My main PC is a Ubuntu machine that I use for work (development) and gaming. Over the last several years, PC gaming on Linux has graduated from a long-shot to a nearly commonplace certainty. Games working well, and working for multiplayer are the norm even if some of them need some tinkering – made easy by sites like protondb.com. Even more shocking is that for one of my main gaming groups, they often like to mod games and while I generally resist doing that, in the cases where it was necessary I’ve even managed to get mods working. It’s been so nice to no longer be left out of the cooperative gaming scene, and my husband and I have really enjoyed adding cooperative PC gaming to our console gaming origins.
Note that I don’t really play competitive PC games. So I very rarely have to deal with any anti-cheat situations which I know can trip up Linux players.
There are a lot of great co-op games out there, but this is a list of the ones I’ve personally played, enjoyed, and found to be very stable and playable on Ubuntu.
I’ve sprinkled in a few games that we played on Switch not on PC so I can’t confirm they work on Linux, but if it’s on here it means I liked it enough that made it on the list anyway. I will mention that these were played on Switch so you can check their Linux compatibility yourself.
Without further chitchat, here’s a list of some of my favourite co-op games that I’ve played entirely on Ubuntu (20.04). See Protondb if you need help getting some of these to work (sorry, I don’t provide support!).
This post is a living document that I will continue updating over time. Check back again in the future!
Open-World Survival Crafting
Ark: Survival Evolved
While I was not at all a fan of this game, it still worked well and it’s very popular, so it might scratch someone’s itch. Just not mine.
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Core Keeper
Kind of a top-down 2D Minecraft this is one of my favourite games.
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Green Hell
Punishing jungle survival game in an unforgiving environment.
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Icarus
A very polished sci-fi entry into the genre, Icarus has a truly incredible tech tree to craft your way through.
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Necesse
A retro open world survival crafting game and a colony sim, the graphics are charming and there’s a lot of fun to be had here. Takes some clear inspiration from Minecraft and Terraria.
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Outward
An expansive open-world RPG full of quests, tough combat and some unique mechanics. We played together and again with friends.
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Raft
A friend and I had a great experience playing this game, building a stunning raft and ranting about the shark.
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Valheim
A true “make your own story” game with awesome base building, tough bosses and a fantastic co-op experience.
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Turn-Based RPGs
Baldur’s Gate 3
Impressive in scope and execution, this is a nearly perfect game for fans of D&D or anyone who just loves conversations and turn-based combat.
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Solasta
Released before Baldur’s Gate 3 and unfortunately overshadowed by that game, it nevertheless is a great execution of D&D as a video game.
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Sunderfolk
We played this on the Switch so it’s not something I can confirm works on a Linux PC, but it was such a unique experience I wanted to document it.
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Wasteland 3
This game was my husband’s choice to play together and while the theme was a little grim for me, it was still a really good game with a great story.
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Adventure Games
It Takes Two
One of the best co-op games out there, every ‘level’ is something totally new, the story is great and the gameplay is just so smooth.
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Split Fiction
We played this game on Switch not PC but it was so good, and we both loved it equally, that it had to make the list. It spawned a lot of discussion of our genre preferences.
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Puzzle, Sim & Logistics
Factorio
If you know, you know. This game makes organization nerds break out into sweat.
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Operation: Tango
Very short but campy and asymmetric co-op game. Stylized ‘hacking’ and stealth mechanics makes for some hilarious frantic puzzle solving.
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We Were Here Together
A fun, not-too-long co-op escape-room game. My brother was also playing on Ubuntu – he had some CPU load issues but for me it worked fine.
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RTS
SpellForce 3: Reforced
An extremely enjoyable game that alternates between RTS sections and Action RPG sections. We LOVED this game.
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Action RPGs
Grim Dawn
At the time we played this we were looking for something “like Diablo” and this absolutely didn’t disappoint.
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What do you think? Have you enjoyed any of these games? Do you have any recommendations based on the types of games I’ve been enjoying? Let me know in the comments!
The other two games from It Takes Two developer — A Way Out from before and Split Fiction from just a couple of months ago — should also be included. Not sure how well they run on Linux, though.
We did play A Way Out – it worked well on my Linux machine (I had the free friend pass), but that was after I wrote this post + we were mad about the the ending so I can’t recommend it. It was a fun game though & well executed.
Split-Fiction is a game we’re *very* keen on & it’s on my Steam and Nintendo wish lists…. but haven’t played it yet.
Hazelight is really solid. 😁