The 25 best party games to play at home

The best party games are fun, sometimes fast, often loud, occasionally lairy, and, when at their best, furious. If your relationship with a friend or significant other can survive a few rounds in an Overcooked kitchen you're in a good place, trust me. If not burning virtual means, you might prefer driving games, trivia games, platformers, sports games, wrestling games and/or games that sort-of resemble Pictionary. Whatever your taste, the best party games are there to be enjoyed – your level of competitiveness amongst friends and family will, however, determine just how much. Without further ado, here are the best party games money can buy.  

The best party games are...

Super Mario Party

Available on: Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: Up to 4

Ain’t no party like Mario Party. Since the dawn of the N64, Mario Party has fed many a sibling rivalry over the years, and it also helps you realise who’s the most competitive one in your family or friendship group. Essentially it’s set up like a board game and whoever manages to bag themselves the most stars wins. There’s so much more to it, though. The massive library of mini games is where it’s at. With everything from boat racing to who can fry a perfect cube of meat the fastest, there’s a whole catalogue of quirky little challenges to best your friends at. And other modes offer even more good times. If you want to shake things, you can play party partner mode, which sees you team up in pairs to beat the other team to the star on the board, or you can dive into River Survival mode where you have navigate through different challenges on a rowboat. Teamwork and communication is key for both though, so you better prepare yourselves. 

Jackbox Party Pack 6

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Maximum players: 10

Charge up your smartphones and get ready for some JackBox Party goodness. Any and all of the Jackbox Party packs will keep you entertained until the wee hours of the morning, but the sixth pack in the series is a solid all-rounder. Each pack usually includes five mini games and every one is guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing, and put you and your pals in a lot of silly scenarios. Up to ten players can get in on the action, but everyone will need a smartphone, tablet or computer nearby to join in. You can test your knowledge in the darkly weird Trivia Murder Party 2; get clever with your words in Dictionarium; put your personalities to the test in Role Models; see who has the sharpest wit in the comedy contest Joke Boat; or play the hidden identity game Push the Button. It’s a certified party pleaser. 

Overcooked 2

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch 
Maximum players: 4

Overcooked 2 is a madcap food fest that’s sure to be just the recipe your party needs to ensure no one will go away thinking it was a bland, uneventful occasion. From slicing tomatoes on a hot air balloon to frying steak on water rafts, being a chef has never been as crazy as this. The sequel from Ghost Town Games serves up another slice of tasty tests and delightfully doughy puns that’ll charm you as much as it will challenge you. As cute little cooks, it’s your job to prepare all the ingredients and serve up as many dishes as you can within the time limit. Teamwork and communication is vital if you want to want that coveted top star rating. With six levels to try out, every stage presents new obstacles and challenges, including shifting kitchen surfaces that switch up on you, and collapsing floors. And if you're looking for some upgraded fun, get Overcooked All You Can Eat Edition for both games and a ton of content on PS5 and Xbox Series X. 

That's You

Available on: PS4
Maximum players: 6

We all have that one friend who would so fall in love on the first date, or be the one who’s most likely to eat the glue in art class. If you think you really know your friends or family, That’s You will truly put that to test. From a variety of different topics like school, pastimes and love, up to six players will be asked a series of questions, and you have to decide which friend is the answer. So for example: who is most likely to practise pick-up lines the mirror? You then place your bets on which friend it is, and you’ll get more points if everyone playing agrees and gives the same answer. There are also different rounds where one player will be put on the spot, or where everyone has to draw something on a specific photo. It’s quite a simple premise, but it’s endlessly fun and will reveal just how well your friends really know you. 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Available on: Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4 (up to 8 if you use more than one Switch) 

Sometimes bringing out Mario Kart at a party can be dangerous. Many a friendship has been tested at the steering wheel, after all. Just when you’re about to reach the finish line and cement your victory in 1st place, your friend sends a red shell hurtling your way and suddenly your victory is snatched away from you. As your fate is sealed in 4th place, the controller gets tossed to the ground in frustration. We’ve all be there. It’s harsh. Despite that, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is always a crowd pleaser, and playing a tournament can really spice things up and bring out everyone’s competitive side - for better or worse. With a great selection of Nintendo’s famous characters to choose from and a vast collection of tracks from past iterations in the lineup, time will race right on by you. Just make sure you have a lot of drinks on standby for the inevitable rise in sodium levels when the dreaded blue shell gets unleashed for what feels like the hundredth time. You know what they say: you can’t win them all. 

