Buy Minecraft - it is the only four-player split-screen game that runs on every console
If you have four people, one television and one console, Minecraft is the pick. Split-screen in Minecraft is a console feature that takes up to four players on one screen, it is on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch, and unlike almost everything else on this list it does not end after a campaign. It is the right answer for a family, for four teenagers, and for anyone who wants the purchase to still be in use in six months.
If you want a single evening of four-player chaos rather than a long project, Overcooked! All You Can Eat is the better buy and it is cheaper. If everyone is on a Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the four-way split-screen game that has never needed explaining to anybody. And if you want four players shooting things together on one screen, Borderlands 3 is effectively the only full-size option left.
Read this before you buy anything: four-way split-screen is rare
This is the part the search results bury. "Split-screen" and "four-player split-screen" are not the same feature, and most of the famous split-screen games are strictly two. It Takes Two, A Way Out, Portal 2, Split Fiction and the LEGO games are all two-player split-screen only. They are excellent, several of them are on our main split-screen list, and none of them will take your third and fourth player. Buying one of them for a group of four is the most common mistake in this category.
The second thing to know is that four-way split-screen is almost entirely a console feature. Minecraft split-screen does not exist in Java Edition on PC. Borderlands 3 splits four ways on console and two ways on PC. If your four players are all sitting at one computer, read split-screen on PC first, because the honest answer there is a much shorter list and a couple of workarounds.
What you actually need to buy
Four controllers, not four copies of the game. Split-screen runs four players from one purchase on one console. This is the cheapest multiplayer there is, and it is why a four-player split-screen game plus two extra pads usually costs less than four people each buying the same online game. Our second controller guide covers which pads work on which console, and the same logic scales to four.
A screen big enough to quarter. This is a real constraint and nobody mentions it. A four-way split on a 32-inch television gives each player a viewport roughly the size of a tablet. Racing and party games survive this fine because the information you need is large; shooters and anything with small text do not. If your screen is under about 40 inches, weight your choice toward Mario Kart, Overcooked and Sonic Racing rather than Borderlands.
Nothing else. No subscription, no internet connection, no second account. Four-player split-screen is the one form of multiplayer that is genuinely free after the purchase - see whether split-screen needs PS Plus for the two exceptions that break that rule.
How the nine below are ordered
By how reliably four people get a good evening out of them, not by review scores. A game that splits four ways but puts each player in an unreadable quarter-screen box ranks below a game designed for the format. Minecraft and Mario Kart are at the top because they are the two titles on this list that a mixed-age, mixed-skill group of four can sit down with and play without anyone being taught anything.
