There are so many good reasons to play video games with your family. From just having a great time with invading relatives, to bonding with your children, it’s a boundary-breaking, age-gap traversing activity. Also, it’s an excellent way to fill up the aching stretch of endless Sundays in the back half of December. So to help you with that, we’ve pulled together a selection of games that should entertain any gathering of vaguely associated humans.
Family-friendly games don’t need to be saccharine banality, nor indeed child-only branded shovelware for adults to grimace through. There are top-quality family-friendly games that are as fun for the grown-ups as they are the kids. Sure, the short idiots think they want to play Paw Patrol-labelled nonsense, but we can steer them right.
The following is a selection of games from which you will hopefully find something that meets your specific needs, whether that’s busying super-young kids, or finding something that’ll simultaneously entertain Gram-gram and the teens.
Boomerang Fu
PC, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation
Cutesy kids games can be nauseating, in the way they neuter everything fun or funny for the sake of the poor, precious children. Boomerang Fu does none of this, instead opting for allowing you and your family to brutally slice its anthropomorphized carrots, and spill milk when battling sweetly animated cartons.
For up to six players, this brawling battler takes ridiculously cute foodstuffs, and then has them fling weapons at one another in some very violent food prep. Released in 2020, the game went disappointingly under the radar, despite great reviews. There’s no gore, no unpleasantness, but plenty of cartoon silliness.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Switch
Mario games can often feel like single-player affairs, one to curl up with in the corner of the couch on your own. But 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder combines the precise platforming of legendary series with the multiplayer fun of its previously somewhat looser New Super Mario Bros. titles.
Every level in the vast and fantastic game can be played with up to four local players, each picking a Mario legend like Peach, Toad or Luigi to control. People can drop in and out, meaning it’s the perfect game to leave running on the TV as family comes and goes on a busy day, with everyone working together to collect all the pick-ups in any level, as well as reviving each other should anyone fall.
It Takes Two
PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Switch
It Takes Two is a stunning example of cooperative gaming, where two players play simultaneously in a way that forces them to unify. Playing as a divorcing couple, magically transformed into dolls by their daughter, it’s also a way to open up trickier conversations over your festive break. Or just put the heavy stuff aside and have a brilliant time in this constantly imaginative game.
From director Josef Fares and his team at Hazelight Studios, this is their third co-op outing, following up the wonderful Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and A Way Out, all three games exploring cooperative experiences in unique and fascinating ways. It Takes Two is their best yet, and a splendid way for two people to sit on the same couch and work together. There’s even supposed to be a movie based on the story some time next year.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Switch
OK, sure, you perhaps didn’t need us to tell you this is a great multiplayer game, but if you’re a regular games player, it’s easy to forget this isn’t just for hardcore time trials. Mario Kart games are designed from the ground up to be accommodating to brand new players, with its best-in-show rubberbanding designed to ensure kids and newbies have a chance against experienced players.
Mario Kart 8 recently rolled out its final update, adding yet another eight courses and new characters, meaning it now has an extra 48 tracks over its original release. Might this finally mean we can hope for a new game in the series, after almost ten years since 8’s original Wii U release? Don’t expect it before the new Switch arrives. But this remains one of the best ways of gaming together you can find.
Chariot
PlayStation, Xbox, Wii U, PC, Switch
This one dates back a fair way, to 2014, but still shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s also a great choice if you’re holiday gaming in a home without the latest tech, given it also runs on PS3, Xbox One and Wii U.
This is a two-player co-op (well, you can play it single-player, but it loses its magic), in which—er—you’re dragging around the coffin of a dead king. No, wait, honestly this is family-friendly. One person plays as the king’s daughter, another as her fiancé, and between them they have to drag the physics-based coffin-on-wheels to find it a suitable resting place. It’s all about coordinating, working together to solve puzzles, as you negotiate 25 levels of obstacles, and indeed enemies.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, PC
Traveller’s Tales’ LEGO games have long been at the forefront of family gaming recommendations, but none more so than its most recent, The Skywalker Saga.
TT’s dozens of Lego-based games have had peaks and troughs, but Star Wars has been all peak for it. With Skywalker Saga, the studio took on the extraordinary task of reinterpreting all nine movies in their familiar platforming style, featuring 320 playable characters, light saber combat, and Force powers.
Couch co-op (there’s no online co-op at all, weirdly) lets two players work together, with the advantage that a second person can jump in and out at will.
The Jackbox Party Pack 10
PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Switch
You could pick up pretty much any Jackbox Party Pack and be sure of a good time—10 just happens to be the most recent, released in late 2023.
Each pack contains five different games, which can be played by up to eight local players, all from the minds of the weird people behind You Don’t Know Jack. And if you’re worried that you couldn’t possibly find that many controllers, the good news is everyone can play on their own phone, all via just one copy of the game.
This makes the Jackbox games a perfect solution for a packed house of relatives, letting you compete in increasingly silly games. Of all the packs, 2017’s Jackbox Party Pack 3 tends to be the highest rated, but none is a dud.
As Dusk Falls
Xbox, PlayStation, PC
Aimed at older players (16 and up, really), As Dusk Falls is a co-op game for when the kids have gone to bed. It’s an interactive movie, but…you know, good. Made just last year, what makes this Xbox-published game so interesting is that key decisions can be made by consensus.
Set across a span of time, starting in the 1980s and ending in the early 2010s, this is a tale of the effects of a burglary gone wrong on two families, and its extensive aftermath. It’s all high-action and emotional intrigue. Even more intriguing, when it comes to making pivotal choices, everyone in the room with a smartphone can volunteer their opinion of what to do, with the majority ruling, the rest living with the consequences.
Moving Out 2
PC, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox
There’s no worse call you can receive than being asked if you can help someone move out, so it might seem a risky suggestion of something to simulate with friends. But it’s worth a try with Moving Out 2.
Very Overcooked-adjacent, this teamwork game of trying to get all the furniture out of a house as quickly as possible is made chaotic with gingerbread buildings, trains driven by fish, and attempting to lug furniture while jumping between clouds.
Up to four people can play together, with the more involved, the greater the chaos. Which would make for a perfect moment to ask your distracted friends and relatives if they are free next weekend to help you move.
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