Knowledge is Power

Available on: PS4
Maximum players: 6

It’s time for a battle of wits! As another PS4 PlayLink title that uses smartphones to play, Knowledge is Power lets up to six players show off their trivia prowess and try to answer their way to victory. After you pick from a selection of wonderfully weird characters - from a guy in a hotdog suit to a cowgirl - you then take a selfie which will show up as your avatar. It lets you all vote for categories and then poses multiple choice questions you have to try and answer faster than everyone else. After each question, you can also throw slime or freeze your opponents which gives you the upper hand as they’ll have clear it on the their touchscreens before being able to answer. Time is money here, so the quicker you answer, the more points you’ll get. It’s like a zany claymation-like game show, and with a plenty of categories and trivia challenges on offer, you can show everyone at the party just how much you really know. 

Gang Beasts 

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8

Want to know a great way to ensure no fights break out at your soiree? Let your guests hash it out in the aptly named Beef City with blob-like figures dressed in silly costumes. Gang Beasts is a ridiculously silly fighting game with wacky physics that will keep you on your toes as you desperately try to cling onto victory. With lots of different stages to choose from, some are more of a balancing act than others. Fighting on top of moving trucks or containers perilously hanging in air will of course put you in some tricky spots. There’s also a wrestling ring, incinerator and Ferris wheel. Really, the list goes on. If you can fight on it, it’s probably in there. Playing fisticuffs with the gelatinous humanoids dressed up as cats, chickens and construction workers is one way to keep everyone entertained while you refill the snack bowls. 

Drawful 2

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 8

As a standalone Jackbox Party game, Drawful 2 essentially puts a fun spin on the classic board game Pictionary. With up to eight players who once again use a phone or tablet, one player has to draw whatever weird thing gets thrown out there, and the other players have to try and select the correct multiple choice answer. The challenge comes into play thanks to the rather strange things you have to try and draw, and since there’s no eraser, you have to just go with the flow and hope the scribbley blob you just sketched out actually looks like something discernible. You also have the option to create your own custom rounds with drawing suggestions you’ve cooked up yourself to make it even more ridiculous and difficult. Drawful 2 is a very simple idea, but it’s an endlessly fun and creative way of making your party a very memorable one.  

Rocket League

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4

When you’re hosting a party, you’re firmly in the driving seat, so why not take that literally? Rocket League’s fast-paced slightly manic spin on football revs up the sport in an endlessly fun arcade-y style that will easily fuel your party spirit. Hitting a big ball into a goal is a lot more fun when you’re doing it with a high-powered car, which is basically what Rocket League's all about. Loads of fun new modes have been added since it originally launched, so you can challenge your friends with a round of ice hockey inSnow Day, dunk plenty of hoops in the basketball-like addition, and tear up the fields and go head-to-head in Rocket League’s take on a Battle Royale mode. You can also split into teams to really shake things up.

Tricky Towers

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4

One way to cast a spell over any get together is by adding a touch of physics-based tower building magic into the mix. As wizards with varying magical powers, up to four players have to stack up blocks to build their very own tower. But the blocks are different shapes and sometimes even sizes, so piling them up is bit like playing Tetris. You have to carefully slot them into place or risk watching your once mighty tower crumble before your very eyes. The race mode is the perfect way to bring out your competitive strategic side as you have to build your tower faster than your buddies. And using spells can hinder your pals or give yourself the upper-hand. It’s a great one for a casual gathering. Rising to the top was never so fun. 

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Available on: Nintendo Switch 
Maximum players: 8

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is still at its best when you’re fighting against your pals. While the online battle modes are neat for letting you fight against folks around the world, it’s still not as fun or satisfying as beating your friends with your favourite Nintendo character. Ultimate’s roster of fighters is massive too, with plenty of variant skins for every fighter, so at least there should be no arguments over who’s playing who. As the latest entry in the long-running franchise, Ultimate has fine-tuned the fighting and made it more approachable to folks who might not have dabbled in the series before. With countless stages, a huge library of music to fight to, and customisable battle set-ups, the classic Nintendo beat' em up will help everyone at any social occasion have a smashing time. 

Quiplash

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4 
Maximum players: 8

As one of the best standalone games from Jackbox Party, Quiplash is a wonderfully wordy way to show everyone just how witty you are. Using a phone or tablet, up to eight players have to give answers to random prompts and you can be as inventive or silly as your imagination allows. Think Cards against Humanity except you’re always using a blank card to give your own answers. Prompts can be anything from the worst Halloween costume for children to thinking up a new name for France, and no rules apply. Yeah, it can get pretty out there. Then all the answers are presented on the screen and everyone has to vote for their favourite answer. Whoever gets the most votes gets the most points, and gets to crown themselves the wittiest, funniest person at the party. As simple as it sounds, it lets you get very creative and can lead to a lot of ridiculously hilarious outcomes.  

