'm not sure how tethered they are on local PS4, though.

Resident Evil 5 is kind of ok at not being tied down (as long as you're on the same map, however) and the screen splitting is adequate. I've played it as local co-op when I had a PS3. I assume RE6 would also fit that bill. Not sure if they'd be more pure FPS or if you'd consider them as having more to the gameplay, though.

If you have acess to multiple consoles/PC you could branch a little more and be able to play games with cross platform co-op that might fulfill the "not being tied down" requirement a little better.

[Man_Over_Game]

Would games like Don't Starve Together or Enter the Gungeon fit the bill as action games? I'm not sure how tethered they are on local PS4, though.

Resident Evil 5 is kind of ok at not being tied down (as long as you're on the same map, however) and the screen splitting is adequate. I've played it as local co-op when I had a PS3. I assume RE6 would also fit that bill. Not sure if they'd be more pure FPS or if you'd consider them as having more to the gameplay, though.

If you have acess to multiple consoles/PC you could branch a little more and be able to play games with cross platform co-op that might fulfill the "not being tied down" requirement a little better.

I think all of those, but Don't Starve, would probably fit the bill (we aren't huge fans of gritty survival games, too inhibiting). I haven't played or seen much of Enter the Gungeon, but I've heard good things.

I guess the biggest thing is that she wants to avoid a game where the tethering becomes obnoxious. Super Mario Brothers Wii is fine. Diablo 3, with all of its (seemingly) chaotic teleporting on a relatively small field of view, is not.

Resident Evil 6 is definitely a game we're interested in, although I didn't know it had local coop.

[Man_Over_Game]

Have fun with that. The PS4's CPU isn't the best so the tethering in particular is going to be an issue. The only ones I can think that might fit would be Terraria or Portal Knights.

Terraria would be a great fit. Both can go do whatever in the world, and since I believe Expert Mode came out here recently for consoles, it definitely has challenge to it.

Portal Knights is fun, but both players are stuck together on the same island.

I haven't heard of Portal Knights, I'll check it out. Terraria might work, and while I love it, she's extremely picky.

Some minor tethering is fine; but if it ever gets to the point where it gets annoying, it's too much.

[danzibr]

Hmm is Castle Crashers on PS4? Or Scott Pilgrim? They were on the PS3 PSN, maybe PS4 also.

Sonic Mania is solid, but the second player isn’t a huge player, so to speak.

Dungeon Defenders is an alright tower defense/hack and slash hybrid.

I get my PS4 back tomorrow, can check my library.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hmm is Castle Crashers on PS4? Or Scott Pilgrim? They were on the PS3 PSN, maybe PS4 also.

Sonic Mania is solid, but the second player isn’t a huge player, so to speak.

Dungeon Defenders is an alright tower defense/hack and slash hybrid.

I get my PS4 back tomorrow, can check my library.

I'm familiar with all of those.

Castle Crashers is one that she said she wants to play, but...I can't do it again. There was a period of time where it's all my nieces and nephews wanted to play, and...well, playing that game for a year straight kinda kills your soul a little bit.

Scott Pilgrim is fun enough. I've played through it a few times, but it's been long enough to pick up again. She loved the movie, so she might be down.

Sonic Mania is a perfect idea. I don't mind playing sidekick like most people.

Dungeon Defenders...not a terrible idea, thinking about it. Didn't know it was on PS4, I might check it out.

[Battleship789]

Depending on your tolerance for heavily tongue-in-cheek glorifying of 80/90s American action movie heroes, Broforce might be worth a shot.

[Man_Over_Game]

Depending on your tolerance for heavily tongue-in-cheek glorifying of 80/90s American action movie heroes, Broforce might be worth a shot.

I'm familiar with it. It makes for some crazy, stupid fun. Might be something she's interested. She definitely liked Borderlands level of humor.

Just judging by the trend of responses, it really seems like PS4 doesn't have any triple-A Local CoOp games, other than D3 and BL, huh?

[Antonok]

it really seems like PS4 doesn't have any triple-A Local CoOp games, other than D3 and BL, huh?

