Pulse Reviews and Analysis
The 10 Best Online Co-op Shooters in 2027
Curated by Kory White · Fractional CRO, CRO SyndicateThe 10 Best Online Co-op Shooters in 2027
Direct Answer
The best online co-op shooter is Helldivers 2, a four-player squad shooter at $39.99 where friendly fire and stratagem inputs turn every mission into coordinated chaos. The best value is Deep Rock Galactic at $29.99 (often under $10 on sale), a four-player mining shooter with years of free content.
This list is for players who want to team up and shoot things together online — wave survival, PvE campaigns, and squad missions — across PS5, Xbox, PC, and cross-play. Every game below is a real, current co-op shooter, ranked on squad design, content depth, replayability, and value.
These are cooperative shooters where you fight enemies together, not competitive deathmatch. If you are buying for a fixed group of friends, weight class variety and progression depth; if you mostly play with strangers, weight matchmaking speed and a forgiving difficulty floor.
1. Helldivers 2 🏆 BEST OVERALL
Helldivers 2 from Arrowhead is $39.99 on PS5 and PC with cross-play, supporting four-player online co-op with friendly fire always on. You drop onto hostile planets, call down stratagems with directional combos, and spread "managed democracy" while trying not to kill your own squad.
Missions run roughly 15 to 40 minutes, and the live "Galactic War" map shifts based on what the whole player base accomplishes, so the front lines you fight on this week may be lost or reclaimed next week.
The friendly fire is the genius — every airstrike, sentry, and reload is a team-trust exercise. Major story orders and new enemy factions (Terminid bugs, Automaton robots, and the Illuminate) have arrived free since launch, keeping the war alive. The drop-in matchmaking makes squading up with strangers or friends instant.
Best for groups who enjoy panic, laughter, and the occasional accidental 500kg bomb on a teammate.
Pros: deep stratagem loadouts, genuinely funny chaos, free content cadence. Cons: friendly fire frustrates serious players, and harder difficulties demand real coordination. It ranks #1 because no other co-op shooter blends tactical depth, slapstick chaos, and a living shared war this well.
2. Deep Rock Galactic 💎 BEST VALUE
Deep Rock Galactic from Ghost Ship Games is $29.99 and frequently under $10, supporting four-player online co-op on PS5, Xbox, and PC. You are space-mining dwarves drilling through fully destructible caves, each of four classes — Driller, Engineer, Gunner, and Scout — filling a distinct role with unique mobility tools and weapons.
Procedurally generated cave systems mean no two expeditions share the same layout, and the difficulty scales across five "Hazard" levels so casual duos and hardcore quads both find a fair fight.
It is Best Value for one of the most replayable co-op loops anywhere at a low price, plus years of free seasonal content and a long live-service roadmap. The destructible terrain means navigation itself is a team puzzle — the Scout zips ahead and lights the cave while the Driller carves a path home.
Roles genuinely depend on each other; no one can solo every job, making it a true cooperative shooter.
Pros: bottomless replayability, fair pricing, friendly community ("Rock and Stone"). Cons: the cave aesthetic is samey for some, and the learning curve on higher hazards is steep. Best for groups who want a forever-game that respects their wallet.
3. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide from Fatshark is $39.99 on Xbox and PC, supporting four-player online co-op. You and three others hold off swarms of heretics in the grim industrial hive city of Tertium, blending melee and gunplay across four classes — Veteran, Zealot, Psyker, and Ogryn — each with its own feats and weapon proficiencies.
The crafting and "blessing" systems let dedicated players chase god-roll weapons over dozens of hours.
It ranks high for visceral, weighty combat against overwhelming hordes, with one of the best first-person melee feels in the genre. The class system and weapon variety reward coordinated teams, and the dense Warhammer 40K setting is brought to life with grimy detail and excellent voice acting.
It is the spiritual successor to Fatshark's Vermintide series with guns front and center.
Pros: superb combat feel, atmospheric setting, deep gearing. Cons: a rocky launch and grind-heavy progression turned off early players, though post-launch updates fixed much of it. Best for fans of dark sci-fi who want melee and ranged combat in equal measure.
4. Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 from Valve is $9.99 on PC and supports four-player online co-op in the genre-defining zombie shooter. You fight through linear campaigns toward a rescue point while the AI "Director" spawns special infected — Smokers, Boomers, Hunters, Chargers, and the Tank — to punish poor teamwork.
Each of its campaigns ends in a tense, escalating finale where the whole squad must hold a position or escape under pressure.
It earns its place as the template the whole genre copied, still excellent and still cheap nearly 15 years on. The Director's dynamic pacing means teams that stick together survive and those that scatter die. A massive mod and custom-campaign scene on the Steam Workshop keeps it endlessly fresh, from new maps to total conversions.
