This 10/10 game is perfect to play with your family

Is there anything more fun than a family night out? Whether it's challenging each other Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. or work together to run a restaurant in overcooked, playing together with the family is truly one of life's great joys. But for those times when kart racing or co-op cooking feels a little too frenetic, many cozy games also have multiplayer modes. Titles like Stardew Valley, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, and Animals crossing new horizons can be played together with family and friends. An often overlooked co-op cozy game that is perfect for family game nights is Roots of Pacha. Roots of Pacha is a chill, community-focused, and often surprisingly educational life simulator that takes players all the way back to the Stone Age.

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IN Roots of Pacha, you play as a member of a small Stone Age community during a time of great innovation and discovery. As you progress through the game, you and your friends and neighbors will come up with “ideas” to improve the entire community's quality of life, ranging from new Roots of Pacha crops to grow and harvest to how to preserve food, right through to metalworking and ceramics. It is an absolutely wonderful experience to see the village grow from a small cluster of simple huts to a rich, thriving community with domesticated animals, irrigation systems, a variety of buildings and, of course, festivals throughout the year.

When playing Roots of Pacha in multiplayer, which supports up to 4-player co-op, the focus is on sharing and contributing to the community. Each player can have their own house and farm plot, but goals, missions and projects are shared. Every aspect of the game – farming, fishing, animal breeding, foraging, etc. – can be performed by any player, allowing players to easily explore different roles or find a particular task they like and focus on it.

Like some other farming games, Stardew Valley added multiplayer several years after its initial release, while Roots of Pachapp developers had multiplayer in mind from the moment the game launched. Its multiplayer is seamlessly integrated – all players can participate in the story, watch their characters appear in cutscenes, bond with NPCs and really feel like they're part of the community. It's the perfect family game because it never feels like one player is the “primary” who is simply hosting the others, but rather everyone is really working together to survive and thrive.

The focus is on cooperation, not competition

The majority of Roots of Pachapp multiplayer is designed around working together. All competitive moments that occur are low-stakes and purely for fun. For example, some of the game's festivals feature fishing contests, where players can compete to see who can catch the most or rarest fish. But even in the moments when players compete against each other, this is a game about teamwork. Fish caught during these contests can benefit the entire village and add progress towards “ideas”, such as unlocking the ability to fish with harpoons.

It is a cozy game that is perfect for all ages

Another reason Roots of Pacha is an excellent cozy game for the whole family is that it is suitable for younger players. In particular, it provides a good introduction to the cozy genre. Roots of Pacha is a non-combat farming simulator, meaning it's extremely low-stress and there's no chance of dying. Even staying out late and accidentally falling asleep outside doesn't come with any kind of punishment; the player simply wakes up the next morning perfectly fine, with no items or money lost.

Kids of all ages can enjoy this low-stress game with its relaxing pace and focus on elements like exploration. Just keep in mind that it could act as the gateway to your young family member's lifelong love of growing Sims — they can move from Roots of Pacha spending hundreds of hours on titles like My Time at Sandrock, Coral Island, Fields of Mistria, and other top level farming games.

Although not at the center, there is also an educational element Roots of Pacha which makes it good for younger players. The “ideas” that players discover throughout the game that lead to technological innovations for the village are accurate and well researched. Younger players can learn about how real Stone Age communities stored their food, worked with clay to make a variety of objects, dug waterways to irrigate their fields, and held ceremonies to honor and connect with nature. Unfortunately, taming animals in real life was not as easy as it is in Pacha, but it's not too bad – in my opinion, the sooner I can befriend a trusty mammoth or a fierce cave lion, the better.

Cozy play is relaxing and fun for the whole family

Like many of the best cozy games, Roots of Pacha is the kind of title you can easily sink hundreds of hours into. The developers also continue to actively update the game and add even more new content in the future. The 1.3 update for Roots of Pachawhich released in early 2025, added a whopping 21 new characters to befriend as well as a bug-catching mechanic, two new biomes with accompanying story content, new animals, seeds, festivals and more. Rewarding Roots of Pacha a try during your next family game night could easily lead to many, many more such nights—or days, or even entire weekends—in the future.

Click or tap the games that match the category

Of course, Roots of Pacha is far from the only cozy game with multiplayer elements perfect for the whole family. If you like this game you can give Stardew Valley an attempt for a classic farming experience with combat, mining and fishing elements. Another good option is Coral island with multiplayer co-op, telling an eco-friendly and conservation-focused story – plus there's a huge underwater region to explore and mermaids to meet. Other great farming and life simulator titles with strong multiplayer elements include Sun Haven, Dinkum, Farm Together, and many, many more. There are so many options to make cozy titles a regular part of your family's co-op gaming sessions in the future.