It's more this generation had a war on local coop games in general. If you had 2 separate consoles, then the list would grow rapidly.

[Olinser]

If you play Mario, invest in a switch and pick up Mario Maker 2 (will actually be released in less than a month).

It can be a lot of fun to invest time making a level and then sitting on the couch watching somebody else play it.

Mario Maker 2 also actually features actual co-op play.

[Anteros]

I'll second Tales of Zestiria for co-op. It has easily the best co-op combat in the entire series after you get the second main character (about 10 hours in). You can do co-op before that as well, but the second player won't be quite as powerful as the main until you get that character.

[Gray Mage]

I think Dynasty Warriors 9 had an update that brought local co-op, so that might be an option (DW8 has the option as well, come to think of it, me and my GF played it some).

A very good game that would fit the challenging part easily but is very restricted on your wife's request of not being tied down is Cuphead. As a mainly boss rush game, you both would be confined to the same screen (most bosses do not have a scroling screen arena anyway) and boss, so she might not enjoy that, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness' sake.

[danzibr]

Dynasty Warriors!

I used to play that with my wife on the PS3. Had some good times, got a new one, new one was super janky. I forget the title. Been several years. Hopefully the new ones are better.

[Wookieetank]

Overcooked, while its not so much an action game, is delightfully hectic in coop and a lot of fun. Its one of the freebies on PS+ this month. And while it is coop, there's a lot of blame that gets thrown around about who messed up what, especially once the kitchen starts catching fire. My wife and I tend to play this after the daughter goes to bed, the swears tend to fly free and fast XD

[Man_Over_Game]

Dynasty Warriors!

I used to play that with my wife on the PS3. Had some good times, got a new one, new one was super janky. I forget the title. Been several years. Hopefully the new ones are better.

Maybe? My wife really isn't into mindless grinding, and that's kind of a staple of the Dynasty Warriors games. I was a big fan of Samurai Warriors, myself, and enjoyed some of the more tactical Dynasty Warriors games.


Overcooked, while its not so much an action game, is delightfully hectic in coop and a lot of fun. Its one of the freebies on PS+ this month. And while it is coop, there's a lot of blame that gets thrown around about who messed up what, especially once the kitchen starts catching fire. My wife and I tend to play this after the daughter goes to bed, the swears tend to fly free and fast XD

I think I've seen this, and it looked like a lot of fun.

[lefty2shoes]

I do mostly co-op games on my consoles. I think my two favorites are Gauntlet and Magicka 2: Learn to Spell. Both highly recommended.

[Brother Oni]

There's Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, a 2d shoot-em-up where the players are the crew of a spaceship. Each player moves their character around the space ship to operate various stations (gun turret, piloting, shields, etc) - the kicker is that there's always more stations than players, so it's often a juggling act of 'Do I operate the shields to keep the ship alive or do I man this turret to kill the enemy?' or 'How far can I manoeuver until the targets move out of the arcs of my gunners?'.

As you progress through, you get new ships with more abilities and different internal layouts, some of which are really awkward to navigate - the next tier ship might have double the firepower, but your gunners have to circumnavigate the whole ship in order to reach the next turret.


With regard to Overcooked, the first game is a nice relaxing challenge, designed for parties and small children. The second one is aimed pretty much at gamers, with the players basically operating like a professional kitchen in terms of communication and division of labour to get anything more than 1-2 stars per level (speaking from experience from working in a takeaway for 7 years).

Trine 2 is another option; this one is a 2d puzzle platformer, with the players taking the role of 1 of 3 characters (fighter, wizard, ranger). Each character has their own abilities and roles (ranger has a grappling hook and ranged attacks, fighter has a shield and primarily melee attacks, wizard can't attack but can make platforms and blocks to stand on) and clearing requires the use of all three roles. If there are less than 3 players, you can switch to the inactive player with a single button press.

[Aluminum Man]

Off the top of my head...

Battle Block Theater
Cuphead
Castle Crashers
Shovel Knight.