Use Your Words

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch 
Maximum players: 6

If you love wordy games like Quiplash or Cards against Humanity, Use Your Words will liven up any shindig with plenty of silly scenarios and humourous gaffs. With a phone or tablet, you’ll be presented with all sorts of things you have to embellish and you can be as crude or as ludicrous as you want. From adding subtitles to film clips, to creating your own newspaper headlines and editing postcards, you’ll have plenty of chances to try and make your guests laugh...or cringe. Another great one for putting your wits to the test and bringing out everyone's sense of humour, it’s very re-playable and easy to set up.  

Fibbage XL

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8

As another Jackbox Party standalone, Fibbage is a must. After all, there’s nothing like lying through your teeth to really bring everyone together. As the name of the game gives away, telling the best fibs will earn you that coveted victory. As with all of these types of games, you use a smartphone as your controller and will be presented with a statement that’s missing a word or phrase. You then have to make up a convincing lie that will trick your friends into believing it’s the true answer. After everyone’s made their input, the statements will be show with multiple choice answers to complete the sentences, and if you vote for the lie word or phrase your friend made up, they’ll get points. It’s actually trickier than it sounds because all of the sentences are so weird and strange the missing word could really be anything. Endlessly silly and another creative way to have fun, you'll be reaching for this one at many a social occasion.

It's Quiz Time

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8

If you enjoy putting your trivia prowess to the test against your friends and family, this is a no-brainer. It can be a little slow to set up, but once you get up and running it’s a fantastic quiz game with an impressively large catalogue of over 25,000 questions to test your general knowledge. The AI host Salli will say your name which is a nice touch - especially since you can set your name and its pronunciation to pretty much anything you like, so you can have a lot of fun with it. With thousands of categories, from video games (yay) to history, it’s great for any kind of party you’re throwing and also suits all ages.  And if you remember the other quiz game Buzz, you're sure to enjoy this one since it's made by the same developers. 

Ultimate Chicken Horse

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4

Clever Endeavour's platformer puts a fun twist on the genre by getting you and your friends to make your own levels and platforms with the aim of reaching the red flag goal. But it’s not as easy as all that, since you can also plant down all sorts of nasty obstacles to make everyone’s lives more difficult and hinder your friends as they try to cement their victory. Arrows, flying hockey pucks, barbed wire, misleading portals, sticky honey - you name it. Thanks to its sandbox-y nature and the variety of objects, projectiles, and platforms on offer, every round can get progressively more difficult and messy, and the different stages will keep you hooked.  In the pursuit of being the ultimate chicken, or horse, or sheep - or whatever it is you are - you’ll find yourselves on the edges of your seats as you try to navigate through the hellscape of your own making. It’s a great way to bring a little platforming mayhem to any gathering. 

Starwarl

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4 
Maximum players: 4

Spacefaring narwhals is just what any successful soiree needs. The colourful retro heart-stabbing multiplayer sees you as a neon narwhal hell bent on using their pointy horn to puncture the heart of its foe narwhals. Ouch. You can flip and flop your way around 25 different arenas with up to four players as you try to merciless take their lives and be crowned the best narwhal space has ever seen. With slightly wacky physics in play, it can be difficult to get the horn angled just right, but that’s what makes it so silly and fun. And you can dress up your oceanic friends in all kinds of crazy guises, from wrapping them up in bacon, to giving them a pirate’s outfit and even dressing them up as astronauts...which makes sense given that they’re in space. Pure, heart-piercing entertainment. Who could ask for anything more? 

TowerFall Ascension 

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 8

Let chaos reign down on your celebrations in the best way possible by rounding up your pals for a session of arrow spewing havoc. TowerFall Ascension is easily one of the most entertaining combat multiplayers out there, and while it can be difficult to master, it’s still suitable for all ages and celebrations. Wrapped up in 120 maps, you can play as one of eight playable archers who all have different power-ups. You start with just three arrows and you need to eliminate everyone else and be the last one standing to win. Since your arrows are limited, you can get creative and use the environment to your advantage to wipe out your buddies. Fast-paced and quite frantic, there’s always so much going on you’ll have to keep your wits about to stay alive and emerge victorious, but you’ll have an excellent time trying. 