Pros: tight design, near-free price, infinite community content. Cons: dated graphics and a PC-only audience now. Best for groups who want the purest, cheapest four-player zombie cooperation ever made.
5. Vermintide 2
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 from Fatshark is $29.99 on PS5, Xbox, and PC, supporting four-player online co-op with first-person melee and ranged combat. You play one of five heroes, each with multiple careers and signature ultimates, holding off Skaven rat-man and Chaos hordes across grim Warhammer Fantasy levels.
Loot drops scale with difficulty, and the brutal "Cataclysm" tier is a badge of honor for veteran squads.
It ranks here for the best melee weight in any co-op shooter, with guns and bows supporting the swordwork rather than replacing it. Coordinating a four-player team against a relentless horde — while a Packmaster drags off a straggler — stays tense across hundreds of runs. Deep career and weapon progression reward long-term squads who learn each map's choke points.
Pros: peerless melee combat, strong content library, fair price. Cons: less ranged focus than its sci-fi sibling Darktide. Best for groups who prefer fantasy and want melee to be the star.
6. Back 4 Blood
Back 4 Blood from Turtle Rock Studios is $59.99 (often deeply discounted to $15 or less) on PS5, Xbox, and PC, supporting four-player online co-op. Built by the original Left 4 Dead team, it adds a card-based deck system that modifies each run — buffing reload speed, stamina, or damage — alongside a roster of eight "Cleaners" with passive perks.
Cross-play across all platforms makes assembling a squad easy.
It makes the list as a modern Left 4 Dead with fresh systems. The card decks let teams build complementary loadouts, adding a layer of deck-building strategy on top of the zombie-shooting. It plays best with a committed four-player group coordinating their builds, since the AI bots and Corruption Card modifiers can spike the difficulty.
Pros: card variety, full cross-play, polished gunplay. Cons: full price is steep for the content, and solo/AI runs feel punishing. Best for groups wanting a contemporary spin on the L4D formula.
7. Gears 5
Gears 5 from The Coalition is $39.99 on Xbox and PC and free on Game Pass, supporting three-player campaign co-op plus five-player Horde and Escape modes. Horde has you surviving 50 escalating enemy waves while building fortifications with the Fabricator, and the dedicated Escape mode sends three players sprinting out of a hive before a toxic gas catches them.
It ranks here for Horde, one of the best wave-survival co-op modes in any shooter. Players pick Heroes with distinct ultimate abilities — Jack's hijack, Kait's stealth, Marcus's damage boost — and place turrets and barriers to hold a base. On Game Pass it costs nothing extra, making it an easy group buy-in.
Pros: gold-standard Horde mode, gorgeous production values, Game Pass access. Cons: campaign co-op is capped at three players and Xbox-ecosystem locked. Best for Xbox and PC groups who love building defenses and surviving waves.
8. Risk of Rain 2
Risk of Rain 2 from Hopoo Games is $24.99 on PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC, supporting four-player online co-op in a roguelike third-person shooter. You loot stacking items and fight escalating waves on alien worlds where difficulty rises with the in-run clock, so dawdling is punished and rushing is rewarded.
Each of its survivors plays differently, from the all-rounder Commando to the high-skill Loader.
It earns a spot for a co-op loop that becomes glorious screen-filling chaos as item stacks compound and a single survivor fires dozens of homing missiles per second. Every run differs because item drops are randomized, and the rising-difficulty clock keeps the whole team under pressure.
It is endlessly replayable and well-supported across platforms, with the Survivors of the Void expansion adding more depth.
Pros: addictive item-stacking, low price, cross-platform. Cons: the difficulty math overwhelms newcomers, and late-run frame chaos is divisive. Best for groups who love roguelike randomness and snowballing power.
9. Remnant 2
Remnant 2 from Gunfire Games is $49.99 on PS5, Xbox, and PC, supporting three-player online co-op in a souls-like shooter. You fight through procedurally assembled worlds and tough bosses, building a character around guns and dual Archetypes such as Gunslinger, Handler, and Medic.
The procedural generation reshuffles each world's layout, secrets, and even which bosses appear, so two groups can have meaningfully different campaigns.
It ranks here as the best challenging co-op shooter with real RPG depth. The souls-like difficulty rewards teams that coordinate dodges and focus fire on boss weak points, and a downed teammate can be revived under pressure. It blends precise gunplay with meaningful character building, and multiple DLC story chapters extend the adventure.
Pros: high replay value from procedural worlds, satisfying boss fights, deep builds. Cons: only three-player co-op, and the difficulty turns off casual players. Best for groups who want a demanding, build-driven cooperative campaign.
