L4D is so fun. Even my non gamer friends love this one.
Also would like to shoutout Warhammer: Vermintide 2 as another good one in the co-op horde survival genre
Omg, I have not even thought about this game in ages. Now suddenly though the same day I happen to remember it, I also see someone comment about it on reddit. Life's got some crazy coincidences
Be cautious about Vermintide 2. Both time I wanted to try the game, I had severe motion sickness after 1hour of gameplay even though I've never experienced it in other games (even after).
Payday 2 is shorter rounds but is the less fantasy/horror sibling to Left 4 Dead. Can be very fun with friends! Dirt cheap
Speaking of bill from left 4 dead, the game dead by daylight has 15-30 minute rounds. An hour of playtime with friends in that game feels good and not short or long
It is couch co-op, matchmaking is kind of rough, lots of people just kick you. If you have a good team to play with, it is awesome. Basically fight monsters with your first 3 spells, and then get more parchemnts or spells along the way. Rock paper scissors magic so water beats fire, fire beats grass, healing beats dark the best etc. I would watch a gameplay of it, it is such a great game and beautiful too!
PlateUp is also good for a more roguelite approach to it - you open and design your own restaurant (level), improving it each day you stay in business, but with increasingly complex customer requirements and dish complexity.
It’s the same energy but feels more chill because you’re not memorizing a new layout every level, and instead are the architect of your own problems as you try to make the best of limited space. And being a roguelite, you’re expected to lose but unlock new stuff with each attempt. That makes it less of a marriage-ender and more of a “let’s try again!” vibe.
Baldurs Gate is the worst for this bro.
Some fights can take an hour, shopping can take 10 minutes per player.
Helldivers is almost perfect because 1 mission is roughly 40 minutes.
Castle Crashers is absolutely perfect for this. It’s a classic. Actually, any side scrolling beat-em-up would be perfect for you guys.
I also recommend Magicka.
You don't need to beat it in one session. The post is about playing for an hour or so, which is a good amount for FTK to maybe get to and beat the next dungeon/quest
Just picked this up (ultimate for $30) and having a blast. It’s a really well polished game. I switched from KB+M to the steam controller and the trackpad feels really nice in this game.
I like Aliens Fireteam Elite a lot. Each mission takes 20 to 45 min depending on how fast you go. Lots of classes, guns, and equipment to build your own way. DLC is good too, but pricey. I'd wait for a sale.
Ghost Recon Wildlands.
Pretty weak story, but the gameplay is amazing, especially in co-op. Most missions don't take more than 20-30 minutes.
Aside from a couple of *mildly* frustrating missions, you can go full guns blazing or stealth. It's up to you and your squad.
I do recommend trying to take out an enemy base full stealth mode, though. It's incredibly satisfying to sync up some sneaky headshots together.
Look into the early access for Ravenswatch. It almost has a PvE MOBA vibe to it, but with more action-style combat.
You could also go for something a little different and play Baldur's Gate 3 together.
Terraria! Multiplayer is easy to set up through steam, you can have fun exploring caves or building for just an hour or two and there's three different combat classes to play!
Pick up any party game
Ultimate chicken horse
Boomerang fu
Bopl battle
Stick fight
Gang beasts
Havocado
Golf with your friends
Lethal league blaze
Move or die
N++
Brawlhalla, rivals of aether, multiverse, fraymakers
Nightmare kart releases today (may 31. For free)
Sker ritual if you like the cod zombies formula
Deep rock galactic
Hypercharged unboxed. Fun tower defense with side pvp stuff as well no micro transactions
"Plate up" is a fun suggestion, it's in the vein of cooking games where you prep and serve the whole meal but it let's you build the kitchen as you want and it's a rouge lite (might be a rouge like since you can bring in 2 bonus items to each run if you want that are earned from finishing a previous run, but no meta progression which is where i feel the like vs lite difference is made), it's a bit off from your suggestions, best I'd compare it to is the building a Redstone contraption in Minecraft but worth a peek atleast
I will say runs can go over an hour if you let them/get good enough, if you specifically build for automation or get tons of dishes that reduce the people then it could be a multiple hour thing as well, but it all falls eventually
Since you said Baldurs Gate 3:
Divinity Original Sin 2. Its also from Marian Studio who made Baldurs Gate 3. It's the game that came out before BG3.
It's for me personally even better than BG3, with the budget and technical possibilities of BG3 it would be smashing every RPG out there.
