What are the best online multiplayer games on PC?

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Question Notes: Online multiplayer games are games that can be played over the internet with multiple players. Multiplayer games are made up of player vs player as well as co-op games.

For a similar question regarding local “couch” multiplayer games, see here.

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The 5 must play gamesWhy?

Best online multiplayer games on PC	Price	Genre	Platforms
94 Dragon Ball FighterZ	$59.99	Fighting	Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
93 Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn	$19.99	MMORPG	PlayStation 4, Windows, Mac
92 Borderlands 2	$19.99	Action RPG	Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox 360, Xbox One
92 Monster Hunter: World	$59.99	Action Role-Playing, Multiplayer	PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows
90 World of Warcraft	-	MMORPG	Windows

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Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

Top Pro

All classes can be played with one character

You don't have to create a different character for every single class. Your one character can be every single class. Each class has a specific weapon (bow for archers, daggers for rogue, axes for marauders, etc.), and you just equip that weapon type and your character switches classes. Each class starts at level, so you have to level each class you want to play, but there are numerous ways to get exp so it feels a little less like a grindy chore. See More

Top Con

Pay to play

The game itself has a base price of $19.99, but also has expansion pack prices that could be added on top of that. This is just to get the game, once purchased the player will also need to pay a monthly subscription of $12.99 to continue playing the game, which can add up over time making for a pretty steep investment for some. See More

ExuberantCermait's Experience

Specs

Top Pro

Humorous writing in a game with a serious tone

Despite being an in-your-face action game with an generally serious plot, Borderlands 2 features an interesting yet slightly cliche sense of humor. This is even exaggerated in the side quests, which at times feature the funniest and most creative parts of the writing. This way the player can dive into the main plot and get an enjoyable action plot, while also being given the choice to go on side-quests that feature a break from the more serious overtones through an expanded sense of humor. Often the humor is meme based or low brow, which should appeal to a wide array of sense of humor. See More

Top Con

Gameplay can become repetitive

Many battles can be cheesed by running away, taking cover, shooting, and repeating. The AI doesn't do much to pursue you which gives the player the advantage of using the same technique for most fights, which can become boring with time. See More

crayg's Experience

This game is fantastic. If you're a fan of FPS and RPGs, this is a must-have. Great art direction means that despite the game being a few years old, it still looks great. Intense combat that genuinely feels different depending on character skill trees. One of the best villains ever and a ton of levels to explore set out in an open-world style. Great character customizations. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Due to the stylised 'cartoon' graphics you won't need a top end gaming rig to be able to play WoW and have it look good. See More

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45 Other Games Considered

Don't Starve Together

Top Con

Can get repetitive

You'll have to repeatedly collect a lot of basic materials like twigs, grass, and ore. This is because most of the starting recipes share the same required materials. Even later in the game you'll be doing many repetitive tasks. Gathering enough firewood for winter is especially bad because you have to chop down dozens of trees. All of this is made worse by the limited inventory space, causing you to make the same trip multiple times. See More

Top Pro

There's never a dull moment

As the game progresses, it offers more and more mechanics that require constant attention to function properly. It becomes a constant re-evaluation of risk and reward. See More

ConscientiousAmirani's Experience

Overall a great game that is really fun to play with friends! I love the graphics too. The possibilities are endless when it comes to crafting and exploring. 5/5 stars See More

Specs

Genre:Roguelike, Survival, Horror

Co-Op:2-4 Player Local

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Top Con

Steep learning curve

The first few attempts will last only a couple of in-game days. This is because the game has various punishing mechanics, which you can only learn through trial and error. One such mechanic is the darkness, which will kill you in under a minute if you don't have a light source. Followed by packs of hounds that randomly spawn to kill you. In most cases preparation is key and you can't prepare without knowledge. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get started but has a lot of depth

The game starts out easy, with very little in terms of mechanics, and the single objective of not starving. Then, over time, new mechanics are introduced as you explore more of the game world. The game provides very little guidance, leaving players to figure out how things work for themselves. In addition to game mechanics, even goals and story elements are unveiled organically over time. See More

