Close search results
SEARCH
DATABASE Search
:
Layout - grid Layout - list

Play And Connect

Online games are great because you have a world of opponents to take on and defeat (or be defeated by). But beyond the competitive element of these games are often a strong sense of community and camaraderie.

We’re supporting the Every Mind Matters campaign from NHS and bringing you some games that help you connect with friends and family while you look after your mental health.

Players enjoy making new connections in these games, as well as connecting with wider family and friends. Listen to the chatter while children play these games, and you hear as much talk about homework, television, YouTube or what's happening in the world as much as how to win the next race in Mario Kart.

This list includes 312 games from the last 31 years, with 6,088 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to connect and challenge friends.

DetailsList Details

PEGI Ratings: PEGI 3 to PEGI 18
ESRB Ratings: ESRB EVERYONE to ESRB MATURE 17+
Australian Ratings: G to R 18+
Genres: Action, Adventure, Battle, Brain Game, Collecting, Communication, Creative, Fighting, Narrative, Physically Active, Platform, Point-and-Click, Puzzle, Race, Rhythm, Role-Play, Sequencing, Shooting, Simulation, Sports, Stealth, Strategy, Traversal and World Building
Total Likes: 6,088
 

Among Us

Release Date: 16/11/2018, updated in 2020

Out Now: Android, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Among Us is a strategy game where crew-mates prepare their spaceship for launch by completing tasks. However, one of the players is an impostor intent on sabotaging the ship and killing the crew. As the game progresses in real-time the impostor...

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Release Date: 27/08/1992, updated in 2018

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, DS, GameCube, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a go-kart racing game where you race against Nintendo characters around different circuits, picking up power-ups, attacks and speed boosts. It is frantic and chaotic but still requires skills to do well.

Sea of Thieves

Release Date: 20/03/2018, updated in 2023

Out Now: PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

Sea of Thieves is an online game where you play a pirate searching for treasure and adventure. Cast into a large open sea you work with other online players to crew your ship and find treasure. The game has a main story but really focuses on creating...

Rocket League

Release Date: 28/08/2018

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Rocket League is a sports action game where you drive futuristic cars to score goals with an oversized football. It's a game that sounds ridiculous but is actually a huge amount of fun to play and requires a lot of expertise. What's not obvious from the...

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Release Date: 10/06/2021, updated in 2021

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Hand-Made

Chicory: A Colorful Tale is an adventure where you play an everyday dog thrust into the role of wielding a magic brush. The world starts black and white but you colour it in with your paintbrush to solve puzzles and help your animal friends. It looks...

The Crew 2

Release Date: 02/12/2014, updated in 2018

Out Now: PC, PS4, Stadia and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night and Open World

The Crew 2 is the latest in a series of open-world racing and exploration games set in a scaled-down version of the United States. The emphasis is on enjoyable and exciting driving more than realism. It's a lot like Forza Horizon, although can be played...

That's You!

Release Date: 04/07/2017

Out Now: PS4

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

That's You! is a family quiz game played on the PlayStation using Android or iOS phones/tablets as controllers. The game displays a challenge on the main TV screen that each player tries to complete on the device in their hand.

Wordle

Release Date: 20/12/2021

Out Now: Web

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Text

Wordle is a daily puzzle game where you (and anyone else playing that day) try and guess the secret word. You get six guesses that must be real words. Each letter is then coloured to provide clues: green for the right letter in the right place, yellow...

The Tomorrow Children

Release Date: 06/09/2016, updated in 2022

Out Now: PS4 and PS5

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

The Tomorrow Children is an online strategy game where you collaborate with other players to build, explore and develop communities. Unusually, it uses social economics and a Soviet Union-themed post-apocalyptic dystopia as the setting. You play a clone...

Tricky Towers

Release Date: 05/07/2016, updated in 2017

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Tricky Towers is a battle puzzle that uses shapes but instead of creating lines, you must balance them in towers that mustn’t fall over. Real-world physics applies, along with wind and attacks from other players to make your stack topple. Up to four...

Book of Travels

Release Date: 30/08/2021

Out Now: Mac and PC

Components: 3D Third-Person, Hand-Made and Open World

Book of Travels is a role-playing game. It's an unusual online game that focuses on the small rather than the massive. You explore an open world to find others to travel with, gather resources, craft items and learn abilities. It's a game that invites...

