The level gap is an invisible wall
In every MMO, one person plays more than the others. That person out-levels the group by ten, twenty, thirty levels within the first week. Suddenly, the group has a problem: the high-level player either stomps everything and makes the game boring for everyone else, or they wait and feel resentful that they cannot play the game they are paying a subscription for.
Small co-op games solve this by either not having levels at all (Deep Rock Galactic is progression through gear unlocks, not character levels) or by letting the group share a world (Valheim and Terraria both tie progression to the world, not the character, so the player who plays more can gather resources for the group without breaking the experience). This design difference is not minor — it is the reason co-op groups survive past week two.
The solo story problem
Modern MMOs love solo story campaigns. Final Fantasy XIV has hundreds of hours of mandatory solo quests before you can meaningfully group with friends. The Old Republic gates its best content behind class-specific solo stories that require sixty-plus hours of commitment. You cannot "play together" through these sections — you can be in the same voice call while playing separate games that happen to share a client.
Small co-op games do not have this problem because they do not have solo content. Every session in Lethal Company is a group session. Every building in Satisfactory can be built cooperatively. Every cave in Core Keeper is explored together. The game does not have a "single-player mode" that you are expected to complete before the real game starts. The co-op is the game.
Session commitment: two hours vs. twenty minutes
An MMO dungeon run is a commitment. You need a tank, a healer, and DPS. You need to find them, meet them, run the dungeon, and hope nobody disconnects. Total time: forty-five minutes to two hours, not counting queue times. If someone has to leave early, the run is dead.
Small co-op games respect variable session lengths. A run of Deep Rock Galactic takes twenty to forty minutes and can be completed with any class composition. A session of Raft can be paused at any moment because it is just your group on a private server. The flexibility means your friend who can only play for an hour is still worth inviting — they will not hold the group back, and the session will not end on a failure just because someone had to leave.
Cost comparison over a year
An MMO subscription costs roughly $150 per year per person. A box price of $40–60 plus expansions. Multiply by five friends, and the group is spending $750–$1,000 per year before anyone has even bought a cosmetic.
A small co-op game costs $5–$30 once. Valheim is $20. Terraria goes on sale for $5. Lethal Company is $10. Even if your group buys four co-op games per year, you are spending less per person than a single MMO subscription, and you own the games permanently. The financial math is not close, and for groups where budget is a real factor (students, people between jobs, anyone outside the US where regional pricing matters), this difference is the difference between playing together and not playing at all. Our cheap Friendslop games 2026 page tracks the best low-cost picks for budget-conscious groups.
When MMOs actually do work for groups
This is not a universal condemnation of MMOs. If your group has identical schedules, identical playtime availability, and a commitment to staying at the same level, an MMO can work brilliantly. Some of the best gaming memories I have are from a six-month WoW Classic run with four friends who all agreed to only play those characters together. But that requires a level of coordination that most casual friend groups do not have.
If your group has variable schedules, different commitment levels, or any mix of experienced and new players, skip the MMO. Buy a $20 co-op game on Steam instead. The smaller game will give you more shared moments per dollar and per hour than any subscription MMO ever will.