Castle Crashers

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4

Nothing spells a good time quite like a goofy 2D hack-and-slasher you can play with your friends and family. Castle Crashers humorously bloody art style sets the scene for a brilliantly messy beat’ em up fest for up to four players. You can choose from a wide selection of knights in not so shining armour who can battle it out in arena mode in teams, or go free-for-all and see just how messy and bloody it gets. You can also fight your way through a campaign together, facing all manner of outlandish foes to save the day...or kill each other. Either or. It's known for its sense of humour and crazy antics, so you can be sure it’ll provide the perfect entertainment for any sort of social gathering and make your little get together a bona fide hit. 

Party Golf

Available on: PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch 
Maximum players: 8

Golf might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Party Golf levels up the sport to make it fun for just about anyone. It’s essentially a colourful spin on crazy golf that takes place on procedurally generated golf courses. With endless customisation power-ups and game modes to choose from, you can even set the scoring rules to make your own game of it. And since this is crazy golf, you won’t always be using conventional golf balls. No, sometimes you’ll be putting cubes, rubber ducks and even bananas. The simple 2D physics and style of Party Golf suits all ages and would fit any kind of shindig you’ve got planned. You have to give it kudos for turning golf into an exciting, endlessly fun party game with a great soundtrack to boot. 

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: Undefined

If racing against the clock to disarm a bomb while your friends scramble to read you out-of-view instructions sounds stressful, then you're probably a well-adjusted individual. Thankfully, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is just a game, and no real bombs are involved, and it's damn fun. You can play on a regular display or through most available VR sets, which definitely ups the intensity.

The concept is essentially as described above, but with the caveat that the player(s) reading out the instructions can't see the bomb being disarmed, so it's up to your communication skills to save yourselves. Of course, with the ever-intensifying threat of a ticking time bomb pressurizing the process, it can be hard to maintain composure.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

Available on: Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a port of the Wii U game that perfected the "New" series of Mario platformers that kicked off way back in 2006. Bundled with the New Super Luigi U companion game, there's a ton of content here for you and up to four friends to jump, slide, and ultimately stumble through as you blame each other for falling off cliffs.

Although the main event is a co-op multiplayer experience, things can quickly grow more competitive than you'd imagine. Before long, you'll be racing to be the first to complete each level, jumping on everyone's heads, and purposely avoiding your fallen friends as they plead for you to free them from their balloons. There are also competitive modes, but the brilliant platforming in the co-op mode is the real draw here.

Rock Band 4

Available on: PS4, Xbox One
Maximum players: 4

There's a reason Rock Band was a hallmark of parties everywhere for about 10 years. It's certainly not as prevalent today, but that could be because there hasn't been a new release in about five years. Nonetheless, Rock Band 4 is a great entry in the series, and if you can get your hands on the game and peripherals, it's still one of the most exciting games to play at a party.

You and up to four players take command of your living room rock band's microphone, guitar, bass, and drums, and together jam out in imperfect harmony some of the rock genre's biggest belters. There's a camaraderie to working through each song, smirking gently when a bandmate messes up, and finally looking around the room smiling together with pride as the closing notes play out. 

Laser League

Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Maximum players: 8

Laser League is a close-quarters competitive romp that flashes with a neon intensity that pairs well with the fast-paced gameplay. Essentially, you're thrown into 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 matches where you're tasked with activating offensive laser patterns and avoiding enemy lasers.

The unique setup alone is worthy of praise, but how it all plays out as some sort of bullet hell, high-intensity death match is truly something to behold. The best part about Laser League, specifically with how it fits into a party setting, is how despite being incredibly intense, it's actually quite accessible for quick pick-up-and-play sessions.

Moving Out

Available on: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Maximum players: 4

This one might derail your party into a panicked frenzy of shouting, blaming, and hysterical laughing, but you'll be having a damn fun time in the process. Moving Out has you and up to three friends clear out everything in different themed buildings, with everything from trucks, frogs, and ghosts out to keep you from doing so. Sometimes a big item will require two players to move, and other times you'll struggle to find the right angle to pass something through a doorway. Come to think of it, struggle is really an apt word to sum up Moving Out, and I say that in the most complimentary terms. Set to a bouncy '80s synth soundtrack with plenty of adorable custom characters to choose from, the loud arguments between you and your friends will serve as the perfect contrast for an explosive video game party.

For more great recommendations, be sure to check out our pick of the best co-op games.