ImaginativeBobbiBobbi's Experience

Top Con

Multiplayer is overrun by hackers

During online games you'll encounter hackers who have infinite money, can spawn any vehicle of their choice, and many other things, which reduces the fun quite a bit. What's even worse is that by interacting with the hackers you can get banned immediately without any additional investigations on the developer's part. See More

Top Pro

Great story wrapped around in biting and relevant social commentary

Grand Theft Auto V is a smart, comical but biting social commentary on contemporary relevant matters. It satirizes almost anything that has to do with the current pop culture. Millennials, celebrities, the right, the left, the middle class, the upper class, the media and even the video game industry itself. The story and the world in which it takes place are fictional, but the social commentary and the problems it raises and things it satirizes are real -- corruption, greed, hypocrisy, the abuse of power -- are all real and relevant in today's world. See More

EmbiggenedTibertus's Experience

Online version is most of the time down. See More

Specs

Genre:Action-Adventure

Dark Souls 3 adds a bit of speed over its previous releases. This makes for an exciting new experience for players of the franchise as well as an overall exciting experience for new players, as it requires impeccable timing of how one can react to counter, dodge or hit an enemy. See More

Top Pro

Worthwhile equipment combinability

Any and all equipment in the game can be useful at some point of gameplay. The players are not penalized for wanting to use particular equipment for looks over usefulness, as all equipment are useful in some way. This greatly opens up how one can combine the equipment they find as the player is not held back by equipment not being as useful as the rest. See More

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Team Fortress 2

Top Pro

Multiple game modes allowing for great variation

TF2 has more than 10 game modes, plus variations on those, as well as community mods that offer a wide range of objective-based play. Classic game modes include Capture the Flag, Control Point, King of the Hill and Payload. There's also Mann vs. Machine, a co-operative game mode where you play against waves of AI controlled enemies. See More

Top Con

Free accounts are slightly limited

Free accounts do not get rare and cosmetic items nor as many storage slots for items. Items are relevant as free accounts can only hold 50, while the game has much more than 50 pieces of equipment (that affect gameplay), let alone 50 weapons. While a premium account player can react to almost all situations with a counter item, with only 50 slots a newbie probably won't have or even be able to access it. A full inventory also means a free player will have to miss out or delete exclusive event items and cosmetics just to play the game as full as they can. A free account is upgraded when any item is purchased with real money from the store. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Hero-based FPS

Co-Op:6 Player Online / 6 Player LAN

Controller Support:Partial

Top Pro

Requires real team cooperation if you want to be successful

More teamfighting, less laning. Games are largely decided by how well each team can work as a unit instead of one player carrying. See More

Top Con

Can feel difficult to make an impact as a solo player

Since Heroes was designed to be more team-centric rather than individual players carrying games, games can often feel beyond your control. For example, ranked games can often feel like a coin flip of which side gets lucky and avoids players prone to tilting or toxicity. See More

Top Con

Not a very friendly/welcoming community

The community can be quite hostile even without any obvious reason. See More

Top Pro

Largest diversity of champions with unique play styles

Having 134 champions League of Legends is ought to offer the greatest diversity and it delivers. Many champions have long combos that need precision in positioning and timings on par with fighting games, while others can be effective without combos at all. Also many champions feel really unique (not necessary complicated) in play style, unseen in other MOBAs. See More

Thomas Cowles's Experience

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Paladins

Top Pro

Free to play

Everything that affects gameplay in Paladins can be unlocked simply by playing. However, there are cosmetic items available for purchase if you'd like to support the developers. See More

Top Con

Characters are not well-balanced

Characters range from being highly underpowered to wildly overpowered. See More

JACKSON SINGLETON's Experience

Started playing when i was 10 and now im addicted. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Online and local versus modes are available

There are a handful of games in the collection that allow you to play against others both online and locally. You can join a friend for a match through a local connection or online, or you can go online for matchmaking against someone else. This is a really neat feature that's a lot like playing against someone else in an actual coin arcade. See More

