10 Single Player Games With GREAT Multiplayer Modes

10 Single Player Games with Great Multiplayer Modes

Myles Obenza

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re counting down our picks for ten primarily single-player games with great multiplayer modes. For this list, we’ll be focusing only on each game’s respective multiplayer offerings, regardless of the quality of the single player experience. Sorry, no Call of Duty here. Let us know which of these games you dumped countless hours into with your friends in the comments below!

#10: Pokemon Stadium (1999)

In 1999, Pokemania was at its absolute peak. With the release of Pokemon Red and Blue for the original GameBoy in 1996, Pikachu and the rest of the pocket monsters took the world by storm. With the release of the N64 in the same year, fans were eager to see how training and battling would translate to 3D. Enter Pokemon Stadium. Once you finish the main story, you and up to three friends could battle it out in the Stadium mode with rental Pokemon (or use your own imported Pokemon provided you had the Transfer Pak). More importantly, however, is Kid’s Club, where you can find the 9 minigames we’ve all come to know and love over the years. From Magikarp’s Splash to Sushi-Go-Round, we’ve put countless hours into trying to be the very best like no one ever was at these addictive mini-games. I’m still traumatized by Clefairy Says.

#9: Far Cry 3 (2012)

The story of Far Cry 3 is one of the best in the series, and Michael Mando’s portrayal of Vaas Montenegro and his “definition of insanity” monologue is one of the most iconic we’ve ever seen in a game. Aside from that, the multiplayer modes in Far Cry 3 are not to be ignored, offering both a cooperative mission-based mode and much more popular competitive online shooter experience. Here, Far Cry does its best Call of Duty impression and lets you battle it out in objective-based game modes, create your own loadout, earn unique killstreak rewards, and even humiliate your opponents at the end of the match. While not quite as hot as what Call of Duty was doing at the time, Far Cry 3’s multiplayer is still a force to be reckoned with.

#8: Luigi’s Mansion 3 (2019)

The third entry in the Big N’s answer to Ghostbusters is one of the best games on the Switch, based solely off its single player campaign. Luckily, they also packed in quality multiplayer modes to tide you over once you roll credits. In local co-op, you and another player can make your way through the main game, with one of you taking control of the moist and drippy Gooigi. Gross. Jokes aside, this is a great way to play a relatively easy game with young ones. There’s also ScreamPark, which is essentially if Luigi’s Mansion and Mario Party had a baby. More importantly, however, is the game’s ScareScraper mode, where up to 8 players can get together online to cooperatively suck up some ghosties, solve puzzles, and defeat Boolosus once you reach the top.

#7: Doom Eternal (2020)

Doom Eternal came out at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it couldn’t have been a better time for this game. The now-legendary memes between Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing New Horizons at the time aside, the 2020 sequel to Id Software’s Doom reboot brings all the gory goodness you know from the campaign and cranks it up to eleven with its online multiplayer, Battlemode. In this entry, war is waged via an asymmetric battle to the death between one beefed up slayer and two dastardly demons, who team up to try to rip the lone slayer to shreds. As the slayer, you win by killing both demons, utilizing a fully decked-out arsenal of weapons and abilities. As the demons, you need only slay the slayer, and can do so by summoning minions and using their own abilities. Rip and tear, baby. Rip and tear.

#6: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (2000)

Ahhh yes, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The game that sparked a deep love-hate relationship with ska music for many in the early 2000’s. Skating around in career mode to gather skate letters, secret tapes, and tearing up the local high school to some of the era's sickest tracks is one of our favorite memories on the N64. But what really kept us coming back was the multiplayer, and while I know the modern remake of the first two games is a significant upgrade and made me pretend that “I’m a Superman” even harder, the original is what started it all. The game offered three head-to-head ways to compete against your friends; Graffiti, Trick Attack, and Horse. Graffiti was especially fun at the time, out-scoring my friends and rolling around a constant sea of red while they struggled to keep up. Passing around the controller to see who could dethrone the winner is a couch co-op nostalgia trip, and I remember staying up into the wee hours of the night trying to beat my brother in Horse.

