13 Great Multiplayer Games to Try in 2015 and 2016

Because sometimes, you just want to share the joys of gaming with others!

Updated:

22 Aug 2024

Great multiplayer games for you and your friends!

Why play a game solo when you can be enjoying fantastic adventures with your buddies? That’s what great multiplayer games are for: the opportunity to share incredible, out-of-this-world experiences with others. And we’re happy to say that the next few months have a lot of great multiplayer games in store for you and all your friends.

In this article, we list 13 Great Multiplayer Games to try in 2015 and 2016 – games you’ll be spending weeks of your lives playing with your favorite people. What better way to bond with your friends?

13. Fortnite

These days, innovation usually means combining different genres to form an exciting and cohesive whole. Fortnite is a survival game set in a sandbox world where you can build defensive structures from scavenged items.

It’s been described as “Left 4 Dead meets Minecraft,” a formula that’s a perfect fit for cooperative multiplayer. By day, you explore a procedurally generated world and build a fortress from the scraps you’ve gathered. By night, you defend yourself against waves of monsters.

Fortnite sounds pretty sweet to us, and we’re eager to play what will likely be one of this year’s great multiplayer games!

12. Battleborn

Gearbox Software, creator of the Borderlands franchise, is ready to rock first-person shooter MOBAs with the upcoming Battleborn.

If those bright, eye-catching colors and charming, cartoony art style aren’t enough to convince you, the game promises several wacky characters to suit every playstyle. Prefer slicing into fresh meat over riddling skulls with bullets? Battleborn’s resident sword-wielders aim to please. A fan of the arcane? Battleborn’s magic users will wreak havoc on the plains of Solus. And there are guns and explosions galore for everyone else!

Due for a late 2015 or early 2016 release, Battleborn is shaping up to be one of the great multiplayer games you can play real soon!

11. Fable Legends

To be released later this year is Fable Legends, a free-to-play title that has four Heroes working together to destroy an evil Villain.

Players can play as Heroes or the Villain. Each of the four Heroes is a play on a fairytale archetype, such as Prince Charming, a spellcaster, a rogue, and a holy knight. Together they’ll have to vanquish the powerful Villain, who can lay traps on the map and even sic minions on the good guys.

If you’re hungry for a fantasy slugfest of epic proportions, you can’t go wrong with Fable Legends.

10. Sea of Thieves

Not much is known about Sea of Thieves, as it is relatively early in development, and doesn’t even have a solid release date. But what we’ve been shown so far is enough to have us salivate in anticipation.

Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer game in which players assume the roles of pirates. And what is it that pirates are known for? Why, swashbuckling and high adventure, of course! Journey through islands riddled with traps, then set sail on the high seas with your buddies and take on rival pirates. The game will also allow players to craft their own stories using a variety of tools, ensuring every adventure is unique.

Great multiplayer games rarely sound this exciting!

9. Overwatch

We have every faith that Blizzard’s new IP, Overwatch, will be every bit as good as it looks.

From the trailers alone, we can see that first-person shooter and MOBA Overwatch is all about high-octane action. We’re already in love with this brand spankin’ new universe, and the gorgeously designed characters who channel the best of Disney, Pixar, and Western superheroes. Their skills look just as fun to use, from Tracer’s ability to rewind time to Reaper’s barrage of bullets.

Definitely looking like one of 2016’s great multiplayer games!

8. Street Fighter V

Fighting games can count themselves among the industry’s great multiplayer games. And when it comes to this particular genre, one title rules all: Street Fighter.

Street Fighter V looks like it’ll be one of 2016’s best fighters. The roster is a mixture of old and the new, with mainstays like Ryu, Chun Li, and Cammy trading blows with exciting newcomers like Laura, Rashid, and Necalli. We’re also ecstatic that long-neglected characters like Karin, Birdie, and Rainbow Mika are finally getting the attention they deserve!

Capcom is upending the status quo by revising classic characters, giving them new moves, techniques, and ways to get around those annoying fireballs. New mechanics such as the V-Trigger and V-Skill also provide the game with a deeper, more technical side, ensuring a Street Fighter experience unlike any you’d had before.

2016 can’t come soon enough for fighting game fans!

7. Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in the dystopian future of 2065. Military technology is so advanced that wars are fought in secret by covert operatives, and robots and supersoldiers are the norm. In fact, there’s a rising fear that robots might one day take over. Anything that sounds like the beginning of The Matrix and Terminator is cool with us!

The campaign will support cooperative gameplay and will allow players to customize their character. Multiplayer comes with new playable classes (each with their own unique ability) and weapon customization. There’ll even be a Zombie mode with its own storyline!

One of the great multiplayer games that will be released real soon!

6. Halo 5: Guardians

Master Chief is back for more intergalactic mayhem in Halo 5: Guardians.

The campaign can be played with up to three other players for explosive co-op madness. But as great as that sounds, one of the game’s biggest draws is its new multiplayer mode called “Warzone.” In Warzone, teams of twelve players are thrust into an enormous map where they will have to do battle with each other, and with AI-controlled Promethean and Covenant opponents. There are bases to capture, while killing enemies rewards you with requisition points used to purchase equipment.

Halo 5: Guardians is already proving one of this year’s great multiplayer games, wowing fans and critics alike. With such robust multiplayer modes, there’s no doubt this latest entry in the hallowed Halo franchise has a very long life ahead of it.

5. Tom Clancy’s The Division

A deadly virus has spread across America, leaving devastation in its wake. The only defense against total pandemonium? A special team of tactical agents called “The Division.” As one of these agents, you will be investigating the possible source of the disease, and hopefully return normalcy to a New York that is being held hostage by various criminal elements.

Tom Clancy’s The Division is a combination of third-person shooter and RPG genres, and features a dynamic world with weather conditions and destructible environments. Its multiplayer mode includes squad combat, in which teams do battle in a large open areas. Sounds like it has everything it needs to be one of great multiplayer games that will be launching within the upcoming months!

4. Doom

We can thank the original Doom for popularizing the multiplayer death match, without which none of today’s great multiplayer games would have ever seen the light of day.

Now Doom is back with more guns and gore, looking very much like the perfect update of the 1993 original that started it all. Unlike a majority of today’s multiplayer games, Doom will focus on pure, heart-pounding action. No hiding behind walls like a sissy here; the gameplay is all about speed, about shooting as many targets to death as quickly as possible before moving on to your next victims.

So this 2016, expect over-the-top violence and excitement as Doom reclaims multiplayer from the hordes of wannabes and watered-down shooters out there.

3. Star Citizen

This ambitious science fiction title is many things in one: a first-person shooter, an open-world game, and a space trading simulation. Did we mention it also has a humongous, persistent universe that you can experience with countless other players? It’s an MMO, after all.

Not only will you have the freedom to go anywhere you want and be anyone you want to be in Star Citizen, the game is also visually stunning. That should be enough incentive for anyone to go exploring!

Star Citizen is looking every bit like one of 2016’s great multiplayer games!

2. Star Wars: Battlefront

Star Wars: Battlefront is a first and third-person shooter in which you play either a soldier of the Rebel Alliance or an Imperial Stormtrooper. You then raise hell of George Lucas proportions in worlds like Tatooine, Hoth, and Endor as you attempt to wipe the other side out.

You can drive vehicles from the original trilogy, such as X-Wings, speeder bikes, and fearsome AT-ATs. Best of all, you can also assume the role of Darth Vader and Force choke your enemies to death. Now that’s giving fans what they want!

Missions are cooperative in nature, meaning you have to play with either a team of bots or other players. Meanwhile, the multiplayer supports up to 40 people. It’s not called Star Wars for nothing.

A list of great multiplayer games would be incomplete without Star Wars: Battlefront!

1. No Man’s Sky

Ever wanted to explore the entire universe with millions of other space-farcing adventurers?

Say hello to No Man’s Sky, the eagerly anticipated science fiction title that boasts an entire cosmos of procedurally generated content for everyone to explore.

And when we say “entire cosmos,” we mean a space consisting of over 18 quintillion planets. Don’t bother trying to calculate just how large that number is; your eyes might roll back in their sockets and shoot out of your ears. Of course, you can visit all of those planets – provided you bid farewell to your social life.

Each planet has a unique ecosystem, and resources that you can gather to upgrade your items. You can even purchase your own starship! If all that sounds like one a science fiction fan’s dream come true, that’s because it is. And for these reasons, No Man’s Sky tops our list of great multiplayer games you can play within the coming months.