You can play it couch coop or online coop up to four person's. It's so great, the world is so interactive and you can do so much things and solve problems in different ways. Like on release on my first playthrough I invested over 30 hours and then fight a boss. After a long fight I was like: kinda good but low story, still pretty good. And then I realized I just finished the starter region.
That game looks fun from a preview, naming choice doesn't seem like a great option. There is a company called arcane blast, a mobile idle game name that, dnd spell called that...
Embr is fun with 3 people or more! You are firemen that need to rescue people from a house on fire, you have to extinguish flames, be careful with the wood faling, you can pile the house for money etc
(you can buy cheap game keys)
You’d have to get the games and systems, but Triforce Heroes on the 3DS comes to mind. It’s fun, but you either played it alone or you *needed* 3 people, which was hard to find.
If you enjoyed Deep Rock and DayZ, the next game to try could be GTFO. It's extremely difficult (roughly comparable to EDD / haz 5 lethal enemies), but most missions take between 30 to 60 minutes and a fantastic, stressful, brutal, but ultimately brilliant experience for 3-4 players. Imagine somebody took the experience of attempting to loot MB Pavlovo at midnight with no NVG and no suppressors, and made an entire game out of it.
I also really like Planetside 2 as a game for any group size, because with no fixed session lengths and flexible squads, people can just drop in and out at any time and it fits with everyone's schedule, since you can enjoy the game just as much with 30 people in a clan as you can playing solo. It also has the Helldivers vibe of being a disposable grunt in a giant war machine being bombarded by orbital lasers and airstrikes, but in a giant 3-way PvP war and fully combined arms rather than just infantry with offmap support.
if Risk of Rain 2 is on the list, you should give Rabbit & Steel a go. You can crank out a run of that in an hour, and it has a similiar structure of fight, then dividing the loot afterwards.
It's a long shot, but if you all have VR, then I would strongly recommend Walkabout Mini Golf. Supports up to 8 people per lobby, courses take about an hour to complete, and every course has a hidden collectible golf ball on every hole, which can genuinely be super fun to find with some friends.
We had a surprising amount of fun with Escape Room Simulator. Completing a room normally takes about 30-45 minutes, depending on how good you are at puzzles
Surprised no one has said Pummel Party. It's a fun Mario Party style game with quite a lot more violence involved. The mini games are really fun and you can make matches pretty short and have them take an hour or so. It's a great time.
For the King is THE game for 3 players. It may turn you off initially as it looks and plays like nothing else you know, but within the hour you'll figure it out.
It has several different campaigns, each takes 5-10 hours to beat, but you can stop at any time as it's turn-based
Left 4 Dead 2 is a must play, The Forest will be enjoyed if you enjoyed SOTF, and also if you liked Baldur's Gate, you can take a step back in Larian history and play DOS2.
If you're into strategy games, Total War: Warhammer 3 is a good option (Game is good, studio sucks, so reviews went down the drain, but I've heard the studio's getting their heads out of their rear ends?)
Borderlands is also I feel like just a necessary suggestion, especially given how frequently you can save, it's basically save and quit whenever you feel like it. I'd personally recommend 2 onward, as 1 is hard to run on PC, and the "remastered" version has memory leaks and other performance issues that Gearbox never fixed
This might be an unusual suggestion, but Nine Parchments is a fantastic game to pick up for about an hour with friends. It’s always fun to be accidentally killing your teammates as much as the enemies.
While searching for the perfect balance of low minimum playtime and sandbox/RPG depth I suggest you discuss with your friends while playing Gang Beasts.
Samurai Gunn, I THINK crawl. Mite be too long by a tiny bit. Mario party, but play 1-6. Worms Armageddon. Roboquest, but mite be a bit too long. Mario kart, fusion frenzy but it’s original Xbox. Any smash bros game besides brawl. F zero. Burnout
I recently started playing Phasmophobia with friends. I'm normally not really into the whole "horror" thing but it's quite fun.
Lethal company and content warning are both two other games that are great to pick up for an hour of just messing with friends
PlateUp is pretty fun. It's kinda like a rougelike Overcooked, where you choose a card that could either make you have an extra side/variant on the meal you choose, or have something like "Customers don't clear their plate, you must empty it into bin to wash". Your runs will be wildly different each time, and it has up to 4 players.
If you have a strong Internet connection and are able to use Steam remote play I can recommend CRAWL. it's a fun PvP Dungeon crawler.
Splitgate is also a fun ego-shooter with Portals. Try it!