Top Con

Some online connection issues

There are a few issues when playing matches online. Depending on how poor your opponent's connection is, you may have to deal with lag. If their connection is decent, then you won't have to worry about it. It's pretty much hit-or-miss on whether your matches will be stable or not, since it's completely out of your control. See More

Specs

Genre:Fighting

Co-Op:2 Player Local / 2 Player Online

Top Pro

Incredibly deep gameplay

For players who put the time into Dota 2 to get past the early beginner phase, Dota 2 can become an extremely satisfying game. There's a reason it's one of the most popular eSports titles in the world. The amount of strategy, skill and variables involved make it a very deep game where anything could happen. See More

Top Con

It's got a huge learning curve

Dota 2 has 115 heroes, all of which are unique from each other. It will take time and effort to learn which heroes you like to play, and become skilled with them. See More

CharmingOshun's Experience

Gameplay is balanced in the sense that while other MOBAs would have only around 30-60 viable picks for the competitive scene, Dota 2 has heroes and strategies in the game that are more varied, which enables more heroes to be picked in the competitive scene. Number of Heroes Picked in Dota 2's Recent Major Tournament in the past 4 months (as of July 2016) is 86/111 heroes picked and 100 out of 111 heroes picked. To compare between Dota 2 and LoL pick diversity, LoL has 64 out of 131 champions picked for LCS. There are also factors such as the ban/pick phase difference and the more rigid positions in LoL that may limit the viability for different playstyles and hero picks (typically it is 2 (AD, Support Bot) -1 (AP mid) -1 (Tank Off) - 1 (Jungler), with a possibility of double junglers in LoL). On the other hand in Dota 2, there are a lot more different positions compared to Lol/Smite such as Duo Mid (1-2-2), Traditional (2-1-2), One Jungler (1-2-1-1, most similar to league), One Roamer (1-2-1-1 as well with the difference being the hero roams the map for kills to create space for the mid and safelane rather than farm the jungle which can weaken a lane), Duo Roamer (1-1-1-2, all lanes are weaker in lane presence with the tradeoff being they get solo experience with two aggressive supports roaming), Trilane (1-1-3, Aggresive or Passive Trilane) and Abandoned Offlane (0-1-3-1 where the offlane is completely left empty due to a strong duo or trilane on the opposing team). More heroes are viable and balanced in Dota 2 partly due to the greater flexibility in laning. This can be attributed the mechanics such as creep pulling and creep stacking which allows the team doing trilane to make up for the shared experience between three heroes. Besides that, the existence of teleport scrolls that allow you to defend your towers or punish a tower dive also allows you to react and assist other lanes. In pub games, any hero/lane/lineup can work, and it is more about your individual mechanical skills (understanding of hero, combo execution, map awareness, last hitting, timings, item builds, flow) over the lack of coordination and teamwork (on both teams). See More

Top Pro

Dota 2 has the world's biggest e-sports tournament

At The International 7 in summer 2017, players raised the prize pool to more than $23 million, one of the largest prize pools in E-Sports history. See More

Top Pro

Excellent opportunity to work on people skills

Improving team morale and willingness to work together goes a long way toward winning matches. See More

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Titanfall

Top Con

Everything is online-only

Having everything online means you're at the mercy of your internet connection. If you disconnect during a story mode match, for example, then you risk losing all progress and having to start over again. The story isn't exactly something you can skip, either, since you have to play through it if you want to unlock all of the Titans. For those with decent connections, you'll probably be okay, but anyone else should be wary about dealing with frequent interruptions. See More

Top Pro

Thrilling first-person shooter multiplayer with teams of six

Titanfall is a great team-based FPS game with well-designed gunplay. Running and gunning with your team of six friends or online players is fast-paced, with tons of destruction on the battlefield all around you. You rely on twitch reflexes to gun down enemies as soon as you see one rounding a corner, or to react in time to someone shooting at you and taking you by surprise. Though there aren't too many guns to choose from, the ones you can pick are each unique and fun to use. Everything feels balanced in a way that's well thought-out, leading to frantic and intense multiplayer matches. See More

