Steam’s Multiplayer Games Fest is on right now, and if you have a group chat that keeps asking what to play this weekend, the fest page looks like the answer. It lists 245 games. What it does not tell you is that most of them are not actually on sale. Of the 122 indie games on that page with a multiplayer mode, only 32 have a discount. The rest are there to be seen, at full price.
So this list only counts the ones you can buy cheaper today. The fest ends on October 2 at 10am Pacific (7pm in Central Europe), which does not leave a lot of time to dig through it yourself.
The rules: tagged Indie on Steam, made by an independent studio, some kind of co-op or PvP, released in 2023 or later, and at least 1,000 Steam reviews, counted in every language rather than just English. Eight games cleared all of that. Prices are US dollars, checked on September 28.
It turns out the best-rated cheap multiplayer on Steam right now is mostly roguelites. If your friends like dying together and starting over, you are in luck.
Shape of Dreams sends four players into someone else’s nightmare
Twenty thousand reviews at 90% is a lot of people agreeing about something, and Shape of Dreams got there in about a year. The developer, Lizard Smoothie, describes it as an action roguelite that mixes hack-and-slash with MOBA-style team play, and the MOBA part is the bit that matters here. Each character (the game calls them Travelers) plays very differently: some fight up close, some snipe with skill shots, some sit back and support.
Solo it is a dodging game. With up to four people, the builds start feeding into each other, which is the whole reason it is on this list and not just a good single-player roguelite with a co-op checkbox. The runs go from lava fields to snowy mountains to open space.
$17.49 at 30% off. The most expensive game in this top eight, and also the one with the best score.
Mechabellum lets you lose to your friends without touching a mouse mid-fight
Mechabellum is an auto-battler with giant robots. Before each round you buy units, pick where they stand and choose their upgrades, and then you let go. The battle plays out on its own, and you find out whether your plan was any good.
Game River’s pitch is “all strategy, no clickfest”, and that is the appeal for a certain kind of player: the one who loves strategy games but hates the race to click faster. Snipers can be turned into swarm clearers, heavy tanks can be given self-destruct charges, and you adapt between rounds to whatever the other side brought. You can play 1v1 on a ranked ladder, 2v2 with a friend, free-for-all, or co-op against AI waves in Survival Mode.
19,631 reviews at 83.7%, which is a solid number for a competitive game (those always get angrier reviews than co-op ones). 40% off makes it $8.99.
Witch’s Apocalyptic Journey is a deckbuilder where the witches are the villains
Most card roguelites put you on the side trying to save the world. Here the witches are the end of it. In the world of Aldrin their arrival means the apocalypse is close, and you guide them there.
MeowAlive built it around two ideas. You plan the witches’ route yourself by placing Fate Cards on a timeline, so you choose which events come in which order. And you can craft your own Super Cards to swap out the ones you do not want in your deck. It works as a solo game, but the store page says you can team up with friends to form a “witch squad”, and that is how it got into a multiplayer fest.
It came out in June and already has 1,560 reviews at 84.7%. $7.19, 20% off.
Greedland is Vampire Survivors with a lot more explosions
The developer names its own influences, Crimsonland and Vampire Survivors, so there is no need to guess. Swarms of monsters pour in, you keep shooting, and your character slowly turns into what the store page calls “a mobile arsenal of destruction”. Later on there are Titan mechs you can call in when the screen gets too full.
What makes it a group game is the co-op. Greedland supports local split-screen, and the 1.0 update added four-player online co-op, which suits this genre better than you would think. Four people each building their own ridiculous weapon setup on the same screen is chaos in the good way.
This is the biggest discount in the top eight. 60% off takes it to $5.19, with 83.0% from 3,382 reviews.
SWORN puts King Arthur on the wrong side
Camelot has fallen, Arthur is corrupted, and the Knights of the Round Table are now the bosses. SWORN is a co-op action roguelike for one to four players, from Windwalk Games, published by Team17.
Each run you pledge yourself to the Fae Lords and pick from over 200 blessings, like Titania’s cleansing fire or Oberon’s wind, then mix them with your character, weapon and ability choices. Merlin and Nimue show up as allies. The art is inspired by Mike Mignola, the Hellboy artist, and it does look like a comic book with the lights turned down.
Full price is $30.99. At 66% off it is $10.53, which is a very different conversation. 80.1% from 5,168 reviews.
Pass the Fear has twelve hours to get off the island
A knight in an iron bucket, an “explosive cutie”, a one-eyed old man, a money expert and a nun they picked up by the side of the road. That is the crew. Every one of them is scared to death of dying, and they have to shoot their way off a cursed island before dawn while a magic storm wall blocks the coast.
PlayMud Studio’s roguelite bullet-hell lives on build-crafting: weapon parts, relic fusion, tarot cards, elemental effects, and a list of keywords that you can chain into looping triggers and absurd damage. The team says the multiplayer has “everything you would expect”, meaning reviving each other and trading items.
It only came out in July. 78.4% from 3,363 reviews, and 20% off at $15.19.
Lost Castle 2 is the couch co-op pick
The first Lost Castle came out in 2016 and still has almost 24,000 reviews at 86%, so the sequel had a crowd waiting. It picked up 14,078 reviews in under four months.
It is a 2D beat ‘em up roguelite. You join a guild of treasure hunters and fight your way through a black forest, an abandoned village and a crystal mountain to a castle nobody comes back from. Hunter Studio says there are over 200 weapons and armor pieces and more than 130 treasures, so the runs change a lot. And it does co-op every way there is: online, LAN, and split-screen on the same sofa, which not many games in this fest can say.
The score is lower than the original’s for now, at 77.6%. $12.59 with 30% off.
Wretch: Divine Ascent turns a backpack into a weapon
If you know Backpack Battles, you know this one already. Ogopogo says so right on the store page. You buy items, moves and equipment from a shop, fit them into a backpack grid, and the way they touch each other decides your combos. Then two characters fight it out automatically, and your inventory is the only thing that decides who wins.
The difference is the mood: dark medieval, built in Unreal Engine, with characters like a Knight, a Plague Doctor, a Ronin, a Wujiang, a Pirate and now an Executioner with a massive hammer. Every fight is against a real player, and you never have to wait for anyone to be online. Get to ten wins in a run and you get a shot at the global leaderboard.
76.6% from 1,124 reviews, $11.69 at 22% off.
Human Fall Flat and the older party games at their cheapest
The 2023 cutoff kept out a few games that everyone already knows, and they are some of the best deals in the whole fest.
Human Fall Flat is the big one. It came out in 2016, has 227,234 reviews at 94.6%, and still gets free new levels. Up to eight wobbly people online, trying to open a door together and failing. 70% off makes it $5.99, and if there is one person in your group who somehow has never played it, fix that this week.
Moving Out, the couch co-op game about being terrible furniture movers, is 90% off at $2.49 (80.2% of 2,357). Ship of Fools, a co-op roguelite where two players run the cannons on one small boat, is 75% off at $9.99 (82.1% of 6,279).
New, well loved, and still under 1,000 reviews
The 1,000-review rule keeps the top eight honest. It also means a bunch of newer games never had a chance to make it, and some of them are rated higher than anything up there. Everything below came out in 2025 or 2026, is on sale in the fest, and has fewer than a thousand reviews so far. They could use the attention.
Jelly Bubble should be the first one you look at. It is a party brawler where little jelly critters in bubbles bounce off anything that is not their own color, while you steal the soap and ruin your friends’ plans. Four players on one screen or six online, plus a map editor. 98.4% from 189 reviews, and $5.99 at 40% off.
We, Junk Artists is for a bigger group, up to eight people. One of you builds a picture out of junk, and everyone else guesses what it was meant to be. 95.9% of 268, $7.99.
Parisian Bistro Simulator only came out on September 18 and already sits at 93.0% of 631. Up to eight friends run one restaurant in Paris together, from the menu all the way up to the rooftop terrace. $11.99, 40% off.
Cheater’s Table is a card game where cheating is the actual rule set. Power cards go up your sleeve or down your pant leg until the right moment, and everyone at the table is watching for it. 95.7% of 116 for $5.94.
Toy Smash Kaboom! goes competitive instead. You arrange and combine a desk full of toys into an army, then crash it into someone else’s. The biggest crowd in this section at 86.6% of 686, and $9.79.
Cat Gladiator is the odd one, in a good way. Funleeks Studio calls it a slow-paced, Monster Hunter-like boss fighter in 2D, for up to four cats in armor. Only 88 reviews so far, but 88.6% of them positive. $7.19.
Stuck Together is the pick for two people and a lot of yelling: a climbing game about two toys stuck to each other, trying to escape their evil owner. Half price at $5.99, 88.5% of 226.
Paver: Tidy Up Together is exactly what the name says. 4,064 paving stones, one wrecked plaza, and friends to help you put them all back. 86.4% of 316, $4.49.
And two for the very cheap end. Nano Neighbors is a co-op idle game that sits at the bottom of your screen while you do other things, 81.8% of 159 and $3.99. Eggo is a desktop pet you raise, dress up and hatch eggs with alongside friends. At 85% off it costs $0.89 (82.7% of 376), the cheapest thing on this whole page.
What to buy before October 2
Most of the top eight are roguelites, and most of them are built for groups of four. That is not a bad thing when the whole point of a multiplayer fest is getting people online on the same night.
If you want one game, get Shape of Dreams. It has the best score, the biggest crowd, and co-op built into how the whole game works. If money is tight, Greedland at $5.19 is the cheapest way into the top eight, and with Moving Out and Human Fall Flat added on top, three games for a whole weekend come to $13.67.
The fest ends October 2 at 10am Pacific.
A game night for under fourteen dollars
- Greedland
- Moving Out
- Human Fall Flat
One horde shooter and two old couch classics. Enough for a whole weekend of shouting at each other. $5.19 + $2.49 + $5.99, all out now.
Four friends, one run
- Shape of Dreams
- SWORN
The two co-op roguelites built for a full squad of four. Pick the one whose art style your group likes more. $17.49 and $10.53.
For friends you would rather beat
- Mechabellum
- Wretch: Divine Ascent
Two auto-battlers where the fight happens on its own and the real game is the plan you made before it. $8.99 and $11.69.
