10 Games that Helped Me Stay In Touch With My Friends During 2020s Lockdown – IGN India

People from all walks of life have had a rather challenging year in 2020 thanks to a global pandemic and worsening economies, among many other things. Video games, however, have always had a huge part in helping me through good times and bad, and this year was no different. Since games offer a unique level of interactivity unmatched by movies and shows, playing them in multiplayer is also a fantastically unique way to stay in touch with friends. I also figured that this would be a great time to talk about some of the more obscure multiplayer games I've felt myself drawn to this year. Without further ado, here are ten games that helped me keep my sanity by letting me stay in touch with my friends thanks to fantastic competitive and co-operative multiplayer.

Its quite shocking to me that no ones really taken the Mario Party formula and done anything with it for a while. Thankfully, Pummel Party perfectly encapsulates that niche. Theres plenty of shenanigans on both the board game side of things, as well as the minigames. Add on top some hilarious ragdoll physics and interesting boards to play on and youre going to have a great time making and breaking friendships thanks to exploding eggplants.

A pleasant surprise, Deep Rock Galactic is a fantastic co-op shooter with a fun setting. Taking the concept of heavy metal dwarves to its logical extremes, up to four dwarves have to descend deep into a planet to kill bugs, steal eggs, and mine minerals. Deep Rock Galactic has a fantastic sense of frantic action and tension, especially on higher difficulties, that easily rivals classics like Left 4 Dead, along with a class and levelling system that promotes teamwork.

SpyParty is a pretty weird game; hilarious in concept, but intense in gameplay. Two players are pitted against each other in an asymmetrical game of Wheres Waldo. One player is a spy, working to execute on their secret objectives. The other players a sniper with a single bullet, looking for the spy and shooting them before theyre able to pull off their objectives. Spy Party is intense, and when playing with a friend over voice chat, really funny. It may not be the prettiest game on the list, but it sure is one of the most fun.

Classic tabletop miniatures game Blood Bowl has a reputation for being incredibly luck-based and annoying because dice can, and often will, screw over whatever grand strategies you were hoping for. On the other hand, mixing American football with an ultra-violent tactics RPG that doesnt take itself seriously is an amazing idea. My pitch for getting anyone to try this game is simple: imagine a sports game where injuries could mean dismembered limbs, violence on the field not only happens, but is encouraged, and an intense team management system that sees your team grow as they play, win and lose matches.

In my opinion, Forza Horizon 4 is easily one of the best racings game ever made, losing out to classics like Burnout Paradise. Its online trappings and flexible vehicle customisation, coupled with driving that feels really good thanks to its arcade-y style with a hint of simulation, make Forza Horizon 4 an absolute blast to play with friends. Be it racing co-operatively, competitively, or just ignoring the races and playing an elaborate game of tag using the entire map of Forza Horizon 4 as your playground, its bound to be a great time.

Quite possibly one of the most obscure games Ive ever spoken about, Mordheim: City of the Damned is an intense and intimidating game to get into. But its also one of the best turn-based strategy RPGs out there. Set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, Mordheim has you take leadership of a small warband, taking on dangerous missions and seeing your warband grow in size and quality. The real meat of the game is multiplayer, though; its fantastic 1-on-1 gameplay, coupled with permanent repercussions in the form of long-lasting injuries and even deaths, make for an intense experience.

This ones an incredibly easy sell: what if Left 4 Dead but dinosaurs. Second Extinction allows up to three players to go out on missions in a strange post-apocalyptic world to complete objectives and fight hordes and hordes of dinosaurs. The open level design is fun and promotes a variety of play styles, the weapons are great, and the explosions are an absolute joy to watch, regardless of whether you were responsible for those explosions or not. Oh, also, theres a T-Rex to fight.

I dont like visual novels. The genre has just never appealed to me until now. Monster Prom is a competitive visual novel dating sim. And that strange mix-and-match of genres, the idea of turning a visual novel into a competitive game, is what really pulled me in. And Im glad that it did. The writing and art work are top-notch, and Monster Prom has no qualms in presenting sex as a wonderful, everyday thing that just about everyone aspires for. Its open-minded, has fantastic representation of the LGBTQ+ community, and most importantly, the writing elevates the otherwise-simple point-and-click gameplay. There arent puzzles to solves or points to score here. Youre just here to live out the last three weeks of high school in time for the prom.

A game that, in hindsight, feels like one of the most overlooked releases of the previous generation, Dying Light has great gameplay, a fun story, and most importantly, fantastic co-op. Progress is easy to carry over between games hosted by friends. The gameplay is still fantastic and holds up great half a decade after its release. Parkouring your way through a zombie-infested city is fun, and while the introduction of guns at around the mid-point of the game does still feel like a bad idea, the melee combat is still loads of fun. It also helps that theres a LOT to do in Dying Light, from the main mission, the side quests, the massive expansion, and even weekly events that are still run to this day, Dying Light doesnt really get old.

Of the ten games Ive spoken about in this article, Final Fantasy 14 is undoubtedly the one that ate up the most of my time. Thanks to its 5.3 update that expanded the free trial and condensed the bad parts of the story, shaving roughly 10 hours off, I decided to take the plunge into yet another MMORPG. And Im really glad that I took this plunge. Before being an MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14 is an RPG. Its got a fantastic story, especially once youre finished with the base game and move on to its expansions, and its probably the only MMORPG out there that doesnt demand that you sacrifice every minute of free time you have to make any progress. The raids are all pretty fun, and the currently-ongoing Shadowbringers storyline is definitely some of the best writing Ive seen in video games.

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10 Games that Helped Me Stay In Touch With My Friends During 2020s Lockdown - IGN India

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero