USG Play Together Week: Every Story From Our Week of Celebrating Multiplayer

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and a lot more time apart than most are used to. During this time, video games have provided an outlet, not just for occupying the hours, but keeping in touch with friends and family across the globe.

This week at USgamer, we're celebrating all the ways we play together with a week full of lists, rankings, and features about multiplayer games. That might mean simulating a real-life board game meet-up, training through competition in fighting games, or just round-ups of some co-op games we really enjoy.

Here are all the articles we've written so far:

• Our weekly Starting Screen laid out what we're doing for the week. It's also got a roundup of this week's releases, including the remake of Trials of Mana.
• Senior Editor Caty McCarthy uncovered the first ever co-op game.
• The UK team got way into Arms, the underrated Virtual On-meets-Punch Out!! fighting game. It ended up bringing the Reedpop HQ together in a surprising way, and good news for them: the next Smash fighter is an Arms character too.
• Reporter Mat Olson wrote about how Tabletop Simulator, while imperfect, is still managing to keep his board game night alive. The "no-mess table flip" setting definitely seems like a plus.
• Animal Crossing: Sweet Day was the greatest Nintendo party game you never played, contends our own Editor-in-Chief Kat Bailey. "Puke and Run" sounds both hilarious and horrifying.
• Can competition truly bring people together? News Editor Eric Van Allen explores how a Street Fighter rivalry pushed him to play better, while also helping maintain a long-distance friendship.
• The Jackbox Party Packs have been social hangout hits for a while now, and even more so while people are staying indoors but still looking to play together. Reviews Editor Caty McCarthy and Eric took a stab at ranking the best and worst of Jackbox's game offerings.
• MMOs have a lot of raiding, looting, and grinding, but they're also about the shared experiences between players. Reviews Editor Mike Williams delved into why communal success (and suffering) works so well in massively multiplayer RPGs.
• Got a co-op night planned but short on cash? Staff Writer Nadia Oxford and Mat put together a list of some budget co-op options that can fill out your group's game docket without breaking the bank.
• Joel took a look at games that are fun to play with friends, but from a different angle: the single-player games that make for the best multiplayer experiences. If you haven't played Until Dawn with a group, we highly recommend you get on that.
• There are lots of ways to directly play games with other people, but what about indirectly sharing world experiences? Nadia wrote about finding connections to other RPG fans through rental game saves.

We'll update this page with more as they go live. Thanks for checking in, and remember to go enjoy some games with friends!