14 Best Online Games to Play With The Boys

If your multiplayer gaming sessions are getting stale, we’ve got you covered. With a near-endless selection of online games and blockbuster titles vying for your attention, the task of choosing what games to play can feel a bit overwhelming, but when your status in the friend group is up for debate, the stakes are even higher.

For some, the idea of playing alone might sound like the perfect escape from the rigours of day-to-day life, but for most of us, a truly immersive gaming experience is better enjoyed with friends. Whether you are looking for a chilled-out campaign that allows you to chat and play along without too much stress, or an excellent multiplayer mode that demands all your attention, there will be a fun online game to suit your needs.

While we could have easily kept listing all our favourite video games to play with friends, we did our best to keep the list a bit more manaegable. This list will be updated as new games come out and prove themselves, so keep your eyes peeled! These are the best multiplayer video games that you and your friends should play right now.

Best Games to Play with Friends

Whether you’re looking for free-to-play games to kill some time or a new virtual life to lose yourself in for 100 hours, you’ll find it with one of these online multiplayer games. To choose the best games to play with friends, we focused on gameplay and mechanics, difficulty, campaign length and replayability, taking into consideration each title’s visual storytelling and multiplayer features.

1. Apex Legends

• Genre: Battle-Royale Hero Shooter
• Platforms: Windows (Steam), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One
• Players: 1-3
• Price: Free to play

It’s been out for a while at this point, but Apex Legends is still one of the best hero shooters you can get your grubby little hands on these days. Offering a whole lot for the very fair price of free*, Apex takes several of the tried and true concepts of the wildly successful battle royale genre, mixes it with the gunplay and movement of developer Respawn’s prior series, Titanfall, and adds in a hero-based roster of 25 characters: each of which have their own individual playstyles and niches within the game’s meta.

Depending on which character you choose, you’ll be reversing the flow of gravity around you, teleporting through space to reach locations unseen or unexpected, overheating your enemies weapons as they try to shoot you down, or shielding your teammates from danger. Or a whole bunch of other things: each character has three abilities, meaning a team will have access to nine at a time, and, across the 60-player maps, there’s always someone doing something cool.

If that sounds complicated: know that while there’s a lot to learn, Apex is actually one of the more easily parsed competitive shooters on the market, and thankfully has managed to cultivate a healthy, and supportive, player base—a rarity these days, if we’re being honest. Ask for help and you shall (hopefully) receive!

2. Dune: Awakening

• Genre: Survival MMO
• Platforms: Steam (Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1-40
• Price: AUD$74.95

Definitely a game we at Man of Many were keen to jump into, Dune: Awakening finally launched into early access in June and, by all accounts, is a very solid addition to the wildly-addictive survival genre. The addition of Arrakis as an explorable, incredibly hostile environment is a stroke of genius, putting you (and your buddies) in a life-or-death dance with the scorching desert heat.

In the early game, you’ll be aiming to survive as best you can while also avoiding the infamous Sand Worms, but as you move deeper into Awakening you’ll begin amassing your own power, potentially joining one of the great houses, and gain some political sway over the direction of Arrakis. Or, you can land your Ornithopter onto new players heads, killing them instantly—whatever floats your boat.

There are a few classes you can choose for your survivor, but you’re never locked into a particular approach: far from it, the game pushes you to master both ranged and melee combat, as well as dive a bit into each system to improve your chances of survival. Playing with friends can definitely make this easier, as each of you can focus a bit more on specialising into more focused builds, rather than playing as a solo jack-of-all-trades. Also, you can ingest the Spice, which is always a fun time.

3. Elden Ring Nightreign

• Genre: Rogue-like Souls Action
• Platforms: Steam (Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1 or 3
• Price: AUD$54.95

If you’ve bounced off of Dark Souls-maker From Software’s games before, Elden Ring Nightreign may be a smoother entry point. Rather than heading into a cold, desolate and unforgiving world alone, in Nightreign you can do it with two of your friends, and with a built-in way of reviving downed team-mates you’re less likely to get frustrated at the series’ characteristic difficulty.

This isn’t just Elden Ring with friends, though. Rather than being dropped into a world you’re meant to take your time to explore and understand, here you’re literally dropped into a reflection of the original games’ world and are effectively given a time limit of three in-world days to survive, power up, and take down your target Nightlord. Whether you (and your team) live or die, at the end of a run you’re whisked back to the Roundtable Hold to prepare for your next incursion into Limveld.

