Looking for games that bring the whole family together for laughs, friendly competition, and unforgettable memories? From classic board games like Catan and Ticket to Ride to lively video games like Mario Party Superstars and Nintendo Switch Sports, the best family games of 2025 offer something for every age and skill level. Whether you prefer strategic challenges, silly antics, or cooperative fun, these picks guarantee hours of entertainment that everyone can enjoy.
For that reason, we gathered AELGAMES’s sharpest minds to find the best games your family can play together. Some are party games, some are co-op adventures, some are games you take turns playing – the only rules are they must be family-friendly, accessible to gamers with different backgrounds and experience levels, and above all else, fun.
So no matter what kind of game you’re looking to play together as a family this holiday season, we’ve got you covered.
Party Animals
Party Animals is a delightfully goofy and accessible physics-based brawler perfect for family fun. Its simple controls and adorable characters make it easy for kids and adults alike to jump into chaotic matches filled with playful violence and hilarious antics. Whether playing locally or online, the game offers a variety of modes including free-for-all and team battles with unique objectives, ensuring nonstop laughter and excitement for all ages. Its charm lies in balancing silly, fluffy combat with engaging multiplayer gameplay that keeps the whole family entertained.
Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X
If you’re looking for an open arena where the whole family can brawl, try Party Animals. Four players can play splitscreen locally (or eight together online) and inhabit very wobbly animals – think Fall Guys-style characters – that push, shove, and throw their way to victory. Younger kids will have an easier time with the brawling modes, where you can have fun button-mashing. The objective-based minigames, like a team-based soccer event, require a little more coordination, but will be a chaotic blast for older kids and adults alike. -Nicole Carpenter
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a vibrant and imaginative side-scrolling platformer that invites players of all ages to explore the whimsical Flower Kingdom. Featuring beloved characters like Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and more, the game offers a fresh twist with unique power-ups such as the Elephant Fruit and the Wonder Flower, which triggers surprising and playful effects in the environment. Its accessible gameplay includes local multiplayer for up to four players and online features that enhance cooperative fun. With colorful worlds, creative level design, and a family-friendly rating, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is an excellent choice for a fun, engaging gaming experience that the whole family can enjoy together.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch
Nintendo’s new platformer, Super Marios Bros. Wonder, is a great family game that caters to seasoned Mario veterans and newcomers. There are eight playable characters to choose from in both online and local multiplayer that goes up to four players; you can play with family on your couch or around the world. There’s no splitscreen, which means everyone crowds into a single screen for all of Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s varied levels. There’s your standard platforming, of course, but Nintendo’s put some delightfully weird spins on it. For beginner players, Nintendo’s added two characters who don’t take damage: Nabbit and Yoshi. They can lose lives if they fall into pits, but the lack of damage-taking makes both characters an option for beginners or young kids. -NC
PlateUp!
PlateUp! is a lively and engaging co-op restaurant management game perfect for family fun. Up to four players work together to build, design, and run a restaurant from scratch, taking orders, preparing dishes, serving customers, and managing the kitchen chaos. With a wide variety of meals to cook and the freedom to customize the restaurant’s layout and equipment, players must strategize and cooperate to thrive through 15 hectic in-game days. The game’s roguelite elements add replayability by offering new challenges and upgrades as you expand your franchise, making it an exciting and dynamic experience for players of all ages.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Series X
The easiest way to describe PlateUp! is that it’s basically the strategy roguelite version of Overcooked. You start the game with a basic kitchen, where you cook and serve a limited number of dishes to restaurant customers. It gets harder the longer you play, but you make it easier – or potentially harder, with bad planning – by building out your kitchen each round. You also unlock a variety of recipes and outfits to keep your kitchen buzzing. But a warning to families looking to play together: This is the kind of game that can tear your family apart. in the most fun way possible, of course! -NC
Jackbox
Jackbox Games offer a fantastic way to bring the whole family together for a fun and interactive game night. With a variety of titles designed to entertain players of all ages, Jackbox games combine humor, creativity, and friendly competition. Many of their games, such as Quiplash, Drawful 2, and Fibbage, include family-friendly filters that ensure content is appropriate for younger players while still engaging for adults and teens. Players use their phones or tablets as controllers, making it easy for everyone to join in, whether in the same room or remotely. Jackbox’s diverse game selection caters to different interests-from trivia and bluffing to drawing and wordplay-making it a perfect choice for creating memorable family moments filled with laughter and lighthearted fun.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Series X, and your phones!