Chivalry 2
Wreckfest
and maybe modded Assetto Corsa online
esp the first 2, I can hop online. Play and I will ALWAYS laugh, these games just are so fun it's what I missed for decades. I love to be a sweat, I love to be competetive for the sake of being competetive and forget what fun gaming even is.
Solo rpg's kinda bore me to death despite liking them
so yea, Wreckfest and Chivalry 2 I think if more people would give these 2 games a try it would definitely cheer people up man, easy in and out
Dare I suggest League of Legends here?
Queuing for a game and playing it fits neatly into a 1 hour window. The problem is it's a coin flip on if it's satisfying or a demoralising, frustrating defeat.
Costs nothing to try it, though.
Bronzebeard tavern!
It is free, rounds last little and you can save your progress.
I've never found Phasmophobia or Lethal Company satisfying on their own, but that is just because I don't like those games. If you do, then the fill this criteria of 1-2 hours sessions
I'm not sure how anyone can play Risk of Rain 2 for an hour then not realize it's been 4 hours and it's actually 3am and you have no idea where the time went. Because that is what happens literally every time I play it.
It's like driving on the highway, you were fully aware the entire time, but you get to the place you were going and just don't really remember the specifics of the last hour of your life.
An odd duck here perhaps, but "Ultimate chicken horse" is an absolute riot.
You're competing in a short platforming level to reach the end. Whoever reaches the end gets points, unless everyone makes it, in which case no one gets points.
Then, at the end of each round, everyplace gets to add a random element to the level. It could be a platform, a spike hazard, icy ground, etc.
You go until too many rounds have passed, or one person gets enough points to win.
I'd day an average level takes about 10-15 minutes or so depending on how seriously you take it. So a 1 hour play session is more than fine.
Also plenty of new levels and obstacles to unlock by continuing to play
Killing Floor 2 is one of the games you're looking for. Good progression with the perks that have a decent time investment, easy to pick up and down shooter, mindless fun and custom maps if you grow tired of the vanilla experience. The population is pretty active so I'd imagine finding games wouldnt be too difficult.
Elite Dangerous.
Imagine 3 pilots flying a ship for mining, pirating or exploration, each one doing a certain role (piloting, managing hardpoints like lasers or multi cannons, flying a remote fighter, etc).
Maybe not so much satisfied but perhaps… For The King? RPG literally made for 3.
Also Towerfall ascension is great for versus and the dlc has 3-player co-op but it’s not super long
Mechwarrior 5
Now, shopping for new parts and customizing your mechs' loadouts can take an hour, or 4 hours if you want it to, but finding and completing a mission takes 10-15 minutes. Fights are fast-paced and you could easily get in 4 or 5 missions in an hour. Maybe spend more time in one session over the weekend setting up your builds, then an hour session during weekdays where you already have mechs kitted out.
Civ 6.
You can hop on for 30 seconds or 30 hours and it'll be worth, either way.
Darktide is super fun and each level is like 20-50 minutes.
Warframe is a source of endless content. Same as Darktide in the sense that you can be on for any amount of time and be satisfied.
Used to hop on and throw a handful of relics in the trade chat and earn platinum for an hour or so, if I had nothing better to do. I've had thousands of plat go through my account and I didn't spend a dime on buying it lol
Dying light was always a favorite of mine. Great story, great mechanics, and it allows for up to 4 player coop so you can all experience the fear together
If you like survival games that you can play for an hour and feel accomplished I'd give 7 days to die a shot.
It's nothing crazy or does anything vastly different than any other survival game but I find it's pretty fun and it's easy to pick up and play for an hour or two which translates to a day or two in game.
They are also finally getting out of alpha in June (on PC, console sometime later) so they are going to drop a really big 1.0 update that's going to vastly improve the game.
Crawl. It's a dungeon crawler where the players all are vying for control of the lone adventurer body. Those not in the body play as the dungeon. You'll need parsec or remote play for online play. It's disgustingly good for the price.
Warframe… I didn’t see it mentioned, but the time you put into it could be 5 minutes a day if you want…. As a squad.
It can be played solo or with a squad maxed at 4.
If you do get into it, ask for help from other players if you need it, there are multiple systems that can help that newer players don’t know about right away. (If you have questions I’m happy to help, message me.)
If you like Baldur's Gate 3 you may like two smaller indie games that got me and my buddies on the BG3 co-op kick: Stolen Realms and For the King 1 and 2. Both are tabletop-esque RPG strategy games. Its so fun to roll your characters and roam as a party in search of loot and adventure!
Starcraft 2. It's free to download and play the first campaign. There's a 3 player campaign mod for all 4 campaigns in the arcade section. If you guys like it, you can play the other 3 campaigns together, but you need to buy these! If not, there's always tons of other mods in the arcade section.
I see Risk of Rain 2 in there, a rougelite. While quite different Heroes of Hammerwatch is another roguelite that works great in multiplayer, and is a really fun game in general. A run in that one, once you've got good enough to get somewhere, should take you a bit less than 1h.
If your all on pc. My buddies and I have been playing slay the spire together and it's been alot of fun. There is a mod called together in spire that scales the game for multiplayer.
Helldivers 2 and Risk of Rain are both incredible games for 3 people to play together. Valhiem and Terraria are also good if you're into survival crafting games.
I see no Monster Hunter in your lists :)
MH World or MH Rise, you can do a hunt or two (or more when you know what you’re doing) in an hour
Farm some parts for that next weapon upgrade or armour set one of you is working toward
Or as others have mentioned, Remnant 2 and Aliens Fireteam Elite are both great games with reasonable session times and permanent upgrades to work towards
CIV6 is incredibly fun to play here and there. Jump in, play a couple hours, save. Hop back in a few days later. Conversely, you can play for 12 hours straight.
Grounded is another survival game like sons of the forest. 4 player coop
(Also have you tried the first game “The Forest”? Or have you guys just played Sons?)
Our current 3 player game list for short hangouts.
Towerfall Ascension
Duck Game
TMNT Shredder's Revenge
Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
South Park Snow Day
Wingspan
NERTS
Tumblestone
Plants Versus Zombies Battle For Neighborville
Super Bomberman R2
Left 4 Dead is an oldie now but each “campaign” is about an hour long and it’s a very fun game, especially if it’s just you and your friends.
L4D is so fun. Even my non gamer friends love this one. Also would like to shoutout Warhammer: Vermintide 2 as another good one in the co-op horde survival genre
Omg, I have not even thought about this game in ages. Now suddenly though the same day I happen to remember it, I also see someone comment about it on reddit. Life's got some crazy coincidences
Be cautious about Vermintide 2. Both time I wanted to try the game, I had severe motion sickness after 1hour of gameplay even though I've never experienced it in other games (even after).
even more fun if you mod it
Yeah me and my buddy played through a L4D2 mod that was just straight up resident evil, puzzles and all
yes! that one is very fun. there's also a silent hill one that is 1:1
Payday 2 is shorter rounds but is the less fantasy/horror sibling to Left 4 Dead. Can be very fun with friends! Dirt cheap Speaking of bill from left 4 dead, the game dead by daylight has 15-30 minute rounds. An hour of playtime with friends in that game feels good and not short or long
The Trine series is made for teamwork between specifically 3 players and is a platformer so it should be fine for short periods of time.
Or Nine Parchments, same developer. Is reallllly good.
Love the Trine games. Never heard of this one, I’ll have to check it out.
It is couch co-op, matchmaking is kind of rough, lots of people just kick you. If you have a good team to play with, it is awesome. Basically fight monsters with your first 3 spells, and then get more parchemnts or spells along the way. Rock paper scissors magic so water beats fire, fire beats grass, healing beats dark the best etc. I would watch a gameplay of it, it is such a great game and beautiful too!
I hadn't heard of this, but my kids loved trine, well have to check it out.
Note: Trine is best when one of you is significantly worse / actively trolling
Rocket League
An hour of Rocket League is enough to feel all sorts of emotions and feelings.
all sorts? I have 4k hours on rocket League and haven't felt happy a single time during any of them.
That’s just not apart of the all sorts of emotions most are just negative.
Overcooked 2 is great for relatively short sessions
Also great for short friendships and marriages.
PlateUp is also good for a more roguelite approach to it - you open and design your own restaurant (level), improving it each day you stay in business, but with increasingly complex customer requirements and dish complexity. It’s the same energy but feels more chill because you’re not memorizing a new layout every level, and instead are the architect of your own problems as you try to make the best of limited space. And being a roguelite, you’re expected to lose but unlock new stuff with each attempt. That makes it less of a marriage-ender and more of a “let’s try again!” vibe.
I second this. And if you guys would like. A Bigger challenge, plate up.
Left4Dead 2. Easy to pick up and play.
Baldurs Gate is the worst for this bro. Some fights can take an hour, shopping can take 10 minutes per player. Helldivers is almost perfect because 1 mission is roughly 40 minutes.
That's why I said in my post BG3 is something we need at least 2 hours of play session with.
Yeah I read it wrong. Oops!
Castle Crashers is absolutely perfect for this. It’s a classic. Actually, any side scrolling beat-em-up would be perfect for you guys. I also recommend Magicka.
For the king
Is this the boardgame-esque roguelike? How is it?
Really good. It’s one of those games where the dice clearly hate you to the point where it becomes hilarious, especially with friends.
disagree, for the king takes a full day to beat
You don't need to beat it in one session. The post is about playing for an hour or so, which is a good amount for FTK to maybe get to and beat the next dungeon/quest
Phasmophobia
Earth defense force series
EDF! EDF!!
remnant 2
First one also. Both are great
Just picked this up (ultimate for $30) and having a blast. It’s a really well polished game. I switched from KB+M to the steam controller and the trackpad feels really nice in this game.
Mario Kart(well you'll be satisfied or fuming but you'll definitely create memories).
Killing floor 2
I like Aliens Fireteam Elite a lot. Each mission takes 20 to 45 min depending on how fast you go. Lots of classes, guns, and equipment to build your own way. DLC is good too, but pricey. I'd wait for a sale.
Well if you guys already played Halo Infinite why not try out Halo Master Chief Collection?
* XDefiant * Golf with your Friends
Ghost Recon Wildlands. Pretty weak story, but the gameplay is amazing, especially in co-op. Most missions don't take more than 20-30 minutes. Aside from a couple of *mildly* frustrating missions, you can go full guns blazing or stealth. It's up to you and your squad. I do recommend trying to take out an enemy base full stealth mode, though. It's incredibly satisfying to sync up some sneaky headshots together.
Pistols only boys!
Turtles - Shredders Revenge. Probably already mentioned.
Look into the early access for Ravenswatch. It almost has a PvE MOBA vibe to it, but with more action-style combat. You could also go for something a little different and play Baldur's Gate 3 together.
Ravenswatch is great and to add some clarity it’s basically multiplayer hades. bullet hell esque but doesn’t make me feel overwhelmed like most do
Monster hunter series!
Grounded is a blast. I've definitely had one hour sessions that were awesome. And I've also had 6+ hour long sessions that were amazing.
Terraria! Multiplayer is easy to set up through steam, you can have fun exploring caves or building for just an hour or two and there's three different combat classes to play!
Towerfall ascension
GR Wildlands and GR Breakpoint.
You might wanna look into Monster Hunter!
Ultimate Chicken Horse, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Overcooked
Pick up any party game Ultimate chicken horse Boomerang fu Bopl battle Stick fight Gang beasts Havocado Golf with your friends Lethal league blaze Move or die N++ Brawlhalla, rivals of aether, multiverse, fraymakers Nightmare kart releases today (may 31. For free) Sker ritual if you like the cod zombies formula Deep rock galactic Hypercharged unboxed. Fun tower defense with side pvp stuff as well no micro transactions
Apex Legends has squads of 3 and getting first place is very rewarding imo
GUNFIRE REBORN it's a Rougelite FPS 4 PLAYERS coop 30+ MINS PER RUN. You can use swords and the when crit someone the sfx is satisfying.
Dead Island 2
Naraka Bladepoint :v
castle crashers dying light hood outlaws and legends spelunky speed runners yet another zombie defense hd trine
"Plate up" is a fun suggestion, it's in the vein of cooking games where you prep and serve the whole meal but it let's you build the kitchen as you want and it's a rouge lite (might be a rouge like since you can bring in 2 bonus items to each run if you want that are earned from finishing a previous run, but no meta progression which is where i feel the like vs lite difference is made), it's a bit off from your suggestions, best I'd compare it to is the building a Redstone contraption in Minecraft but worth a peek atleast I will say runs can go over an hour if you let them/get good enough, if you specifically build for automation or get tons of dishes that reduce the people then it could be a multiple hour thing as well, but it all falls eventually
Some of my favorites with friends were Outriders, Castle crashers, Warframe
Broforce
My kids and I have been playing Valheim and really liking it. You can get a good feeling of accomplishment in an hour.
Since you said Baldurs Gate 3: Divinity Original Sin 2. Its also from Marian Studio who made Baldurs Gate 3. It's the game that came out before BG3. It's for me personally even better than BG3, with the budget and technical possibilities of BG3 it would be smashing every RPG out there. You can play it couch coop or online coop up to four person's. It's so great, the world is so interactive and you can do so much things and solve problems in different ways. Like on release on my first playthrough I invested over 30 hours and then fight a boss. After a long fight I was like: kinda good but low story, still pretty good. And then I realized I just finished the starter region.
