One screen, split in two
Split-screen is having a quiet renaissance, and it's the best format for two people who want a single, shared story. The screen divides, you each control a character, and the whole game is built around the two of you working together. Several of these even keep the split-screen when you play online, so you get the same design whether you're side by side or apart.
Our top split-screen pick is It Takes Two- every mechanic is designed for two, it's split-screen the entire way, and the Friend's Pass lets a second player join free. Its follow-up, Split Fiction, adds crossplay. A Way Out is the earlier two-player prison-break, Portal 2 is the best-value split-screen puzzle game, and Borderlands 3 brings split-screen to a four-player looter.
One thing to check: most of these are two-player stories. If you have a bigger group in the room, the couch co-op page lists 4-player local picks. If your second player is remote, confirm the game supports online co-op (It Takes Two and Split Fiction do) and check the crossplay hub for platform mixing.
Split-screen by platform, and the online question
Which games are available to you depends heavily on the machine, so we keep a shortlist for each: split-screen games on PS5 is weighted towards two-player stories, split-screen games on Xbox is the longest list of the three thanks to four-player Minecraft, and split-screen games on PC explains why the format is rare there and how to set up a second controller.
And if your group is partly in the room and partly elsewhere, the more useful list is split-screen games you can also play online - the small set of games where two people on one couch can join an online session with friends in other houses.
Already played the ones above? The format has had a real revival, and new split-screen gameslists only what shipped in 2025 and 2026 - Halo's return to two-player split-screen included.
Two further pages are worth having open alongside this one. The Switch is the odd case - the console most people play together on, yet one where most local co-op is shared-screen rather than split - and it is covered at split-screen games on Switch. If the thing you actually want to know is why so few new releases offer this at all, see why split-screen disappeared.
Two questions this page gets asked constantly have their own pages now. If you need the screen to divide four ways rather than two, the list is much shorter and almost entirely console - four-player split-screen games. And if you are wondering whether any of this needs a paid subscription, the short answer is no and the long answer, with the games that break the rule, is at do you need PS Plus to play split-screen. Minecraft's own setup, the one people ask about most, is at is Minecraft split-screen.
Racing is the one genre where the local player cap is the entire decision - the kart racers seat four on one console, the simulators and licensed series stop at two, and almost nothing splits the screen on a PC. We put the caps side by side, each one copied from the game's own store listing, at best split-screen racing games.