10. Payday 3
Payday 3 from Starbreeze is $39.99 on PS5, Xbox, and PC, supporting four-player online co-op heists. You plan and execute bank robberies, choosing between methodical stealth and going loud when the alarms trip and police assault waves pour in. Skill lines let players specialize in roles such as the stealthy "Infiltrator" or the tanky "Mower," and weekly challenges keep regulars returning.
It rounds out the list as the dedicated co-op heist shooter. The stealth-or-loud branching means teams can approach each job differently — quietly bypassing cameras or smashing through the front doors — and coordinating roles like drilling, crowd control, and hauling loot bags is the core of every heist.
It rewards groups who communicate and plan rather than rush in blind.
Pros: tense stealth-or-loud design, satisfying heist fantasy, ongoing updates. Cons: a troubled launch with online-only requirements and thin initial content. Best for groups who want methodical, plan-driven robbery missions.
How to Choose
- For the best all-around squad shooter, Helldivers 2 combines depth, chaos, and a living war.
- For the best value, Deep Rock Galactic or Left 4 Dead 2 cost little and deliver huge replayability.
- For horde survival, Gears 5's Horde mode or Risk of Rain 2 are the standouts.
- For melee-and-gun horde combat, Darktide or Vermintide 2 offer the weightiest fights.
- For a real challenge with RPG depth, Remnant 2 rewards coordinated, careful teams.
- For something different, Payday 3 is the heist-planning co-op shooter.
- For cheap and instant fun, Left 4 Dead 2 still wins on price-to-quality at under $10.
A practical tip: match the player count to your group. Helldivers 2, Deep Rock Galactic, Darktide, Left 4 Dead 2, Vermintide 2, Back 4 Blood, Risk of Rain 2, and Payday 3 all support four players, while Gears 5 (three in campaign, five in Horde) and Remnant 2 (three) cap lower. If your friend group is exactly five, Gears 5 Horde is the only pick here that fits everyone in one mode.
FAQ
Do I need a console subscription to play these co-op shooters online? On consoles, yes — most require PlayStation Plus Essential (about $79.99 per year) or Xbox Game Pass Core (about $59.99 per year). On PC, online co-op has no subscription fee; you only need the game.
Some titles like Gears 5 are included with Xbox Game Pass at no extra cost.
Which of these support cross-play between platforms? Helldivers 2 supports cross-play between PS5 and PC. Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2, Remnant 2, Back 4 Blood, and Payday 3 offer cross-play across various platforms. Always check the current settings, as cross-play support is sometimes added or refined after launch.
What is the cheapest good co-op shooter? Left 4 Dead 2 at $9.99 is the cheapest standout, supporting four-player zombie co-op. Risk of Rain 2 ($24.99), Vermintide 2 ($29.99), and frequently discounted Deep Rock Galactic (often under $10) are also excellent low-cost picks.
Are these PvE or PvP shooters? Every game on this list is primarily cooperative PvE — you team up against AI enemies, not other players. Some, like Payday 3 and Gears 5, also have competitive PvP modes, but they were chosen and ranked for their co-op campaigns and survival modes.
Can I play any of these solo if my friends are offline? Yes, most support solo play with AI teammates or scaled difficulty. Deep Rock Galactic gives you a robot helper named Bosco, Left 4 Dead 2 and Back 4 Blood fill empty slots with bots, and Remnant 2, Risk of Rain 2, and Helldivers 2 can all be played alone.
The experience is built for groups, though, so co-op is where each one shines.
Which co-op shooter is the most beginner-friendly? Deep Rock Galactic and Risk of Rain 2 are the gentlest entry points thanks to adjustable difficulty and forgiving pacing. Helldivers 2 and Darktide reward newcomers who start on lower difficulties before scaling up, while Remnant 2 and Vermintide 2 on Cataclysm are the steepest climbs and are better saved for once your group has some hours in.
Bottom Line
For the best overall online co-op shooter, Helldivers 2 ($39.99) delivers tactical four-player squad chaos in a living war. For the best value, Deep Rock Galactic ($29.99, often under $10) offers one of gaming's most replayable co-op loops with years of free content. Pick by whether you want wave survival, a campaign, or heists — and by how many friends you can get online at once.
Sources
- Steam, PlayStation Store, and Xbox Store official listings and pricing
- Arrowhead Game Studios / Helldivers 2 official site
- Ghost Ship Games / Deep Rock Galactic official site
- Fatshark official site (Darktide and Vermintide 2)
- IGN co-op shooter reviews and roundups
- PC Gamer multiplayer shooter guides
- GameSpot co-op shooter reviews