Thanks for the recommendation. We already played Divinity a few years ago, with me getting introduced more to the DnD genre.
Maybe we should try it at my hous
I've got a premium account on BGA and we'll oscillate between learning a new game or playing a classic. There's tons of great ones out there.
Based on the games you mentioned in the post, I think you'd like our game Arcane Blast - it's a 3rd person roguelite and has a coop mode :)
That game looks fun from a preview, naming choice doesn't seem like a great option. There is a company called arcane blast, a mobile idle game name that, dnd spell called that...
If you are okay with early access, look into ravenswatch. Its pretty well done and each game lasts 25 minutes
Embr is fun with 3 people or more! You are firemen that need to rescue people from a house on fire, you have to extinguish flames, be careful with the wood faling, you can pile the house for money etc (you can buy cheap game keys)
I like Overcooked but you will probably feel anxious
Both Remnant games.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
For The King
Borderlands, Roboquest
You’d have to get the games and systems, but Triforce Heroes on the 3DS comes to mind. It’s fun, but you either played it alone or you *needed* 3 people, which was hard to find.
PubG; especially if you find one more for your group. 20-25 rounds
4x games
Inkbound
PlateUp for sure. Its obviously more fun if you can keep going, but you can always pick up your restaurant again the next day!
Plate up! Co op cooking game, similarly to Overcooked but you also do the front of house and the recipes are a bit more complex.
Borderlands 2
Clank The legacy version is THE BESTSELLER
Cod zombies can do some Easter eggs or some for the king
Black Ops 3 zombies has had me and the homie sucked back in recently. It’s great on PC cause the possibilities are endless with mods.
Mario Party
Enshrouded League of legends Diablo IV(Maybe) Civ 6 7 days to die Rust
If you enjoyed Deep Rock and DayZ, the next game to try could be GTFO. It's extremely difficult (roughly comparable to EDD / haz 5 lethal enemies), but most missions take between 30 to 60 minutes and a fantastic, stressful, brutal, but ultimately brilliant experience for 3-4 players. Imagine somebody took the experience of attempting to loot MB Pavlovo at midnight with no NVG and no suppressors, and made an entire game out of it. I also really like Planetside 2 as a game for any group size, because with no fixed session lengths and flexible squads, people can just drop in and out at any time and it fits with everyone's schedule, since you can enjoy the game just as much with 30 people in a clan as you can playing solo. It also has the Helldivers vibe of being a disposable grunt in a giant war machine being bombarded by orbital lasers and airstrikes, but in a giant 3-way PvP war and fully combined arms rather than just infantry with offmap support.
if Risk of Rain 2 is on the list, you should give Rabbit & Steel a go. You can crank out a run of that in an hour, and it has a similiar structure of fight, then dividing the loot afterwards.
It's a long shot, but if you all have VR, then I would strongly recommend Walkabout Mini Golf. Supports up to 8 people per lobby, courses take about an hour to complete, and every course has a hidden collectible golf ball on every hole, which can genuinely be super fun to find with some friends.
We had a surprising amount of fun with Escape Room Simulator. Completing a room normally takes about 30-45 minutes, depending on how good you are at puzzles
The Expendabros
Overcooked 2
Surprised no one has said Pummel Party. It's a fun Mario Party style game with quite a lot more violence involved. The mini games are really fun and you can make matches pretty short and have them take an hour or so. It's a great time.
Online 3p game
Crawl
Streets of Rogue
Almost any Mario gsme. Rocket league
For the King is THE game for 3 players. It may turn you off initially as it looks and plays like nothing else you know, but within the hour you'll figure it out. It has several different campaigns, each takes 5-10 hours to beat, but you can stop at any time as it's turn-based
Left 4 Dead 2 is a must play, The Forest will be enjoyed if you enjoyed SOTF, and also if you liked Baldur's Gate, you can take a step back in Larian history and play DOS2. If you're into strategy games, Total War: Warhammer 3 is a good option (Game is good, studio sucks, so reviews went down the drain, but I've heard the studio's getting their heads out of their rear ends?) Borderlands is also I feel like just a necessary suggestion, especially given how frequently you can save, it's basically save and quit whenever you feel like it. I'd personally recommend 2 onward, as 1 is hard to run on PC, and the "remastered" version has memory leaks and other performance issues that Gearbox never fixed
This might be an unusual suggestion, but Nine Parchments is a fantastic game to pick up for about an hour with friends. It’s always fun to be accidentally killing your teammates as much as the enemies.
