There are a ton of free games on Steam, but most of them are really not worth playing. I was surprised to find that there are actually a lot of really great free coop games out there
I played a lot of them in preparation for this list, and I’ve put together a list of 5 that I think are some of the best. There are a lot of options out there, so definitely let me know if I missed any good ones.
With that being said, here are my 5 favorite free coop games on Steam.
5. We Were Here
This is probably one of the most interesting coop games I’ve ever played, but it requires a lot of concentration and teamwork. The basic idea is that you and a friend are trapped inside separate rooms with only a walkie talkie to communicate.
There are different roles that you can select, explorer or librarian. The role of the librarian is to communicate with the explorer and to help them solve puzzles. The explorer needs to give the librarian as much information as possible so they can figure out how to help each other advance to the next room.
It’s such a unique concept that’s one of the best examples of how puzzle coop games should be. Without proper communication and teamwork, you won’t be able to effectively solve the puzzles. We Were Here simply can’t be played with one person alone, so you definitely need to play with a friend.
As an entirely free game with no microtransactions, We Were Here is a great game you should definitely check out.
4. Warframe
Not only is Warframe a great coop game, but it’s one of the best free games available. There is so much content packed into it that you never have to spend any real money if you don’t want to. I haven’t played it extensively, but in the several hours I did play it was insanely fun.
Warframe is an action third person shooter focused on PvE and cooperative gameplay. The entire game is impressively smooth and the combat mechanics feel better than a lot of paid games.
You take control of an advanced weapons system known as a Warframe and use your equipped weapons to take on enemies. Each Warframe has their own powers and there are tons of different weapons to equip.
A while ago they released a new open world map for free, and they continue to add tons of content. Warframe is the type of game that requires a lot of grinding, but that grinding is actually quite enjoyable.
If you go onto the Steam review page, you’ll see people with thousands of hours in the game giving it good ratings.
Warframe is extremely easy to run since it’s so optimized, making all the gameplay really smooth. It’s a really fast paced action game so it definitely won’t bore you at all. I think anyone who gives it a shot will instantly love it, so it’s a great game to play with some friends.
3. Spiral Knights
Spiral Knights is a multiplayer dungeon crawler game that’s been around for quite some time. Since it originally came out in 2011, it looks a bit older than other games on this list, but it’s still a lot of fun.
You start off by creating your character and fighting through all sorts of creative and interesting enemies. Waves of enemies will attack you as you make your way through the levels, and you need to defeat them and figure how to to get to the next area.
The whole game has kind of a cute feel to it but its gameplay can draw you in pretty easily. Once you get past the first few slow levels the intensity starts to ramp up. and it’ll get better the more you play it.
The controls take a little bit to get used to but once you figure them out you won’t have any issues. The game definitely has a unique feel to it and I think it’s pretty fun to play. It doesn’t have a massive player base, but I guarantee it’s a game that’ll be fun with a few friends.
2. Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is such a great game that it’s actually kind of insane that you can get it for free. I purchased this game several years ago for $60, and even then it was worth the money.
It’s one of the most polished and addicting games you can get on Steam, and it has dozens of hours of free content available. You can play the main campaign for free, as well as tons of other events to play in the open world.
Friends can join your Fireteam and compete in PvP or coop events on many different planets and in several different game modes. If you ever run out of free content, there are tons of expansions and DLCs to buy that’ll give you hundreds of more hours of content.
All the weapons in Destiny 2 feel great to use, and it’s an all around high quality and well optimized game. If your computer is able to handle it, I definitely recommend checking it out.
1. Dungeon Defenders 2
Dungeon Defender 2 is an extremely underrated tower defense game. If you’re familiar with Terraria at all, there’s an invasion in it called the Old One’s Army, which is actually a crossover they did with Dungeon Defenders 2.
Besides that crossover, I hadn’t really heard of this game before which kind of surprised me a little bit. The idea of the game is to place defenses and turrets around to prevent enemies from destroying your crystal. There are several different classes you can use that each have their own weapons and defenses, and you can switch between classes during the game.
There was something about it that I instantly loved as soon as I started playing the game. There aren’t many games that grab my attention like that, and I’m normally not a fan of tower defense games, but Dungeon Defenders 2 is extremely fun.
It gets really chaotic and fun the longer you play, and it’s a ton of fun to play with friends. There are the typical microtransactions that you can expect to find in a free game, but it’s not intrusive to your gameplay. The hub area is pretty small, but I really loved exploring it and learning more about the game.
I think the fact that you can fight enemies with weapons as well as use typical tower defense turrets is a cool aspect. The different classes to choose from gives the game another unique element that I think makes it a really good game.