You can practice each characters specific playstyle, as well as try out all the potential weapon drops you could find in the open world so that when that Moonveil finally appears you’re ready to rock and roll. The game is very difficult for solo players, though, so best to bring some buddies.

4. Enshrouded

• Genre: Survival
• Platforms: Steam (Windows)
• Players: 1 – 16
• Price: AU$42.99

If you’re like me and sunk a few hundred hours into Valheim (yes, really), you’re probably already well aware of this one, but for those of you who aren’t in the know, let me break it down. Enshrouded is a third-person survival crafting game set in a fantasy world called Embervale, where you (and up to 15 friends) explore the world with the goal of gearing up before diving into swathes of the map that are covered in magical and oppressive fog.

You’ll spend a lot of time out of the fog, but when you enter it you’ll start running into more dangerous foes, but likewise find better rewards. Together, you may just be able to get out alive to return to your base, regroup, and build out your operations.

You can certainly play games like this alone, but it becomes a bit easier when you have multiple players taking on different aspects of the game at once. For example, my friends love being in charge of building up our base and coming up with fun new designs, whereas I prefer to take care of farming and alchemy. Additionally, with a fairly flexible class system, we can each build out our own characters to support one another.

It’s still in Early Access, like a few other games on this list, but it’s already had a massive content drop in the form of the northern mountains. The update brought on a whole new biome, as well as a new boss, a new tier of weapons and armour, new mechanics, and an expanded farming system. It’s a big change, and it’s only made the game better (in my eyes, at least).

5. Fortnite

• Genre: Battle Royale
• Platforms: Epic Store (Windows), Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S/One
• Players: 1 – 4
• Price: Free to play

Fortnite is an interesting game because not only is it incredibly popular, but it’s also evolving beyond just being a battle royale murder simulator. You can go to concerts in Fortnite now, race cars, or play a survival game as a Lego figure. There’s even a Counter-Strike-esque first-person shooter attached to the game now called Fortnite Ballistic that has essentially changed the game entirely.

Despite getting weirder with every new season (which tends to last around three months each), Fortnite remains one of the most popular games to play online due to its tried-and-tested formula. The basic act of dropping out of the battle bus, scavenging for weapons, and teaming up with your friends is a lot of fun, whether it be in the ‘modern’ playlist or in the ‘OG’ recreation of season one.

There’s a lot to talk about with Fortnite, and honestly, we just don’t have the time. Compared to other games of its ilk, Fortnite’s main difference from its competition is that you can build defensive structures almost instantly, provided you have the resources. There is also a zero-build mode if, like us, you’d rather just scope out the competition mano-a-mano. Or, if you’re like me specifically, you can let your teammates do most of the killing while you hide in a bush. 

6. Mario Kart World

• Genre: Kart Racer
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2
• Players: 1-24
• Price: AUD$109.95

Not only the lead launch title for the Nintendo Switch 2, Mario Kart World is also just one of the most fun games to have dropped in 2025, period. If you’ve played a Mario Kart game you probably know what you’re getting into, but zipping around Peaches Castle in glorious 4K60fps is a sight to behold – especially when you’re doing it as a cow.

Arguably World’s biggest addition to the series is a new free-roam mode, made possible by the fact that the entire ‘world’ is now playable. Gone are the days in which each track is rendered out as its own little pocket dimension, in World, it’s all one giant thing, and you can drive over the fields and deserts between the mainline tracks if you want to. You can even explore it in co-op, provided you’re all bringing your own Switch to the party: there’s no couch co-op for free roam.

There is plenty of couch co-op in the more traditional Grand Prix, VS Mode and Battle Modes, though, which allow you to and your buddies to combine Super Smash Bros. and Robot Wars into some unholy but still incredibly enjoyable abomination. Until a new Super Smash Bros. or Splatoon arrives, Mario Kart World is the Switch 2’s premiere multiplayer title.

7. Marvel Rivals

• Genre: Hero Shooter
• Platforms: Steam (Windows), Epic Store (Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1 – 5
• Price: Free to play

In the lead-up to its release, Marvel Rivals was called a lot of things: an Overwatch rip-off, just another big-budget trend-chasing shooter conceived of in a board room, doomed to follow Concord‘s lead and be dead on arrival. A few months after launch, though, it seems to have silenced the haters.