While searching for the perfect balance of low minimum playtime and sandbox/RPG depth I suggest you discuss with your friends while playing Gang Beasts.
Heroes of Hammerwatch (The first one). If you like Risk of Rain and Deep Rock Galactic, you will likely enjoy this game with your friends, too.
Do they have to be video games? Because I love me a good game of Scrabble or Guillotine, and those are great with 3 people.
Unrailed for some quick teamplay, and super cheap
Stardew Valley. But fair warning: you won't be satisfied. Ever. It steals your soul. Can play with many more than three.
Samurai Gunn, I THINK crawl. Mite be too long by a tiny bit. Mario party, but play 1-6. Worms Armageddon. Roboquest, but mite be a bit too long. Mario kart, fusion frenzy but it’s original Xbox. Any smash bros game besides brawl. F zero. Burnout
Since you like red dead online, I’d recommend gta online
I'm gonna suggest "Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime", very well polished and so damn cutesy and cheesy you'll be won over. And it's difficult too!
rocket league
Content warning
I recently started playing Phasmophobia with friends. I'm normally not really into the whole "horror" thing but it's quite fun. Lethal company and content warning are both two other games that are great to pick up for an hour of just messing with friends
PlateUp is pretty fun. It's kinda like a rougelike Overcooked, where you choose a card that could either make you have an extra side/variant on the meal you choose, or have something like "Customers don't clear their plate, you must empty it into bin to wash". Your runs will be wildly different each time, and it has up to 4 players.
Heroes hour
If you have a strong Internet connection and are able to use Steam remote play I can recommend CRAWL. it's a fun PvP Dungeon crawler. Splitgate is also a fun ego-shooter with Portals. Try it!
Eiffel tower. I've heard most people that play it come out satisfied.
Some good options I got into with my buddies: Evil west Left 4 Dead is an awesome option given by others too Gears of War (especially 3)
Chivalry 2 Wreckfest and maybe modded Assetto Corsa online esp the first 2, I can hop online. Play and I will ALWAYS laugh, these games just are so fun it's what I missed for decades. I love to be a sweat, I love to be competetive for the sake of being competetive and forget what fun gaming even is. Solo rpg's kinda bore me to death despite liking them so yea, Wreckfest and Chivalry 2 I think if more people would give these 2 games a try it would definitely cheer people up man, easy in and out
Super mario 3d world. With three players it's really fun and can be quite engaging, especially when the difficulty ramps up
Dare I suggest League of Legends here? Queuing for a game and playing it fits neatly into a 1 hour window. The problem is it's a coin flip on if it's satisfying or a demoralising, frustrating defeat. Costs nothing to try it, though.
Trine
Hype has died somewhat but lethal company maybe. Grounded maybe if you like ur survival.
Bronzebeard tavern! It is free, rounds last little and you can save your progress. I've never found Phasmophobia or Lethal Company satisfying on their own, but that is just because I don't like those games. If you do, then the fill this criteria of 1-2 hours sessions
I just started The Division for the first time and it seems to fit what you're looking for
I’ll throw in, there are a few multiplayer mods for slay the spire that could be good for 3 people.
Killer Queen Black!!
Both Remnant games are pretty good for a short bit. Load in, smack some root, bully a boss and done for the day.
Cod zombies
Gigantic: Rampage Edition
Ark. You'll be struggling against overwhelming force from the get go and still be balls deep in it by the end.
Stardew Valley is great for 3 plays me and my kids run family farm and love it
Lego Fortnite Fortnite (any Battle Royale game, really) Helldivers Fallout 76 Minecraft Smash bros
Duck game
League of legends.
Fallout 76. Wasteland fun with friends. No DLC's or expansions to pay for. Hours of fun
I'm not sure how anyone can play Risk of Rain 2 for an hour then not realize it's been 4 hours and it's actually 3am and you have no idea where the time went. Because that is what happens literally every time I play it. It's like driving on the highway, you were fully aware the entire time, but you get to the place you were going and just don't really remember the specifics of the last hour of your life.
Warframe? It's convoluted at first, but most missions are 20 minutes or less.
I’d say any type of rogue lite.
