Best Gaming Gifts Under $25

Small budget, real games. Nothing on this page is a novelty.

The trap with a cheap gaming gift is that the cheap things aimed at gamers - the mugs, the light-up keychains, the “gamer fuel” - are things gamers do not want. What they do want are games, and the good news for a gifter is that a large number of genuinely excellent games sit at the bottom of the price range, either because they are a few years old or because they were never expensive to begin with. Every pick here is a game the rest of this site recommends on its merits; the price is a happy accident, not the reason it is here.

The list leans toward games people play together, because that is what this site is about and because it makes the gift safer: a co-op or party game is something they will pull out with friends or family, which is a better outcome than a solo game that might not match their taste. If you know they play alone and prefer it, the sandbox and farming picks further down still work.

How to use this page if you know nothing about games

Each card below lists the systems the game is on, the number of people who can play, and one line on who it suits. Read that line, match the system to the one they own, and you are done. The buy button links the one edition we could verify live; if they own a different system that the card also lists, search Amazon for the same title with their console's name and you will find it.

The two safest picks

Overcooked! All You Can Eatis the one to buy when you know they have people over. Up to four people cook in a kitchen that is actively trying to sabotage them, it takes thirty seconds to explain, and it is on every current console and PC. It is the single most reliable “everyone had fun” game we know of at this price.

Human: Fall Flat is the one to buy when you are not sure who they play with. It is a wobbly physics game that is funny alone and funnier with up to eight others, it runs on everything including phones, and it has crossplay - so it works whoever they eventually play it with. The edition we link is a Nintendo Switch digital code.

The rest of the list, by who you are buying for

A parent and a kid, or two people on a couch. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Two-player local co-op through all nine films, forgiving enough that a young child can hold their own, and long enough to last months of weekends. Rayman Legends is the same idea for up to four - a beautiful platformer where a weaker player cannot ruin the run for the others. Both link to the Switch edition, and both exist on the other consoles.

A friend who plays online with a regular group. Deep Rock Galactic. Four-player co-op mining on alien planets, the kind of game that a group adopts for a year, and one of the cheapest good multiplayer games in print. It is on PC, Xbox and PlayStation; crossplay is PC with Xbox only, so match the platform to their group. The edition we link is PS5.

Someone who likes big, long games.Monster Hunter Wilds. This is a full-price-tier game that has settled to this bracket on the Xbox edition we link, and it is a hundred-hour co-op grind with crossplay across PS5, Xbox and PC. It is the most “serious gamer” pick on this page and the best value-for-hours here by a distance - but it is a demanding game, so it suits someone who already plays a lot.

A group of adults who like horror films. The Quarry. Up to eight people pass one controller around a choose-your-own-adventure slasher - it is a movie night with decisions, not a skill game, and nobody needs to be good at games. Rated for adults; do not buy it for a household with kids.

Two people who like puzzles, on PC. Portal 2. The best two-player puzzle campaign ever made, still, and usually the cheapest thing on this page. It is PC only through the link we carry; if they play on Steam, gifting it directly through Steam is often the smoother route, and the price there tracks the sale calendar.

What we deliberately left off

The free-to-play games - Fortnite, Rocket League, Fall Guys, Among Us - are excellent and cost nothing, which makes them a bad gift: there is nothing to hand over. If they do not already play those, our free games hub is a better link to send than a present. We also left off older sports titles and licensed movie games that hit this price because they were remaindered rather than because they are good.

If the budget can stretch

The next tier, gifts under $50, is where the best two-player game on the site and the safest Switch gift both live, along with a headset and a controller that fit the budget. And if you are shopping in November, the Black Friday page explains which of these dropped further last year and which are already at their floor.