Admittedly, this online multiplayer title does play very similarly to Overwatch, in that you pick a (super)hero and engage in a team-based deathmatch. The game is played entirely from a third-person perspective, though, and defaults to a 6v6 fight, rather than 5v5. Plus, you’re playing as your favourite superheroes and villains from Marvel’s varied comic-and-movie empire: Iron Man, Wolverine, Spiderman, Venom, Magneto, Loki, and the rest of the gang are all here, and all fill the necessary roles of Duelist, Strategist and Vanguard.

In fact, perhaps the game’s biggest difficulty curve is that it has launched with 33 different heroes to choose from, making it difficult for newer players to know where to start. Hero shooter veterans might have an easier time, but suffice to say, there’s a lot of choice and with some good coordination, you can pull off some pretty awesome combos.

Best of all, Marvel Rivals is a free online game to play with friends, and that usually means microtransactions are pretty egregious. That’s true here, but you can also just not spend any more money and enjoy the fun gameplay, rather than needing new costumes. I know, I’m not even fooling myself.

8. Monster Hunter Wilds

• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: Steam (Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1-4
• Price: AUD$104.95

Following up on the wildly successful Monster Hunter World released in 2018, Wilds further streamlines the Monster Hunter formula, while expanding the ‘open world’ part of the series to new heights. You play as a Monster Hunter (duh), a warrior-for-hire, employed by the Hunter’s Guild, faced with the task of protecting the various villages and towns about the world from the often rampaging beasts of the wild. Sometimes that’s as simple as driving a particularly angry giant chicken away from civilisation, but sometimes it involves essentially fighting the monster equivalent of a raging tornado, or a volcanic eruption.

It’s all possible alone–here more than in earlier entries, with Wilds significantly easier than World or Rise that came before it—but its definitely more fun with friends.

Capcom made an effort to make co-op play more streamlined in Wilds, but the series’ characteristic multiplayer jank still exists. There are about three different ways you can party up with your friends – and if you want to play through the story together it’s not going to be a smooth ride. My advice would be to try to do story quests together where possible, and then take a break with some open-world hunting together to get the full experience.

9. Path of Exile 2

• Genre: Action RPG
• Platforms: Steam (Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1-6
• Price: AUD$46 for Early Access, but will be Free to Play on release

This one is for all the jaded Diablo fans out there who have been left wanting by the last few decades of Blizzard games. Path of Exile was already well known as a fantastic alternative demon-slaying ARPG, but with the recent launch of its sequel the series has shown off what it’s really capable of. And it’s capable of a lot.

The game is still in early access, so expect more to come, but for now you’ll get access to six fully fleshed-out classes: the crossbow-wielding Mercenary, pet summoning Witch, elemental archer Ranger, ki-powered Monk, martial powerhouse Warrior, and arcane adept Sorceress.

Each of those classes gets access to an absolutely massive skill tree that gives me nightmares and can be further ascended into a more focused subclass a bit further into the game. Everyone who complained that Diablo III and IV failed on the skills front should be salivating at this game—and that’s just the character customisation. There’s a whole dark fantasy world out there to explore, along with five of your friends, and plenty of whoop-ass to unleash on the nightmarish creatures of Wraeclast.

10. Returnal

• Genre: Roguelike, Third-Person Shooter
• Platforms: Windows (Steam), PlayStation 5
• Players: 1-2
• Price: AUD$94.95

One of the best games available on the PlayStation 5, Housemarque’s Returnal is a fantastic pick for a co-op campaign. It’s a bit more focused on story than some of the other games on this list, but it’s focus on mystery and revelations will keep you and a buddy coming back for more.

In Returnal, you play as Selene Vassos, an astronaut who becomes trapped in a time loop while exploring a mysterious planet. This planet is home to myriad monstrous creatures and alien biomes that shift and reset each time you die, with the time loop helping to explain Vassos’ death, return, and continued exploration of the procedurally-generated world repeatedly.

While the story of the game is definitely set up for one player, Returnal‘s Ascendancy update brought on the ability for two players to dive into the game together online, which certainly makes the repeated exploration and deaths more fun. It borrows from the ever-stressful bullet-hell genre, so expect to see a lot of bullets on the screen at once – all of which you’ll need to avoid in order to figure out just what the hell is happening here.