Cruis’n Blast

Release Date: 14/09/2021

Out Now: Switch and Wii

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Cruis’n Blast is a brash over the top racing game based on a series of big arcade machines. Competing with games like Ridge Racer, OutRun and Daytona USA, it offers whacky racing with big and bombastic visuals and characters.

Flock

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Open World and Weather

Flock is a cooperative traversal and collecting game where you take on the role of a flying shepherd. To play you move around the world, tending to your unique herd of flying creatures. It sounds complicated but really it's just a big wild place on the...

Phantom Abyss

Release Date: 21/06/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: Mac, PC and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Phantom Abyss is a running and jumping game where you charge through temples to get to the exit. Your only tool is a whip that interacts with objects and can propel you forward. Along the way are numerous traps and difficult jumps to avoid. There are...

Henry Halfhead

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: PC

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Henry Halfhead is a traversal game where you move around by possessing and controlling any object within your reach. You move around the world freely, but to get where you need to go you need to become the objects around you to use their abilities. It...

Super Mario Bros Wonder

Release Date: 20/10/2023

Coming Soon: Switch

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

Super Mario Bros Wonder is a running and jumping game that evolves the classic 2D Mario genre in weird and dream-like directions. You play with up to four friends, each controlling Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy or Yoshi. It manages...

Pikmin 4

Release Date: 21/07/2023

Out Now: Switch

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Day and Night

Pikmin 4 is the latest in a series of puzzle games where you direct hordes of titular plant-like creatures to navigate garden locations. Different colour Pikmins have different abilities so the challenge is to get enough of the right ones to destroy...

Blanc

Release Date: 14/02/2023

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Blanc is a black-and-white adventure for two players. You play a fawn and a wolf cub stranded in a vast, snowy wilderness. As you use each other's abilities to progress through the world, you form an unlikely partnership and hope to find both their...

Lego 2K Drive

Release Date: 19/05/2023

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Blocks, Cartoon and Open World

Lego 2K Drive is an open-world racing game made out of Lego. There are races, as you'd expect, but you can also freely explore each of the worlds, collect parts and upgrade your cars. It stands out for updating the popular Lego destruction and...

Chessplosion

Release Date: 21/09/2021

Out Now: PC

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Chessplosion is an action, puzzle game where you drop chess pieces on a board to trigger bombs in the shape of their related chess moves. Your aim is to use the different pieces (and bomb attacks) to trap opponents like Bomberman. No prior chess...

Young Souls

Release Date: 16/08/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead

Young Souls is a side-on fighting game about two drop-out teenagers whose mentor disappears. Gameplay is divided into two distinct worlds: the modern human world and a dark, twisted world of goblins and monsters. You brawl and crunch your way through...

Circuit Superstars

Release Date: 05/03/2021, updated in 2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon

Circuit Superstars is a simple racing game viewed from above. Up to four players control a car and race around a complex track. You can see what's coming which makes it easier but must work with real car physics to get across the line first. What starts...

Crawl

Release Date: 11/04/2017, updated in 2017

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Pixels

Crawl is a dungeon fighting game where your friends control the monsters and traps. The hero player moves around, break boxes and attack enemies while the ghost players try and stop him. Once the hero dies they become another ghost and the next player...

Barotrauma

Release Date: 13/03/2023

Out Now: PC

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On

Barotrauma is a cooperative space-submarine adventure set after humanity has fled to Jupiter's moon. You work with other players to steer your submarine, work the ageing machinery, fight monsters and fix the endless leaks. It's a game that revels in not...

Fortnite

Release Date: 25/07/2017, updated in 2018

Out Now: Android, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon and Open World

Fortnite rose to popularity via its Battle Royale mode where 100 players fight against each other in online battles to the death. While they play, using shooting, evasion and building skills to survive, a storm is closing in to make the playable area...

Minecraft

Release Date: 23/11/2017, updated in 2019

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, 3D Third-Person, Blocks, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

Minecraft is an open-world adventure where you collect, craft and construct structures and items. Play involves exploring the world to find resources and good locations to build. Some of the best aspects of the game are less well known; along with the...

Overcooked! All You Can Eat

Release Date: 07/08/2018, updated in 2018

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Overcooked! All You Can Eat is part of a series of collaborative cooking games for up to 4 players. You must keep talking to other players to coordinate the various elements of the dishes. It starts simply enough but soon gets more complicated as you...