#5: BioShock 2 (2010)

BioShock 2’s multiplayer expansion, the narrative-focused Fall of Rapture, thrusts players into the late 1950’s Rapture Civil War. Playing as citizens of the submerged metropolis, two teams of five players battle it out in up to seven different game modes, from classic team deathmatch to Capture the Sister, which is basically capture the flag if the flag were an ADAM-harvesting Little Sister. Aww. Decking out your character with the weapons and plasmids you’re familiar with from the main campaign and eliminating other players is oh-so-satisfying, and if you’re lucky enough to find a Big Daddy suit, you’ll have the advantage as you mow down the enemy with the Rivet Gun. Those dirty stinkin’ Splicers never stood a chance.

#4: Portal 2 (2011)

Valve’s first-person puzzle-platformer stole the hearts of thousands when it was released in 2011, quickly garnering cult-status among many gamers. And while the single-player campaign is undoubtedly memorable, the multiplayer co-op takes the cake (which is, in fact, not a lie this time around). Chronologically set directly after the main campaign ends, you play as robots ATLAS and P-body as they work together to help the evil AI GLaDOS find and upload data discs strewn about the facility. The classic physics-based environmental puzzles and Companion Cube maneuvering are in full force here, and the cooperative structure of the missions add more depth to the already cleverly-designed puzzles from the single player experience.

#3: Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

Divisive at launch, the online companion to Grand Theft Auto V, simply called Grand Theft Auto Online, has an extremely active and loyal community even after over a decade. Thanks to unending support and countless patches and updates, Rockstar’s open-world online sandbox is some of the best multiplayer in video games, with their other title, Red Dead Online, matching its quality but seeing significant player dips over the years (xref). In this fictionalized doppelganger of California, GTA Online sees up to 30 players cruise around the city looking for sex workers to court... I mean complete jobs with your crew and stack your cash. You can also create your own content for other players to use and play online, adding endless variety and replayability for this already great game.

#2: Ghost of Tsushima: Legends (2020)

What’s better than one of PlayStation’s greatest single player games of all time getting an amazing multiplayer update? Doing it for FREE. Ghost of Tsushima Legends was added a few months after the game’s initial launch in 2020 and the community has been going strong since. This huge addition has you and up to three other players working together to finish story missions, survive a relentless horde mode, and even beat a raid. That’s right, a raid. That final chapter of the Tale of Iyo has complicated gameplay mechanic puzzles that’ll have even a seasoned Destiny player scratching their head. The best part of Legends is the character customization, as you can fully kit out your class to your liking and unlock countless cosmetic options. I’m a fan of the Fundoshi Assassin, myself.

#1: The Last of Us Factions (2013)

When it first launched on the PS3 in 2013, Naughty Dog’s newest IP forever revolutionized the way video game stories are told. A truly cinematic experience, you’d think there was nothing left to do after rolling credits. But you’d be dead wrong. The Last of Us had an amazing online competitive multiplayer mode called Factions, where you lead a clan of survivors through twelve weeks of rationing and supply-gathering. This is a fun after-match mechanic that serves as further motivation to win, but the main draw is the fantastic gameplay. Offering three game modes, Supply Raid, Survivors, and Interrogation, the sneak-heavy and crafting-dependent gameplay from the campaign is on full display in multiplayer, similar to how Uncharted 4’s online multiplayer showed off its respective gameplay mechanics (xref). When you engage with an enemy player in combat, the melee strikes and machete slices feel even more brutal knowing there’s someone on the receiving end of it. And yes, nailing someone with a bow and arrow is as satisfying as it sounds. It's truly one of the best and most unique multiplayer experiences I’ve played, and it’s a shame that the standalone Factions follow-up was canceled in 2024.


What do you think of our picks? Are there any you think we missed? We know there are a ton of great multiplayer experiences out there, but alas our list is only limited to ten. Let us know in the comments below!