11. RuneScape: Dragonwilds

• Genre: Survival crafting
• Platforms: Windows (Steam)
• Players: 1-4
• Price: AUD$43.95

Another fantasy-based survival crafting game, you ask? Yeah, it’s becoming a pretty crowded genre, even on this list, but RuneScape: Dragonwilds avoids feeling like another cash-grab thanks to its reliance on a world that a lot of gamers are already very well acquainted with—as well as some new tricks to make some of the genre’s most time-consuming actions a bit easier.

Dragonwilds takes place on the forgotten continent of Ashenfall—a new yet long-lost land set in the broader world of Gielinor—which was thought permanently lost to the Dragon Queen. You, and a few of your friends, will make your way to this wild and untamed part of the world and attempt to create a foothold in a place where the natives really don’t want you to be. Effectively, everything wants to kill you.

But you’ve got some tricks up your sleeves. The more you level each of your individual skills, such as woodcutting, cooking, construction, and runecrafting, the more you learn how to use them to more effectively to survive. A favourite of mine is ‘Axtral Projection’, where you imbue your tree-felling axe with runes to magically spin it through the air and buzzsaw trees to the ground.

Is it environmentally friendly? No, not really, but damn is it satisfying.

12. Split Fiction

• Genre: Action adventure, platformer
• Platforms: Windows (Steam)., PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 2
• Price: AUD$69.95

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like if you and your friend got sucked into a series of ever-more weird and wacky worlds, based off of sci-fi and fantasy stories you and that friend have written, and had to figure out how to escape? No? Too niche?

Split Fiction is exactly that, following sci-fi author Mio and fantasy author Zoe as they make their way through simulations of the worlds they’ve created. The game is made from the ground up for co-op multiplayer, either or online, so you cannot play this one alone and will need to bring a friend along.

What it lacks in a single-player mode, though, Split Fiction more than delivers in gameplay variety. While each level will effectively play like a 3D platformer, you’ll be doing very different things in each: flying dragons in one, grappling through a techno city in another. It changes so often that it feels like multiple games in one, which is definitely a good thing.

13. Stardew Valley

• Genre: Farming Simulator
• Platforms: Literally everything
• Players: 1-8
• Price: AUD$16.99

Easily one of the most successful indie games ever made, Stardew Valley puts you in charge of your late grandfather’s long-neglected farm plot, and gives you free reign as to what you decide to do with it. Want to turn it into a functioning apple orchid? Do it. Prefer to raise cattle? Okay, go for it. Intend on turning it into a winery? Plant some grapes, grab some casks, and get cracking.

Theres a lot more in the game than just farming, though. You can delve into the mines below Stardew Valley to extract valuable minerals and weapons, or can spend your time getting to know the locals. You can decide to befriend the local fisherman and get really into how best to catch every fish in town, or focus entirely on making your home cosiest place imaginable.

And if that wasn’t enough, you can do it with up to 7 of your friends, finally allowing you and your buds to live out your ‘what if we all lived together’ dreams. If this game is your jam, you’re going to easily lose hundreds of hours here, so tread lightly.

14. Valheim

• Genre: Survival Crafting
• Platforms: Windows, Mac (Steam), Xbox Ones, Xbox Series X/S
• Players: 1-10
• Price: AUD$30

When Valheim dropped in 2021, it surprised many players with how robust an experience it offered while still in early access. Fast-forward to this year, and the game is still in early access, but it has been improved and expanded immensely.

The game sees you take on the role of a Viking exploring the purgatorial realm of Valheim for Odin, who has tasked you (and your friends) with defeating creatures across the game’s hostile biomes. You’ll need to survive the wilderness, gather ingredients to build a homestead, and forge new weapons and equipment to help you enter more deadly regions – which, of course, offer better materials for crafting. It’s the tried-and-true survival game formula, but executed incredibly well.

Plus, even though the game doesn’t push the most photorealistic graphics known to man, it’s pretty and deeply atmospheric. The first time you attempt to circumnavigate an island using a rickety raft, it begins raining, and you see some movement in the water, you’ll probably think you’re playing a survival horror game. It really does feel like an immersive experience, which can be fantastic when you ar looking for good games to play with friends.

Make no mistake, Valheim can be punishing, but if you master its systems and remember to keep your shield up, you’ll be clearing out new islands in no time.