Castle Crashers

Release Date: 08/09/2015, updated in 2019

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made

Castle Crashers is a cartoon looking fighting game, like Golden Axe, The Simpsons or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games, set in a medieval universe where a dark wizard steals a mystical gem and captures four princesses. Four knights are charged...

Destiny 2

Release Date: 09/09/2014

Out Now: PC, PS4, Stadia and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person and Open World

Destiny 2 is a shooting game set in space. You have to play online as it focuses on grand sci-fi adventures with other players. From the same developer, it takes Halo towards a bigger online role-play experience.

Dragon Age (Series)

Release Date: 03/11/2009, updated in 2014

Out Now: Android, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Components: 3D Third-Person

Dragon Age series are narrative-driven role-playing games with an emphasis on combat and player choices. You play the hero in the medieval fantasy world of Thedas, exploring the world and using your power to stop the impending darkness spread across the...

LittleBigPlanet 3

Release Date: 27/10/2008

Out Now: PS Vita, PS3 and PS4

Components: 3D Third-Person and Hand-Made

LittleBigPlanet 3 is part of a series of action platform games starring the Sackboy character. They offer a multiplayer running and jumping adventure but also enable players to substantially edit their character and eventually make their own levels.

Risk of Rain 2

Release Date: 30/08/2019

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 3D First-Person and Cartoon

Risk of Rain 2 is a multiplayer adventure game where you have to fight to survive and escape a planet you've crash-landed on. It's formatted like a 'Roguelike' game: an iterative game that requires multiple goes to complete a level and where your...

Adopt Me! (Roblox)

Release Date: 14/07/2017

Out Now: Android, PC, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon, Day and Night and Open World

Adopt Me! is one of the most popular Roblox games. In a rudimentary way, it simulates daily life. You can build a home, look after pets and make friends. Like many Roblox games, it's the combination of an avid community of players...

MeepCity (Roblox)

Release Date: 23/02/2016

Out Now: Android, PC, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon and Open World

MeepCity is a popular Roblox Game. It's a social game where you role-play a character to interact with other people and customise their looks. Like Toontown Online or the now-defunct Club Penguin, MeepCity is an evolving virtual space for players to...

Welcome to Bloxburg (Roblox)

Release Date: 01/11/2014

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

Welcome to Bloxburg is a simulation Roblox game where you take on daily activities in a fictional city. Drawing on gameplay from The Sims, you care for your character and keep their mood positive, by building and customizing your house, learning skills...

Impostor (Roblox)

Release Date: 17/09/2020

Out Now: Mac, PC, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cartoon and Open World

Impostor is a space survival game like Among Us. It is a community-created version of that official game on Roblox as Impostor, but also on Minecraft as a couple of minigames called Among Us and Impostor. The Roblox game is a version of Among Us for...

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Release Date: 04/08/2020

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is a whacky obstacle race where up to 60 people compete to get to the end of the course and advance to the next round. Drawing on TV shows like Takeshi's Castle, Wipeout or It's a Knock Out, you have to control top-heavy...

BedWars (Roblox)

Release Date: 19/01/2017, updated in 2023

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Open World

BedWars is a game played on Minecraft (since 2017) or Roblox servers (since 2021). It's a team game where you start on an island and must protect your bed and build bridges to attack other teams' beds. The trick is the ecosystem of items and crafting...

Royale High (Roblox)

Release Date: 04/10/2017

Out Now: Android, GBA, Mac, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person

Royale High Roblox is a role-play game about a fantasy school. You dress up, visit differently themed realms collect items and interact with other people. It draws inspiration from the pageantry world and integrates it with different locations to...

Overwatch 2

Release Date: 24/05/2016, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person

Overwatch 2 is a shooting game where the focus is on teamwork and skill rather than violence. In teams of five, you communicate and work together to take out the other team and complete your objective. Along with games like Rocket League, it has...

Taming Gaming Book Written by parents for parents, the database complements the in-depth discussion about video game addiction, violence, spending and online safety in the Taming Gaming book. We are an editorially independent, free resource without adverts that is supported by partnerships.

Subscribe to our free newsletter

Subscribe
Carina Initiatives
PlayStation
HSBC
GameOpedia
Xbox
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Contact Us
About