The original Xbox wasn’t the first console with local co-op, but it felt like it brought the experience to a wider audience. This is just my impression, but it seemed like more people who weren’t regular gamers started playing together after the Xbox came out, and it had a lot of exciting games that made that easy.
Many Xbox games offered simple, action-packed co-op experiences, but some also had hidden depths. Players could speed through levels for quick thrills, or take their time exploring to find extra content, improve their characters, and earn in-game rewards. Even before Achievements were common, these games encouraged exploration and a sense of accomplishment, laying the groundwork for what Achievements would later become.
10. Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
Going Old School
Atari’s Gauntlet was a pioneering arcade game that helped create the action RPG genre. It challenged teams of players to navigate randomly generated mazes and find an escape route. Later games improved the graphics and simplified the gameplay, but Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, the third game in the Legends series, still retains that core, original design.
Similar to previous games in the series, Seven Sorrows is designed for cooperative play, letting up to four players choose from four different classes and battle their way through dungeons. While each dungeon has a clear beginning and end, what happens inside is more open-ended and allows for player freedom.
If you’re rushing through, you can stick to the main path. But if you take your time to explore and defeat enemies, you’ll find treasure chests with valuable items. These items let you improve your characters and gear, making you stronger for future challenges.
9. Brute Force
Peak Early 2000s
Following the massive success of Halo in 2001, a wave of similar, realistic sci-fi shooters flooded the market, especially on the Xbox. One game I remember vividly – largely because of its advertising – is Brute Force. It was an early attempt at a ‘squad shooter,’ where players controlled a team of three humans and one reptilian character.
Brute Force is a team-based shooter where up to four players can play together locally, split-screen. You’ll move through straightforward missions focused on classic action – shooting enemies, causing explosions, and completing objectives. Each character has unique skills, letting your team tackle challenges in different ways based on how you like to play.
Beyond the main story goals, each level contains a hidden DNA Canister. Finding these unlocks new characters to play with in the game’s multiplayer deathmatch. This creates a fun connection between the campaign and multiplayer – you play through the story with friends to unlock everything, then battle each other in deathmatch!
8. ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
Let’s Get Funky With It
| Developer | ToeJam & Earl Productions |
|---|---|
| Platforms | Xbox |
| Release Date | October 2022 |
ToeJam & Earl and its sequel, Panic on Funkotron, first came out on the Sega Genesis in the early 1990s. These games were among the first to offer local cooperative play in a roguelike style—using randomly created levels, permanent character death, and teamwork—even before the term ‘roguelike’ existed. The third game, Mission to Earth, released on Xbox, is more complex, but not drastically so.
Like previous games, you’ll play as the alien duo and their new companion, Latisha. Together, you’ll explore levels created on the fly while searching for the legendary Sacred Albums of Funk. Don’t expect a simple walk through – you’ll need to carefully search each level for albums and other essential items to stay alive.
This game has a neat feature carried over from the first one: when players are near each other, they share the same screen. But when they move apart, the screen splits so they can explore independently – even to different ends of the level. As long as one player finds the album, both players win!
7. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
Even Zombies can be Thorough
It’s surprisingly rare to find games where you actually play as a classic zombie – the kind that hungers for brains, not just a mutated person like in Left 4 Dead. One of the best, and my personal favorite, is Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. In that game, eating brains is literally how you survive!
Stubbs is a fast-paced action game where you play as a creature who needs to eat brains to progress. As you rampage through each level, you’ll turn anyone you devour into a zombie, building up your undead army. Playing with a friend in co-op doubles your brain-eating and zombie-creating power, leading to even more mayhem!
For extra reasons to explore, you can revisit any level you’ve finished to find hidden Hippo Heads. Collecting these unlocks developer commentary tracks. As for why Hippo Heads… well, why not?
6. The Warriors
Can You Dig It?
Released in 1979, The Warriors is a beloved action movie about a street gang wrongly accused of murder who must fight their way across New York City. A video game based on the film came out in 2005, which was an unexpected but well-received adaptation, and particularly fun to play with a friend.
The Warriors is a fighting game that retells the story of the movie, and also shows what happened in the months before the film’s main events. Two players can team up and play through the story together, either side-by-side or using split-screen depending on how close they are to each other, and fight their way through levels. Beyond just fighting, you can also experience the life of a gang member by robbing people and tagging graffiti to build the Warriors’ reputation and earn money for improvements.
