The Holidays present a great opportunity to share your hobbies and interests with those you love, but sometimes it’s best to keep them to yourself. While local multiplayer is mostly a thing of the past, the occasional release will still have it as an option, and it’s a ton of fun. Here are the 10 best local multiplayer games to play during the holidays if you never want to be allowed to host again.
Mario Party Superstars
Mario Party is the party game of choice for many, and for good reason. Few other games allow you to be such an jerk to your friends and family while pretending to be oblivious to your actions. If at least one person isn’t dead by the end of the game, you’ll certainly wish they were.
Diablo 4
Diablo 4 seems like a good choice at first, but you’ll be regretting your decision when your little brother accidentally buys the battle pass with your credit card and you get in trouble for yelling at him about it.
Mortal Kombat 1
Timmy is going to throw a tantrum when you tell him you have “Mortal Kombat 1” and then he sees an arcade cabinet from 1992.
Pistol Dueling
It doesn’t even need to be formal. just grab an old-timey pistol and start blasting.
Wii Sports
Wii Sports is still great fun, even all these years later. The controls are intuitive enough that the whole family can play, and everyone knows the rules of bowling. The fun never stops, until your six year old cousin puts a hole in the television because he forgot to use the wrist strap.
Overcooked! All You Can Eat
Overcooked is chaos in the best way. Every map is its own unique breed of evil, and you never know what you’re going to run into next. One moment you’re making salads in a hot air balloon on fire, the next you’ve crashed into a sushi restaurant and need to switch gears rapidly. And yes, it is your fault you lost there. Should’ve chopped more lettuce.
Quiplash
Quiplash is a great time, until your mom walks in the room when the prompt is overtly sexual and both answers are dick jokes. it’s fun with friends, but it just isn’t the same when you aren’t allowed to say any curse words.
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Ultimate Chicken Horse tasks players with creating a 2D platformer level that they can beat, but their friends can’t. Rewarding both technical skill as well as creative placement of hazards, it’s a perfect party game for all of your gamer friends. Your family are not gamers, however, so you will win every round and then feel bad you suggested it.
Resident Evil 6
The story is so disjointed that nobody in your family will be able to follow it, so they’ll just quietly leave while you die in the same encounter over and over.
Cuphead
Several controllers will be broken. There will be yelling. You will be blamed for dying despite almost beating the entire boss solo, and screamed at for not reviving your teammate despite its physical impossibility. Somebody will be thrown out the window. Hopefully it isn’t you.
Monopoly
The best games of Monopoly end in bitter heartbreak, with each player controlling an entire side of the board each after a series of increasingly uneven trades. Just when you think you’re in the clear you’ll roll the dice just wrong and lose everything in an instant, much to everyone else’s amusement. Monopoly reveals what you already knew about your family, which is that every member values victory above all else, yourself included.