The Jackbox series of games (individually titled as different “Party Packs”) are reliably fun and zany for groups of people large and small. Only one person needs to own a copy, and the rest can join in via their phone, computer, or other device. The games in the packs vary, but they include variations on trivia games, drawing games, joke games, and plenty more. I particularly recommend Party Pack 9 for the game Quixort, as well as Party Packs 6 and 7 for a variety of fun times, but all of them include entertaining games with something everyone can enjoy. –Pete Volk
Gang Beasts
Gang Beasts is a hilariously fun multiplayer party game that features floppy, gelatinous characters battling it out in absurd and hazardous environments. With up to eight players, it offers various modes including free-for-all melees, team battles, and cooperative waves against bots. The game’s playful physics, colorful Play-Doh-like characters, and inventive maps filled with traps create endless laughter and chaotic fun, making it perfect for family and friends of almost all ages. Despite some technical issues with online play, its local multiplayer experience shines as a lighthearted, accessible game that encourages friendly competition and goofy antics.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
For a fighting game the whole family can enjoy, try Gang Beasts, a beat-’em-up featuring wacky, wobbly fighters with very soft bones. Players take control of a variety of colorful gelatinous characters, pushing, pulling, and punching each other in creative settings. That includes a lighthouse, rooftop, and on top of moving trucks.
With the exception of being able to throw your friends off tall buildings, into incinerators, or into industrial grinders, Gang Beasts isn’t particularly violent – it’s silly. But if Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is too technically complex for your family or friend group, Gang Beasts’ body slams and haymakers might be a better fit. -Michael McWhertor
Moving Out and Moving Out 2
Moving Out and its sequel, Moving Out 2, are lively, physics-based co-op games that bring family and friends together through chaotic and humorous furniture moving challenges. In these games, players work as part of the Smooth Moves team, tackling a variety of quirky levels where cooperation and timing are key to moving awkward items efficiently. Moving Out 2 builds on the original with enriched mechanics, improved graphics, and new wacky levels featuring inter-dimensional portals and inventive obstacles, adding fresh puzzles and more frantic fun. The games are praised for their approachable gameplay, silly humor, and the ability to accommodate solo or multiplayer experiences, making them ideal for family gaming sessions that emphasize teamwork and laughter over competition.
Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox One and Series X, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and your phones!
Like Overcooked (or the aforementioned PlateUp!), Moving Out challenges players to work together as a team to get a specific job done. But instead of cooking and serving delicious dishes, Moving Out takes an activity no one likes – moving house – and makes it delightful, chaotic fun. The physics-based moving simulator has players hauling, arranging, and eventually violently throwing furniture and boxes onto a truck as quickly as possible. And like a household behind on rent, it doesn’t matter what condition you leave your old living space in. Can’t fit your sectional couch through the front door? Throw it through the bay windows! -MM
WarioWare: Move It!
WarioWare: Move It! is a lively and chaotic party game for the Nintendo Switch that brings over 200 fast-paced, motion-controlled microgames to life. Players adopt various playful “forms” with the Joy-Con controllers-such as pumping arms like train pistons or scrubbing a shell clean-and must quickly react to absurd and humorous challenges like laying an egg or facing a ghost. The game shines in local co-op mode, encouraging families and friends to engage in silly, energetic gameplay together, making it a perfect choice for group fun. Its intuitive motion controls and rapid-fire microgames capture the spirit of classic WarioWare titles while delivering a fresh, physical twist that’s accessible even to those new to gaming.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch
The newest WarioWare offers a fresh batch of hundreds of microgames – games that can be played in seconds-long chunks – that can be enjoyed both cooperatively and competitively. WarioWare: Move It! switches up the microgame formula by having players rapidly posing and moving, frantically trying to figure out what a simple on-screen instruction is actually asking them to do before time runs out. WarioWare: Move It! is highly physical, and every player needs their own set of Joy-Cons to participate. But it can be enjoyed in small chunks, with players jumping in and out – or shouting advice! – for some good clean* family fun.