After each level, you’ll return to your base at Coney Island. Here, you can accept optional sidequests from the people who live there. Completing these quests will give you valuable resources and help your fighters learn new skills to keep them strong in battles.
5. Samurai Warriors
Big Battlefields, Big Prizes
The first Dynasty Warriors games were only available on PlayStation, but that changed with Dynasty Warriors 3, which was released on multiple platforms. After that, spin-off titles like Samurai Warriors also became available on Xbox a few months after their PlayStation 2 release, letting players enjoy the fast-paced action with a friend.
Like previous Samurai Warriors games, you can play the main story with a friend, each controlling a powerful warrior and battling through hordes of enemies. As you defeat soldiers, you’ll explore the battlefield, finding new weapons and items to strengthen your characters and prepare for what’s next.
Each level has a primary mission, but you’ll often find optional side objectives too, such as freeing a location or defeating enemies. Completing these extra tasks and planning your approach will improve your overall rank, giving you more experience and skill points to develop your characters.
4. Doom 3
It Ain’t Doom Without Some Secrets
The Doom series is famous for rewarding players who love to explore and uncover hidden secrets. Even the original Doom game let you find entire secret rooms simply by bumping into walls! While Doom 3 changed some things – like adding split-screen co-op on Xbox – it still kept that core tradition of hiding secrets for curious players to discover.
Doom 3’s campaign is packed with collectibles. Exploring carefully will uncover PDAs with text and audio logs, video disks that expand on the story, and locked security lockers containing useful items. You’ll often find the locker codes hidden within the PDAs. This focus on collecting and detailed environments is a big part of what makes Doom 3 different from earlier games in the series, and it’s a real treat for players who enjoy discovering the game’s story and background details, especially when playing with a friend.
The game doesn’t focus heavily on hidden rooms, but it does include lots of fun, subtle easter eggs if you explore carefully. For instance, you can find a hidden id Software logo—and a thank-you note from the developers—in the area right before the final boss fight.
3. Serious Sam: The First Encounter
Everyone Likes Free Stuff
When it comes to first-person shooters, the original Xbox was popular before the recent rise of “boomer shooters.” Back then, these types of fast-paced, action-packed games were a standard for the genre. Even without being called “boomer shooters” at the time, games like Serious Sam: The First Encounter already had many of the qualities we now associate with that style.
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First Encounter lets you play alone or with a friend on the same screen, and throws you into large, open levels filled with creepy monsters. It’s famous for introducing the Kamikaze enemies – those screaming, headless creatures! While it’s satisfying to simply blast everything in sight and move forward, keep an eye on your surroundings – danger can come from anywhere.
The game is full of hidden secrets tucked away in each level – often just behind corners or cleverly disguised walls. Discovering these secrets usually rewards you with powerful upgrades and weapons that are stronger than what you’d typically find. Sometimes, you’ll even uncover shortcuts that allow you to bypass large sections of a level.
2. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II
Diet Roleplaying
Role-playing games usually encourage players to explore their worlds in detail, but they often don’t allow for cooperative play. However, the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games – both the first and second – showed that co-op is definitely possible in this genre.
Dark Alliance II takes inspiration from the classic Gauntlet games, bringing the Forgotten Realms setting to life as a fast-paced, top-down action RPG. You can play with a friend, and while the game world isn’t as expansive as other titles like Baldur’s Gate, there’s still plenty to discover, helped along by a useful mini-map that keeps you oriented.
While exploring levels for hidden treasure, you can also find optional side quests both while traveling and when you return to town. These quests encourage you to search every area carefully.
1. Halo 2
Fistful of Skulls
The original Halo was the game that truly launched the Xbox, proving that first-person shooters could thrive on consoles. Because the first game was so successful, a sequel, Halo 2, followed just three years later, offering even more opportunities for exploration.
Similar to the original Halo, Halo 2 lets a second player join the campaign in local co-op. They’ll play as copies of either Master Chief or the Arbiter, depending on the level. While the first game offered small rewards for exploring, Halo 2 really encouraged it with the introduction of skulls – a collectible that would become a key feature in future Halo games.
Nearly every mission in the game features at least one hidden skull. Picking up these skulls activates a unique game modifier that lasts for the rest of your current playthrough. Originally, skulls were only available on the hardest difficulty (Legendary), and they generally made the game more challenging. They were designed for experienced players looking to add a fun, extra layer of difficulty to their repeated playthroughs.
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2026-05-07 22:11