Highlights
- Cross-platform multiplayer games between Xbox and PlayStation are limited, but there are still plenty of fun titles to enjoy together, especially for console-exclusive friends without a PC setup.
- Fall Guys, Dead By Daylight, Overcooked! All You Can Eat, Mortal Kombat 11, Rocket League, Among Us, and Apex Legends are great games to play with friends on Xbox and PlayStation.
- These games offer a range of experiences, from obstacle course races and horror survival showdowns to cooking simulators and fast-paced shooters, catering to different preferences while providing enjoyable multiplayer experiences.
Sadly, many of the best multiplayer games available are not playable cross-platform, particularly between Xbox and PlayStation. There are exclusives on either side or often cross-play capability with PC gamers only. However, there are still plenty of fun titles available between the two biggest, rival consoles. This is good news for friends with these opposing consoles, who are nonetheless console-committed, without a PC setup.
Finding a new game with friends can be daunting, however. Getting stuck into a whole new thing, intermittently when each player is available, makes learning new games and staying with them a little more complicated. With games that are easier to play, PlayStation and Xbox lovers alike can breeze through many titles together, any time opportunity knocks. And there are some great titles out there they can jump right into.
7 Fall Guys
Fall Guys sees a bunch of jelly bean people duke it out on a candy-colored obstacle course for some good old-fashioned, game show-esque battle royale. Though this battle royale is child-friendly and involves no armed combat. It is a simple race to the finish line, or to collect the most items, or survival of the last jelly bean person to avoid being knocked into slime by the course, etc.
There can be up to a whopping sixty players per match, with a number of losing combatants being shaved off each round. Parties of up to four can play together and take part in some team mini-games. Fall Guys is easy enough to play even without a tutorial. Players simply run, jump, or grab, in a series of gloriously poppy and ludicrously fun obstacle course knock-out games.
6 Dead By Daylight
Though Dead By Daylight might not be the easiest to jump right into, this 1 VS 4 horror survival showdown is simple and quick enough to get to grips with. Players can take quick tutorials on how to play as either one of the survivors or the killer. As the latter, various iconic characters are available to play, from the Scream franchise’s Ghost Face to the Stranger Things Demogorgon, alongside the game’s own sinister creations.
The premise and object of the game are simple enough. Four survivors want to repair several generators to power the exit from a terrible arena of death. They’re encouraged to work together to do so, sneaking around and avoiding the killer, healing and rescuing each other as necessary. The killer aims to stop the survivors by living up to their job description, and sometimes further damaging the generators. Up to seven befriended players can enjoy this adrenaline-fuelled experience together, four as survivors, two as spectators, and one as the killer.
5 Overcooked! All You Can Eat
In this mad-dashing chef simulator, players work together to run a successful kitchen. This is much simpler than it sounds, with very simple controls to chop, fry, wash dishes, etc. Though that’s not to say it’s easy. The fun is in coordinating with each other to get a range of orders out within a certain amount of time, running around like headless chickens trying to remember what to put with what.
Overcooked! All You Can Eat is a combination of the well-received first and second games, enhanced and remastered in one title. Many gamers laud them as some of the best co-op games available. Ludicrously tense and insanely fun, Overcooked! All You Can Eat is also available for Xbox and PlayStation users to play together, with one of the best examples of seamless cross-play.
4 Mortal Kombat 11
Though Mortal Kombat 11 is by no means easy to master, or for many even to get the hang of, like all fighting games it nevertheless remains wholly enjoyable when reduced to button mashing against friends. Whether painstakingly learning character moves, slowly getting an idea of how to play, or simply furiously tapping everything at once, players will be treated to an unnecessarily bloody brawl with their pals regardless.
The Mortal Kombat series has been running since 1992 and has been a long-time favorite to many among the numerous fighting franchises. However, this series has continued to excel over time and Mortal Kombat 11 does not deviate from this trend. With stunning graphics and improved gameplay, this sumptuous bloodbath is enjoyable for new and returning players alike, who can play together whether on PlayStation or Xbox.
3 Rocket League
For those that like football and the mania of a destruction derby, Rocket League is bound to be a fast favorite. Even for those who don’t like either, Rocket League is undeniably ridiculously fun (emphasis on the ridiculous). It’s a game that sees rocket-propelled cars attempt to score goals against each other on a giant soccer pitch. Plus, in many game variants, an insane range of weaponry is available to give players an edge. What’s not to love?
Rocket League is fast, fun, easy to get into, and difficult to stop. Matches are relatively quick but players will keep coming back for more, attempting one more time to pull off that flaming back-flip goal, blitzing the back of the net, and basking in a shower of glory and fireworks.
2 Among Us
Free and easy to play, Among Us is an amusing, fast-paced impostor discovery game set aboard a space or aircraft with waddling blob astronauts. These little armless crewmates win the game by completing a range of tasks all over the ship or by correctly accusing the impostors and blowing them out of the airlock. The impostors work to avoid suspicion and pretend to complete tasks while sabotaging the ship’s systems and picking off the crewmates.
Among Us is a simple game in many ways and takes up mere megabytes of disk space. Nevertheless, it’s an endlessly fun game of social deduction and finger-pointing, based on crewmate information and impostor misinformation. It will have players on both sides sweating right until the final outcome.
1 Apex Legends
Anyone familiar with first-person shooter games shouldn’t have too much difficulty getting to grips with Apex Legends’ fairly standard controls. Like other battle royale games, or indeed other shooters in general, it is easy to throw oneself right into the action, over and over again. That’s not to say that Apex Legends is easy, not by any stretch. Battle royales never are, especially to newcomers.
However, Apex Legends eases players into the fast-paced action well. Players will need to complete a quick and well-executed tutorial before throwing themselves into some “orientation matches.” These matches include a few other beginners and a fair amount of bots, who won’t blow newcomers’ heads off within the first thirty seconds (usually). In this way, newcomers are able to jump right into the action, literally, without being put off by ungraspable controls or over-skilled adversaries. Apex Legends is free to play, quick to get into, boasts great graphics, and enables up to three friends to team up and enjoy the action whether they’re on PlayStation or Xbox.
