Friend's Pass games: co-op where only one of you has to buy

Two people want to play the same co-op game. Does the second one have to buy it too? For most games on Steam the answer is yes. For a short list it is no, and that list is what people mean when they search for Friend's Pass games. There is also a third route, built into Steam itself, which lets one copy cover a whole group without the developer doing anything at all.

We checked which of the three applies across the 848 most popular paid games in our catalogue, using the co-op and Remote Play flags each game carries on its Steam page, as of 12 October 2026. 39% of them have some form of co-op. Of those, only about one in five can be shared from a single copy. Two in three need a copy per player.

What a Friend's Pass actually is

A Friend's Pass is a separate, free download. One player owns the full game; the other installs the pass and joins them. The guest plays on their own PC, at full quality, rather than watching a stream. The catch is that the pass only works with the owner. On its own it does nothing, or at most runs as a demo.

Hazelight made the idea famous, because its games cannot be played alone. It is still rare. Searching the Steam store for a Friend's Pass returns a few dozen products, and most of them belong to small indie games. These are the ones worth knowing about, each confirmed against its Steam listing on 12 October 2026:

Game	What the free pass covers
Split Fiction	Hazelight's 2025 co-op adventure. The pass covers the whole campaign online.
It Takes Two	The same deal from the same studio, four years earlier.
Lords of the Fallen	The 2023 soulslike. The free pass joins a friend who owns the base game for the full campaign in online co-op.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me	One full playthrough for two, on the owner's single save.
Operation: Tango	A two-player spy puzzle game whose store page puts it plainly: it takes one to pay.

Each of these has a separate free Friend's Pass listed on Steam. Check the store page before you buy: terms can change after launch.

Two cautions. First, a pass only works in the owner's company: the guest cannot play alone, and some passes run on the owner's save rather than their own. Second, A Way Out, the game that started all this, does not have a Friend's Pass on Steam. On EA's own app it does. On Steam the store page points you to Remote Play Together instead, which is a different thing. We covered that difference in detail in our A Way Out price guide.

Split Fiction is the best-known Friend's Pass game: one copy, two players, the whole campaign. (Official Steam screenshot)

It Takes Two, the game that made the Friend's Pass a selling point. Official trailer from the Electronic Arts channel.

Remote Play Together: the Friend's Pass Steam builds in

The bigger list is not Friend's Pass games at all. Steam's Remote Play Together lets the owner run a game that supports local co-op and stream it to friends over the internet. Valve's own description is that "one player owns and runs the game", and up to four people can join, or more on fast connections. The guests need nothing installed except Steam. One guest can even join from a link without a Steam account, through the Steam Link app.

In our sample, 67 of the 331 co-op games (20%) carry the Remote Play Together flag. That is the practical one-copy list for most people. It includes Stardew Valley, Baldur's Gate 3, Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Cuphead, Overcooked! 2, Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition and Cult of the Lamb. Several on that list are long games that would otherwise cost two full purchases.

The trade-off is quality. Everything the guest sees is a video stream from the host. On a good connection between two people in the same country it is fine for a puzzle game or a farming sim. For anything twitchy, the delay shows. And the host's upload speed decides how good the picture is for everyone else.

Stardew Valley supports Remote Play Together, so a friend can join a farm without buying a copy. (Official Steam screenshot)

Baldur's Gate 3 carries the Remote Play Together flag too, because it supports local split-screen. (Official Steam screenshot)

When every player needs a copy

The majority case is the expensive one. 219 of the 331 co-op games in our sample (66%) offer online co-op only, with no split-screen and no Remote Play flag. These are built for each player on their own machine, and Steam gives you no way around it. The list includes most of the biggest co-op games on the platform: Helldivers 2, Elden Ring, Valheim, Terraria, Phasmophobia and Lethal Company.

For these, the only lever is the price of each copy. Our tracked prices make a real difference here, because you are paying it twice. For the median online-only co-op game in our sample, the cheapest store we track is 23% below the cheapest official store. On two copies, that saving doubles in absolute terms. Two other habits help:

• Buy both copies in the same sale. Co-op purchases tend to happen on the same evening, which is rarely the best evening. If the game is not at a good price today, set a price alert and buy both when it fires.
• Check region locks before buying the second copy as a gift. Steam gifts and keys can be restricted to the region they were bought for. Our guide to gifting a PC game for less covers what to check first.

Helldivers 2 is online co-op only: every player needs their own copy. (Official Steam screenshot)

Friend's Pass games, Remote Play or two copies: how to tell in a minute

You can work this out from the Steam store page before anyone pays:

1. Search the store for the game's name plus "Friend's Pass". If a free pass exists, it is listed as its own product.
2. Check the features list on the right of the game's page. "Remote Play Together" means one copy can host friends. "Shared/Split Screen Co-op" usually comes with it.
3. If you see only "Online Co-op", plan on one copy per person, and compare prices before buying two.

Our game pages show the cheapest price per store for each copy, and the best cheap co-op games list is a good place to start when budget matters more than the specific game.

Lords of the Fallen added a free Friend's Pass for online co-op, which is unusual for a big action RPG. (Official Steam screenshot)

The bottom line

Friend's Pass games are real but rare. The list worth knowing is short: Split Fiction, It Takes Two, Lords of the Fallen, The Devil in Me and a handful of indies. Remote Play Together is the larger one-copy option. It covers about a fifth of popular co-op games, as long as the host has a decent upload and the game is not too fast. For the other two thirds, everyone pays. That makes co-op the one place where price comparison counts twice.