The best co-op escape games to play with friends
Escape rooms are fun. Escape rooms with friends? Even better. Half the joy of a real escape room is the shouting: someone finds a key, someone else has the lock, and somebody insists the painting is a clue (it never is). Digital escape games can capture that surprisingly well, as long as you pick the right one for your group.
And that's the tricky part. Some co-op escape games are built for exactly two players. Others happily take five. Some need you to sit in the same room, others work best on voice chat with each player in a different country. So which ones are actually worth your evening? Let's take a look.
The all-rounder: one game for almost every group
If you only buy one co-op escape game, make it Escape Simulator. It's one of the highest-rated games in our whole catalogue, and for good reason. The base game has 28 rooms in themed packs (an Egyptian labyrinth, a damaged spaceship, a Victorian mansion), and almost every object can be picked up, moved or smashed. Which, let's be honest, is what you always wanted to do in a real escape room.
It plays solo or in online co-op, and players say it works great as a date night or friend-group game. On top of that, a level editor and Steam Workshop add thousands of community rooms, so many groups keep coming back for dozens of hours.
Of course, it's not perfect. Some puzzles boil down to finding a code and typing it in, community rooms range from great to maddening, and the smaller rooms can feel a bit cramped with several players running around. Still, an easy recommendation.
Two players, two worlds: the We Were Here series
Now for my favourite kind of co-op: asymmetric communication games. Enter We Were Here. You and a partner are split up, and you can only talk via walkie-talkie. One of you sees the clues, the other sees the puzzle. So you describe. And describe again. And then… you realise you've been looking at the wrong lever for ten minutes.
The first We Were Here is free, takes two to three hours, and is the obvious place to start. Players love how it forces real cooperation, though the final puzzle is widely seen as vague and frustrating. Fair warning.
Liked it? We Were Here Together is longer (five to eight hours) and keeps you together more often, which changes how the puzzles work. It's hard, though: puzzles give little feedback, so working out what a puzzle wants is often harder than solving it. Then there's We Were Here Forever, which series fans often call the best entry, with 10 to 16 hours of varied, genuinely hard puzzles. The catch? Players report disconnects, audio bugs and the odd soft-lock. Bring patience.
One rule for the whole series: play it with a friend you communicate well with, not a stranger. It may test the friendship. That's sort of the point ;)
More duo games that make you talk
We Were Here isn't the only game doing this, and some of the alternatives are arguably more charming.
- The Past Within is Rusty Lake's co-op game. One player is in the past, the other in the future, and one even plays in 2D while the other plays in 3D. Clever, right? It's short (about two hours), but many pairs replay it straight away from the other side.
- Unboxing the Cryptic Killer has two detectives cracking a killer's puzzle box, with hand-drawn comic art and puzzles players call intuitive without being too easy. Its follow-up, Parallel Experiment, is bigger, with 80+ puzzles and a sharp difficulty spike near the end.
- In Sink is the long one: 10 to 15 hours across pirate ships, museums and a physics-bending train, with language-free puzzles. The later bonus levels add timers and lives, which some players disliked.
Most of these run cross-platform, so a friend can often join from a phone or Mac. Just remember both players need their own copy, and none of them can be played solo.
Bigger groups: three, four, five or more
Got more than two people? Then the walkie-talkie games are out, and you want something where everyone runs around the same room.
The Escape Memoirs games are great for this, with online co-op for up to five. Escape Memoirs: Safe House flips the premise: you're a criminal breaking into your own gang's safe house because nobody can find the keys. Players say the puzzles are hard but logical, though the house gives you many locks at once with little guidance on where to start.
Escape First Alchemist takes up to four and is built around brewing potions to unlock new powers. Groups report it runs smoothly in co-op, although some players hit bugs with objects clipping through the floor. And for a quick one, Escape from Kyoto House is a single Japanese-themed room for up to four, done in about 50 minutes. There's no save, so finish it in one sitting.
A tip for big groups, by the way: in linear games, someone always ends up standing around. That's not the game's fault. Probably.
Sitting next to each other: local co-op
Most co-op escape games are online only, which is a bit of a shame if your puzzle partner is sitting right next to you on the couch. The exception worth knowing is Escape Academy. It's a collection of over a dozen rooms designed by people who build real-life escape rooms, and the whole campaign works solo or with one friend in local or online split-screen.
Players say it captures the feel of a physical escape room well, with scenarios like defusing a bomb at a tea party. On the downside, co-op caps at two, some players ran into desyncs where both saw a puzzle in a different state, and the word puzzles can be tough for non-native English speakers. Still, for couples or a parent and child, it's a lovely pick.
Cheap and free picks
Not sure your friends are into this at all? Start free. Obviously.
- Escape Memoirs: Questionable Side Stories is free, takes up to five players, and has you crawling through sewers to a job interview with a criminal organisation. It's silly and short, and players say it's best in co-op.
- Escape Memoirs: Mini Stories is another free one for up to five, a jailbreak with puzzles players call clever and mostly logical. The hints are weak, though, and it's a large download.
- We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip costs next to nothing and is a bite-sized taste of the We Were Here formula in an abandoned amusement park. Many pairs finish in under an hour, but medal grading gives you a reason to replay.
- Escape Room - Der kranke Kollege is free for two to six players. The puzzles are hit or miss and you'll probably use the hints. Note the content warning, too: the story deals with abduction and human trafficking.
Conclusion
In the end, it comes down to who you're playing with. A big group wants Escape Simulator or one of the Escape Memoirs games. A duo that loves talking things through should go for We Were Here or The Past Within, and a couple on the couch should look at Escape Academy. And if you're not sure? Grab one of the free ones and see who ends up shouting the loudest. So, which one are you trying first?