When you're both good at this

Last time this magazine was about couples where one of you never plays. That's the more common case, and almost every recommendation list online is written for it. This piece is for the other one: you've both had a controller in your hands for as long as you can remember, and you're after something that doesn't treat you like two beginners.

Count our games by how much dexterity they ask for and the scale becomes clear: forty-four out of sixty-nine sit at "Beginner" or "Beginner–Hobby". Four sit at "Gamer".

That isn't sloppiness in our picks, it's the state of the genre. Co-op games are built to be accessible, because the second person is usually the less practised one. Two experienced players are a minority in a genre designed around their opposite.

Difficulty is just a slider

The obvious answer — "then play something hard" — falls short, because difficulty is a setting almost everywhere now. Deep Rock Galactic has five levels to pick from, Grounded and Valheim can be tuned, and Borderlands 3 goes as far as letting each of you play on your own difficulty.

That's a good thing — it just doesn't solve your problem. A game set to hard is still the same game. You perform the same actions with less room for error. What you're looking for is something else.

What's missing is needing each other

The difference isn't hardness, it's whether the game asks for two minds or just two pairs of hands. In most co-op games you do the same thing side by side, and the second player is essentially an amplifier.

Deep Rock Galactic builds it the other way around: four roles that need each other. The driller cuts the tunnel, the engineer places the platform the driller can't get past. For two, that means picking two of the four and living with the choice.

Barotrauma takes it to the limit. A submarine has a reactor, sonar, weapons and an engine room, and every station wants genuine understanding. A boat with one competent person aboard sinks just as reliably as one with none — only slower.

In Lethal Company the voice link is itself part of the game: one of you goes in, one stays at the monitor, and what the one outside says decides the fate of the one inside. Sea of Thieves has a ship class built for two, the sloop — sailing, anchoring and firing all work with two people, just not at the same time.

The head or the thumbs

If you want the effort in your head: Divinity: Original Sin 2 has a rule called "Lone Wolf" written explicitly for two strong characters — instead of four middling heroes, each of you runs one who takes twice the punishment. Baldur's Gate 3 demands no reflexes at all, being turn-based; what it demands is preparation. The co-op half of Portal 2 is its own campaign, with puzzles that don't exist in the solo game, and We Were Here Together puts you in separate rooms where you talk more than you click.

If it should be the thumbs: Cuphead is the clearest case — each fight lasts minutes rather than hours, and whoever falls can be caught by the other on the way down. That isn't a courtesy, it's the reason to play it in pairs. Risk of Rain 2 reassembles every run, and Helldivers 2 fits a whole mission into half an hour.

The games made for two are the easy ones

Counting turned up something we hadn't expected. Seven games here can only be played in pairs — on your own they don't exist at all. Six of those seven sit on the two lowest rungs for dexterity.

It makes sense as soon as you say it out loud: if you build a game that doesn't work without a second person, you have to make sure that second person can keep up. It Takes Two sells to couples, not to tournaments.

For you that means the games designed most thoroughly for two are rarely the demanding ones. Conversely the demanding ones — role-playing games, shooters, survival games — are games that permit a second player rather than needing one. The single exception in our list is We Were Here Together.

Expect an argument

Three of the four games at the "Gamer" rung we've classed as heated. With four games that proves nothing, but the connection is easy to see: where both of you can fail, both of you can be blamed. In Barotrauma every sinking has a cause, and it's usually sitting next to you.

Chained Together is the extreme case, even though it's not hard to operate: you hang from a chain, one mistake drops you both, and that settles the question of fault every single time.

This isn't a warning. Some couples want exactly that, and an evening with nothing at stake isn't much of an evening either. But nobody should be surprised by it.

The filter won't help you — and that's the point

On the game list, under More filters, there's a setting called "Suitable from". It works as a threshold: "from beginner" shows only what a newcomer can handle. Set it to "Gamer" and all sixty-nine games remain, because experienced players can handle anything.

That's precisely your situation. The more interesting question for you isn't what you can operate, but what needs you both — and two other filters cover that: co-op scope set to "two players only" for the games that don't exist alone, and conflict potential, if you'd like to know what you're getting into.

And if you ever do end up with someone on the second controller who hasn't played in years: the other piece is for that.