Multiplayer Browser Games to Play With Friends, by Group Size and Time

Multiplayer browser games have an advantage neither consoles nor PC games can offer: all it takes is sending a link. No store, no multi-gigabyte download, no friend who “doesn’t have the right console”. Everyone opens the tab and the game begins.

You still have to pick the right game for the right group. A great two-player game becomes a chore with six; a party game for ten falls flat with two. So this article sorts games by number of players and match length rather than by genre. For an overview of the whole genre, see our pick of the best browser games.

What makes a good game to play with friends

Before the list, three criteria that really matter when you play with people you know, and that rankings often forget:

• A private room with a link. The host creates a game and sends the address; the others click. If everyone has to hunt for each other in a list of usernames, the evening starts badly.
• As few accounts as possible. Every mandatory sign-up loses a player along the way.
• A predictable length. Knowing whether you are committing to five minutes or two hours avoids abandoned games.

For two: duels and long-running games

This is the most demanding setup: there is nobody to “carry” the other player, and the game has to be interesting head to head.

Lichess: chess, with a simple link

The “Play with a friend” button creates a game and generates an address to send. You pick the time control: a blitz game of a few minutes, or a correspondence game where each player moves whenever they like. Lichess is entirely free and ad-free, run by a non-profit.

Advance Wars By Web: asynchronous war

A fan site that brings Nintendo’s Advance Wars series back to life in the browser. You command a whole army on a tiled map. Turns run in “days”: once you have given your orders, it is your opponent’s move, and they will play tonight or tomorrow. A vacation mode freezes your games if you go away. Ideal for keeping in touch with a faraway friend, one move a day. Live games exist too.

Solwaris: a tactical duel in a few minutes

Solwaris is a turn-based tactical duel in 3D: 12 action points and 6 movement points per turn, lines of sight, traps, pushes. A turn lasts 40 seconds at most, which keeps the pace brisk.

To be honest about a limit that matters for this article: Solwaris has no private match and no invite link. To face a friend, you both start searching for a duel at the same moment, on the same kind of server; since the community is still small, there are often few other players searching at the same time, but nothing guarantees you will be matched with each other. What does work well: one plays, the other watches the fight live from the menu, and you take turns.

For three or four: board games and teams

With four, you can play in teams, or everyone for themselves around a board.

Board Game Arena: the shared game library

A French platform with several hundred board games. The host creates a table, restricts access to friends and sends an invitation. A valuable point: a friend without an account can join the table through the invitation link. The free tier is enough to play; the optional premium subscription lets you host tables for more games.

Colonist.io: Catan, without the box

Colonist.io follows the rules of Catan. The host creates a room and sets the number of players and the game speed. Free, with premium options (cosmetics, expansions).

Solwaris in 2 vs 2

The Solwaris 2 vs 2 mode pits two pairs against each other, each player with their own hero. Same limit as above: matchmaking is automatic among the players in the queue, so you need four players online at the same time, and you do not choose your teammate.

For five or more: party games

Beyond four players, deep thinking gives way to laughter. The games that work best are simple to explain and played all at once.

• Skribbl.io: the draw-and-guess game. One player draws, the others type their guesses. You create a private room, and custom rooms take up to 20 players.
• Codenames: the official online version of the Czech Games Edition game, free on codenames.game. Two teams, one spymaster per team who gets their team to guess words with a single clue. You share the room address and talk over video or voice on the side.

The table to choose from

Co-op or versus: choosing for your group

Numbers are not everything. The mood of the group counts just as much.

If the group has very different skill levels, avoid pure head-to-head. A beginner who loses five games of chess in a row to a friend will not come back. Prefer team games (Codenames, a co-op game on Board Game Arena) or party games where luck and humour level the field.

If you are two players of similar level who like to think, the duel is the richest format: Lichess, Advance Wars By Web, or a tactical duel. The fun comes precisely from having no excuses.

If you never have the same free time, go asynchronous: Advance Wars By Web and correspondence chess let you play one game over a week.

If you play remotely, add voice. Most of these games have no built-in voice chat: an audio or video call next to the tab changes everything, especially for team games like Codenames, whose official site actually recommends talking that way. For a tactical duel it is the opposite: you may prefer to mute during your turn, to think in peace, and discuss the game at the end. In Solwaris, the spectator can follow the fight live while the player thinks, which makes the match a shared moment even when only one of you is playing.

Traps to avoid

For more thinking games, read our pick of the best free turn-based games.