Summary
Throughout its lifetime, TheNintendo Switchhas been promoted as the premiere game system for any social gathering. While we’re not exactly packing a Switch dock on our way to our work friend’s niece’s quinceañera (unless she asks us to, of course), we generally agree that the Switch is great for parties.
But not every game on the handheld console is necessarily a good fit for outings, birthdays, or anything with more than three people. If you want to effectively subvert talking to people with the sweet temptation of gaming, you’ll need to have the right games prepped and ready. To help facilitate this, we’ve picked out and ranked the best party games on Nintendo Switch. Just don’t forget to bring enough controllers.
Updated on June 02, 2025, by Branden Lizardi:There’s a new Mario Party title! Super Mario Party Jamboree released on the Nintendo Switch recently. Nintendo learned a lot from the reception of the last few titles, and this one makes the absolute most of that. Naturally, this earns it a place on the list. We’ve updated the list accordingly, so go check out our in-depth thoughts on this one (Spoiler: it’s worth it).
The rules for Stick Fight: The Game are as clear as the motivations: fight your friends with floppy stick figures. Up to four players are dropped into a random hazardous environment, with random weapons falling from the sky. Grab what you may and use it to slay the other players. Don’t expect a smooth time, though. Between the unpredictable landscapes, the strange weapons, and the ragdoll-ish movement of your character, every fight is a chaotic encounter.
Max Player Count
4
This all combines to make for an amazing party game. The fast-paced action makes for extremely exciting gameplay; the short fight times mean it’s easy to hop in and out of, and the “everyone’s equal” aspect means there’s no true penalty for losing, short of someone bragging. This is a fantastic game to leave running, letting people hop in and out as they see fit.
You and up to three others have to work collaboratively to take all the furniture out of a house and into a loading van. But this time, the most important thing is that you do it quickly. If you have to break a few windows throwing the couch out into the front lawn, then so be it, as long as you get it done in under three minutes.
Moving Out follows a similar style to Overcooked (which we mention further down the list). It’s a top-down view of a colorful and silly landscape, where the mundane is exaggerated into chaos as you race against the clock to perform the task. The short timer means you can swap out turns with a large group of players every level, and the silly style promotes equally silly shenanigans as you play.
It would be criminal to omit this title from the list. It literally has “party” right in the name. Mario Party Superstars is a modern remake of classic levels throughout the series. And while, yes, it’s an approachable game fit for a wide audience, it has one major flaw that holds it back as a viable party item: it’s too time-consuming for such a small player count.
At its core, it’s a digital board game. The best way to experience what it offers is through dice rolling, landing on spaces, and playing mini-games. There’s a time commitment to that. Even a ten-turn game, which is on the small end, takes around an hour to complete. Fora max of four players, that’s not a lot of fun for everyone else. All thumbs up for a game of Mario Party if it’s just you and three others, though.
Where Mario Party Superstars is a sort of ‘hall of fame’ conglomeration of classic boards and mini games throughout Mario Party history, Super Mario Party Jamboree puts a greater focus on Originality. It offers a greater variety of characters, maps, mini games, items, and more.
4 local, 20 online (select game modes)
This includes new mechanics like the buddy system (which is different from Super Mario Party’s buddy system, we promise) andalternate game modes. They even offer two different party settings for more casual or hardcore gamers accordingly. If you loved Superstars, then Jamboree is a fantastic follow-up.
Both of the Overcooked games are the perfect recipe for a party game. Each level is short, exciting, and (generally) has easy-to-understand rules. People can swap in and out on each level, and there’s plenty of replayability going on so that it stays fresh for everyone. However, there remains a secret ingredient that might make things go sour: a large serving of stress.
In Overcooked, you are a chef who needs to chop, cook, and prepare as many dishes as possible before time runs out. Too slow, and the level fails. While up to three friends can join, prioritizing your time and what ingredients you prepare can be tough. As tensions rise with the falling timer, so do voices. Before you know it, you’re yelling at your friends like Gordon Ramsey, calling the Best Man at your wedding an idiot sandwich. But if you’re able to take the heat, it’s a tremendously fun time.
Want all of the cooperation without any of the timers? Then Pico Park may be more up your alley. In this minimally designed platformer, you and up to eight others must work together to solve puzzles and reach the end goal. It is one of the few games to offer split-screen multiplayer with more than four players, which makes it a particularly entertaining choice for larger groups at parties.
8
How smooth and problem-free your experience is depends entirely on how mischievous your friends are. Since the game is designed for co-op, proper cooperation is required, and it takes only a little bit of playful rebellion to make levels take much longer. There’s no single-player mode, too. So this is a party-exclusive game.
It’s no surprise to see the hard hitter of Nintendo make an appearance. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the culmination of everything people love about Mario Kart. Select from a wide collection of Nintendo characters and race against each other on wild and creatively designed tracks withcountless kart builds, all while using items to help and hinder as much as chaos sees fit.
4 single console, 8 local, 12 online
It’s one of the most popular games of this decade for a reason. It’s tremendously fun, easy to pick up, and hard to put down. With each level being relatively short, you can easily get a rotation of players going at whatever event you’re at. It also has a massive potential player count, with four-person split screen, eight-person local connections, and up to 12 racers if done through an online connection.
The video game for non-gamers, introducing Jackbox! Through some clever innovation, the Jackbox games allow numerous players to join a game through their smartphone by visiting a webpage. They can then participate from there. Each game included in a party pack is explained at the start, and each concept is easy to follow. All of this combines to be one of the most approachable games you’ll ever find at a party.
16 plus Audience
Jackbox Party Pack 4 is, in our professional opinion,the best one. It offers five different games, each with a different style and theme. Fibbage 3 is the best one of the bunch, though. The biggest obstacle here is the level of social charisma that is sometimes needed to play. It requires creative thinking, improv, and humor. It’s not for the shy of heart.
There’s been too much cooperative play; it’s time todukeduck it out. Duck Game is a fast-paced multiplayer platformer shooter game. Each participant is a duck in a silly hat who must quickly locate a weapon on the battlefield and use it to defeat the other. Everyone dies in one strike, and the countless weapons behave in unexpected ways.
Nothing lowers your opponent’s guard quite like pressing the ‘Quack’ button, by the way.
This all combines to make for split-section action and heart-pounding fun, delivered in one to two minute encounters. The game knows how to be silly, too. With quirky items, a button exclusively for quacking, and chaotic landscapes that lead to self-destruction more often than success, it’s a game that knows how to pull hearty laughter out of duck-on-duck violence.
Technically a single-player game, technically a ‘however many people can read the manual at one time’ player game, Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes is an asymmetrical multiplayer game where one lone user has access to a ticking bomb covered in widgets. The only way to diffuse the bomb is to deactivate each module. But the process of doing so is so obtuse that it’s impossible to do it from memory.
As many people as you may share Bomb Diffusal Manuals with
Instead, you have one or more folks nearby with the official Bomb Diffusal Manual, which has a detailed breakdown of how to defuse every module. They can’t see the screen (or the bomb), though. So they need to communicate with you to solve everything before time runs out. It’s a perfect combination of tension, cooperation, and creativity. It’s a game anyone, even non-gamers, can enjoy without needing any extra screens, controllers, or gaming expertise.