Specs

Genre:First-Person Shooter, Multiplayer

Co-Op:6 Player Online

Top Pro

Local 2 player and online 4 player co-op

Left 4 Dead 2 supports 2 player local co-op as well as 4 player online co-op. See More

Top Con

AI lacks craftiness

The AI has a tendency to make ridiculous choices that can screw up what players are doing. This can become a big problem when relying on AI teammates in order to get through a level. See More

Case Cowboy's Experience

It's fun and addictive! Even better with friends, but that's not required ;) See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Genre:FFFPPPSSSSSSS

Co-Op:1 Player Online / 100 Player Couch / 400 Player LAN

Left 4 Dead 2 allows for the player's use of melee weapons. These create not only more graphic violence when playing (in comparison to that created when just using guns), but also a more personal and intimate experience. See More

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Dragon Ball FighterZ

Top Pro

Healthy roster of characters

With classic characters like Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Frieza, Captain Ginyu, Cell, and several more, as well as a new addition with Android 21, fans of the series will find at least a few of their favorites to play with. More powerful characters are unlockable through completing the story and arcade modes. The voice acting both in English and Japanese for every character are superb, sounding just like their anime versions. Players who aren't familiar with the Dragon Ball Z series are bound to find a few characters that they enjoy through gameplay alone, with each fighter boasting unique visuals with their special and ultimate attacks. See More

Top Con

Online lobbies are a mess

Unfortunately, the game automatically forces the player to connect to a lobby right from the start. This can sometimes take a while if lobbies are full, or if the connection drops for whatever reason. Sometimes, even after successfully entering a lobby, there will be frustrating disconnects, forcing another round of going through the same loop of trying to connect and possibly dropping back out again. Thankfully, there's an offline lobby for those only looking to do the story or arcade modes. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Fighting

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The 5 must play gamesWhy?

My Recommendation for Dragon Ball FighterZ

My Recommendation for Dragon Ball FighterZ

Healthy roster of characters

Online lobbies are a mess

The game looks just like the anime

No honor in online matches

Combat is easy to learn and difficult to master

Story mode is padded and repetitive

Characters work well together in combat and in cutscenes

My Recommendation for Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

My Recommendation for Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn

All classes can be played with one character

Pay to play

Plenty of side-quests to keep the player busy

An absolutely stunning game

The story is incredible

Combat is very in-depth

My Recommendation for Borderlands 2

My Recommendation for Borderlands 2

Humorous writing in a game with a serious tone

Gameplay can become repetitive

Variety of co-op options

Lack of diversity among weapons

Allows for multiple playstyles

Tedious to check gun stats

Great comic book art style

Boring bulletsponge enemies

Enjoyable co-op play that focuses on teamwork

Lost loot due to sharing

Tons of heavily customized and unique loot

Works on different OS's: Linux/Mac/Win

It's very unique

Takes incredibly long to stop being interesting

Each playthrough is a different experience

Procedurally generated loot

My Recommendation for Monster Hunter: World

My Recommendation for Monster Hunter: World

Dynamic and immersive world

Frustratingly difficult at times

Exhilarating hunting gameplay

Engaging crafting-based progression system

Awesome graphics

A great variety of weapons to choose from

My Recommendation for World of Warcraft

My Recommendation for World of Warcraft

Most recognized MMO in existence

Subscription required

Very polished

Class homogenisation

Constant stream of new content

It's all about the destination, not the journey

Low system requirements

45 Other Games Considered

My Recommendation for Don't Starve Together

My Recommendation for Don't Starve Together

Can get repetitive

There's never a dull moment

Steep learning curve

Easy to get started but has a lot of depth

Constant restarts can be drawn out and boring

Rewarding roguelike gameplay

Much grinding

Lots of replayability

Great story generator

Easily customized to adjust difficulty

Uniquely atmospheric art style

Fun crafting system

Pleasantly twisted sense of humor

Very active modding community with numerous mods available

Great replay value

Deep and varied crafting system

The further you get, the more you will learn

My Recommendation for Overwatch

My Recommendation for Overwatch

Good variety of maps

Being successful requires a good amount of teamwork

Unique and fast paced FPS gameplay with character depth

Lacking in story

Unique progression system