Finding great games for your child to play can be tricky. Not only is there a wide choice, but knowing which are both appropriate and popular isn’t always obvious. This year, I’ve been keeping a long list of the top-selling games for families for AskAboutGames.
So let’s look back at the list and see which of these top-selling games could be good for your family. To help you find the right games, we’ve grouped them by their PEGI Age Rating. If you want more details on the game ratings you can find them on the VSC Rating Board website complete with examiners reports, or in their app. This is a great way to make sure your console is all set-up correctly.
This is a cooking game with a difference. You must work together to cook each of the dishes because you are situated in different parts of the kitchen. As the game progresses the recipes get more complex and the cooking more difficult from increasingly outlandish locations.
This is a particularly good game for families because you can all play together (providing you have enough controllers). But also because children of all ages can contribute to the chopping, serving and cooking of each plate of food.
See our online gaming advice guide for more tips on how to help children get the best out of their experience.
This is not only a great family game to play together to get you moving, but it’s a new game out this year for the original Nintendo Wii. If you’ve only got that old console this will breath new life into it. Regardless of what platform you play it on, it’s great fun to dance along with the on-screen choreography.
It makes use of the various systems motion-sensitive controllers or camera trackers to let you dance around the living room to your heart’s delight. Kids love playing this game but love it all the better when mum and dad join in. There’s even a mode that makes the dancing easier for young children. And yes, it includes Baby Shark.
We all know and love the FIFA series, but each year it gets a bit better. The 2020 version not only adds a refreshed line up but a whole host of new ways to control the ball and play together.
While very young children will need some help, there is a really useful handicap mode that will level the playing field between the different players. Add to this the story mode and ultimate team maker challenge, and this is a game that will keep you entertained right through the season.
This is a beautiful ghost hunt that focuses on hijinx rather than jump-scares. You play Luigi as he spends the night in a haunted mansion. Working your way through the different rooms and puzzles, you have to track down all manner of mischievous ghosts.
It’s fun to play on your own, but also with other people. Either in the 8 player co-operative and multiplayer modes or simply by taking turns to hunt down each and every ghost in each room. The graphics are some of the best on the system and the game-play will keep you playing long into the new year.
This is a game a bit like Skylanders, where the toys unlock in-game spaceship. Although it didn’t sell well, it is now available for a really good price. For families, it’s actually a brilliant experience. You go on a space adventure that roams from space dog-fights all the way down to fully explorable planet surfaces.
The level of detail here in both the game and the related toy spaceships is really impressive. Also, if you just want to play without the toys you can purchase a bundle with everything unlocked. Played in either single or split-screen mode this really is a lot of fun for families.
This is a first-person shooting game where the most damage you can do is to pull up some weeds. You can customise your character and choose between 20 different classes of attack plants or zombies.
New this time is the player versus enemy mode where you team up with three friends online and take back Weirding Woods, Mount Steep or Neighborville Town Centre from the zombies. Then there’s the split-screen sofa squad mode where you can battle three players through free-roam, or go online against 24 players in larger matches. However you play it, like Splatoon 2, this is a low-violence alternative that’s as exuberant and fun as it’s more gun-based counterparts.
This is a great game to go back and revisit with modern visuals and gameplay. The same action-adventure dungeon exploring is on offer here, but with a modern twist. For those 12 and over this is a game that has a good balance of humour and battling.
We again follow the story of Sir Dan, an unlikely champion who met an unfortunate end on the field of battle. He receives “a chance at redemption when his nemesis, the evil sorcerer Lord Zarok, accidentally resurrects him 100 years after that fateful day”. It’s a classic set-up that’s well used now, but here you can see why the original was so popular. This new iteration will keep you entertained for a good long time.
This is a seafaring tale of pirates with a twist. You enter a vast online ocean with loads of other players piloting their own ships. Not only that but you can collaborate with other players and work as a team to take charge of larger vessels.
The game was a little sparse, to begin with, but since launch, it has become rich with stories, quests and a mature community that is enjoyable to play with. If you are looking for a good way to try online games with your child then this is a great game to play together.
This is an unusual combination of platform adventure and painting. Players explore the beautiful hand-crafted world and must create paintings on the walls of buildings to bring characters to life that restore health to the town.
Running through the game is the story of a young artist who has his artbook stollen by some bullies. It sounds a little trite, but in practice, it’s a really moving story that deals with the issue of identity and bullying with confidence and maturity. Whether played alone or together in your family, this is a game like no other that is well worth checking out.
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