Multiplayer Games
A deliberately small selection of five games that need other people. Everything here works either online against strangers or locally with someone next to you.
All 5 games run in a browser tab with nothing to install.
A small and specific category
Multiplayer is the hardest thing to do well in a browser, because it needs servers, matchmaking and enough players online at once to fill a game. Rather than list every game with a two-player mode, this category is limited to the ones where playing with other people is the point rather than an option.
Plenty of games elsewhere on the site work well with two people on one keyboard. Rooftop Snipers in Shooter, Football Legends in Sports, and Ragdoll Archers in Action are all better with someone else, and none of them need an internet connection to work.
Among Us and social deduction
Among Us is here along with Among Impostor, a lighter take on the same idea. Social deduction is the one genre that genuinely requires other people, because the entire game is reading what someone says against what you know they did. No amount of clever design substitutes for a real person lying to you.
It is at its best with people you know, and it falls apart with players who leave halfway through a round, which is the usual problem with browser lobbies.
1v1.lol
1v1.lol is the most played game in this category and the most demanding. It combines shooting with rapid structure building, so a fight is as much about who can build cover faster as who aims better. The skill ceiling is high and the first several matches will go badly.
It also has a build-practice mode, which is the sensible place to start. Learning to place a ramp and a wall without thinking about it is most of what separates players here.
Party games
OvO Multiplayer turns the precision platformer into a race, which suits it well. JustFall.lol is a last-player-standing platformer on a collapsing floor, and it is the most immediately fun game on this page because it needs no skill at all to enjoy on a first attempt.
When nobody is online
The honest limitation of browser multiplayer is that a lobby needs people in it. At quiet times you may wait, or land in a match against two players rather than ten. Nothing on this page is broken when that happens, but 1v1.lol and JustFall.lol are both noticeably better with a full lobby.
If the lobbies are empty, the local two-player games elsewhere on the site are the more reliable option. Rooftop Snipers, Basket Bros and 2 Player Crazy Racer all work on one keyboard with no connection at all.