For less physically demanding WarioWare games, there’s also WarioWare: Get It Together! for Switch and WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! available through a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscription. -MM
*If nose-picking and farts are offensive to you, then WarioWare’s not gonna be your cup of tea.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a charming and family-friendly puzzle adventure where players guide Captain Toad and Toadette through intricately designed, diorama-like levels filled with treasures, obstacles, and enemies. Unlike traditional platformers, Captain Toad cannot jump due to his heavy backpack, making careful navigation and puzzle-solving essential. Players rotate the environment to uncover hidden paths and secrets, using tools like turnips to fend off foes. The game supports solo play or local co-op, allowing a second player to join in. With its colorful worlds inspired by locations like volcanoes and haunted houses, and added VR mini-missions, it offers an engaging experience that improves problem-solving skills and is fun for all ages.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch
Nintendo’s Wii U port is all-ages-tested, all-ages-approved thanks to puzzles that rely more on curiosity and consideration than fast-paced timing. In Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, players young and old help Captain Toad and Toadette navigate boxy 3D environments littered with platform challenges, hidden items, and stars that help the Toads advance to the next level. True to Mario games, the design is bright and the music is upbeat as you check every nook and cranny of the increasingly challenging puzzles. Younger players should have no problem guiding the Toads without too much stress – you can’t fall off the edge and there’s no ticking clock to make you sweat – but it’ll be helpful to have more seasoned gamers in the room, as even the simplest-looking levels contain labyrinths. Hide-and-seek pixel Toad challenges and some fun tie-ins to Super Mario Odyssey make this one a no-brainer for longtime Mushroom Kingdom denizens and those recently converted by the Mario movie. –Matt Patches
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and Cowabunga Collection
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is a vibrant side-scrolling beat ’em up that captures the spirit of the 1980s TMNT cartoons with stunning pixel art and classic brawling gameplay. Players can team up locally or online with up to six friends, choosing from the four turtles and their allies to battle iconic villains like Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady across memorable locations such as New York City sewers and Dimension X. The game offers both Arcade and Story modes, featuring unique character abilities, cooperative moves, and collectible challenges that make it accessible and engaging for players of all ages. Complementing this modern classic, the Cowabunga Collection brings together 13 beloved TMNT games from the 8 and 16-bit eras, including fan-favorites like Turtles in Time, updated with quality-of-life improvements and online co-op, providing a nostalgic yet fresh experience for families to enjoy together.
Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox One and Series X, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, iOs and Android via Netflix for Shredder’s Revenge
Like Pixar movies and chicken nuggets, some products are equally enjoyed by kids and adults alike. And so it is with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, the 2022 beat-em-up throwback from Tribute Games (Flinthook). Just like the arcade game of old, up to four players can team up to sword, staff, nunchuck and otherwise pummel Foot baddies. Kids are into the Turtles again thanks to Mutant Mayhem’s breakout success, and parents can feel young again (remember 1989?).
And if Shredder’s Revenge isn’t hitting the nostalgia sense hard enough, you can always go straight to the source: The Cowabunga Collection collects a lucky 13 TMNT classics, from the arcade original to that weird NES game. OK, maybe parts of 1989 are better forgotten. –Chris Grant
Just Dance
Just Dance is a lively rhythm-based dance game series developed by Ubisoft, perfect for family fun and players of all ages and skill levels. Players follow on-screen dancers and mimic their choreography, earning points based on accuracy, making it an engaging way to be active together. The game supports multiplayer modes for up to six players, allowing the whole family to join in the dance party. With a vast library of songs ranging from classics to current hits, and features like Kids Mode and Sweat Mode, Just Dance offers something for everyone, combining entertainment, fitness, and friendly competition in one vibrant package.
Where to play: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC
Ubisoft’s dancing game series is quite easy to forget about because it hasn’t really evolved since its debut on Wii in 2009. Whatever the latest version is will offer exactly the same formula of cheery dance routines to a mix of modern and classic pop hits, and itwill judge your performance via motion controls that are honestly rather vague. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still rule, however. This is choreography as game design, packing huge amounts of wit, personality, and solo or collaborative challenge into its hugely fun, often hilarious routines. Never fails to lift the mood. –Oli Welsh
What makes these family games perfect for all ages and skill levels
Family games are perfect for all ages and skill levels because they feature simple, easy-to-learn rules that allow everyone to join in quickly without frustration. Many of these games balance luck and skill, ensuring that younger or less experienced players still have a fair chance to win, keeping the experience engaging for all participants. Additionally, family games often have adaptable or modifiable rules to accommodate different abilities and ages, making them inclusive and flexible for diverse groups. They also encourage social interaction, teamwork, and critical thinking in a fun, low-pressure environment, which appeals to both kids and adults alike. Examples include cooperative games like Hoot Owl Hoot! and Forbidden Island that promote collaboration, and dexterity or matching games like Crokinole and Spot It! that are easy to grasp but offer strategic depth for older players. This combination of accessibility, adaptability, and balanced gameplay makes family games ideal for multigenerational fun.
How do simple rules make these games accessible for all ages
Simple rules make family games accessible for all ages by minimizing cognitive load and allowing players to quickly understand how to play, regardless of their experience or developmental stage. Clear, straightforward instructions reduce frustration and help players focus on the fun rather than struggling to remember complex mechanics or jargon. Using visual aids, symbols, and intuitive components further supports comprehension, especially for younger children or players with different language abilities. This approach enables players to start enjoying the game quickly, fostering inclusive participation and social interaction. Additionally, simple rules often allow for adaptable or scalable complexity, so families can modify the game to suit different ages and skill levels, making the experience engaging for everyone.