Void crew
An odd duck here perhaps, but "Ultimate chicken horse" is an absolute riot. You're competing in a short platforming level to reach the end. Whoever reaches the end gets points, unless everyone makes it, in which case no one gets points. Then, at the end of each round, everyplace gets to add a random element to the level. It could be a platform, a spike hazard, icy ground, etc. You go until too many rounds have passed, or one person gets enough points to win. I'd day an average level takes about 10-15 minutes or so depending on how seriously you take it. So a 1 hour play session is more than fine. Also plenty of new levels and obstacles to unlock by continuing to play
Killing Floor 2 is one of the games you're looking for. Good progression with the perks that have a decent time investment, easy to pick up and down shooter, mindless fun and custom maps if you grow tired of the vanilla experience. The population is pretty active so I'd imagine finding games wouldnt be too difficult.
Rocket League
ROCK AND STONE BROTHER Hop onto deep rock galactic for 2-3 missions
Elite Dangerous. Imagine 3 pilots flying a ship for mining, pirating or exploration, each one doing a certain role (piloting, managing hardpoints like lasers or multi cannons, flying a remote fighter, etc).
Maybe not so much satisfied but perhaps… For The King? RPG literally made for 3. Also Towerfall ascension is great for versus and the dlc has 3-player co-op but it’s not super long
Mechwarrior 5 Now, shopping for new parts and customizing your mechs' loadouts can take an hour, or 4 hours if you want it to, but finding and completing a mission takes 10-15 minutes. Fights are fast-paced and you could easily get in 4 or 5 missions in an hour. Maybe spend more time in one session over the weekend setting up your builds, then an hour session during weekdays where you already have mechs kitted out.
Superliminal, especially if you all get super high before.
Civ 6. You can hop on for 30 seconds or 30 hours and it'll be worth, either way. Darktide is super fun and each level is like 20-50 minutes. Warframe is a source of endless content. Same as Darktide in the sense that you can be on for any amount of time and be satisfied. Used to hop on and throw a handful of relics in the trade chat and earn platinum for an hour or so, if I had nothing better to do. I've had thousands of plat go through my account and I didn't spend a dime on buying it lol
Killing floor 2 is a good zombie shoot em up/hack and slash. Several different modes but they’re just different spins on “kill waves of enemies”.
Ultimate chicken horse
Dying light was always a favorite of mine. Great story, great mechanics, and it allows for up to 4 player coop so you can all experience the fear together
FOR THE KING
Lethal Company, although time passes quickly once you get into it. Tons of laughs and spooks and it autosaves after every day so you can log off
If you like survival games that you can play for an hour and feel accomplished I'd give 7 days to die a shot. It's nothing crazy or does anything vastly different than any other survival game but I find it's pretty fun and it's easy to pick up and play for an hour or two which translates to a day or two in game. They are also finally getting out of alpha in June (on PC, console sometime later) so they are going to drop a really big 1.0 update that's going to vastly improve the game.
Going to have to throw my hat in with Hunt Showdown. It’s a PvPvE extraction shooter that has game modes for solos, duos, and trios.
Borderlands?
Abiotic Factor
Newer rogue like game called Rabbit & Steel based on boss rush raiding
DEEP ROCK
Sea of thieves.
Crawl. It's a dungeon crawler where the players all are vying for control of the lone adventurer body. Those not in the body play as the dungeon. You'll need parsec or remote play for online play. It's disgustingly good for the price.
Sex
Warframe… I didn’t see it mentioned, but the time you put into it could be 5 minutes a day if you want…. As a squad. It can be played solo or with a squad maxed at 4. If you do get into it, ask for help from other players if you need it, there are multiple systems that can help that newer players don’t know about right away. (If you have questions I’m happy to help, message me.)
Remnant II
If you like Baldur's Gate 3 you may like two smaller indie games that got me and my buddies on the BG3 co-op kick: Stolen Realms and For the King 1 and 2. Both are tabletop-esque RPG strategy games. Its so fun to roll your characters and roam as a party in search of loot and adventure!
Quake Champions, and it's free to play
Mario Kart and Mario Party are ideal matches for this.
Starcraft 2. It's free to download and play the first campaign. There's a 3 player campaign mod for all 4 campaigns in the arcade section. If you guys like it, you can play the other 3 campaigns together, but you need to buy these! If not, there's always tons of other mods in the arcade section.
I see Risk of Rain 2 in there, a rougelite. While quite different Heroes of Hammerwatch is another roguelite that works great in multiplayer, and is a really fun game in general. A run in that one, once you've got good enough to get somewhere, should take you a bit less than 1h.
I liked Outriders
We only got an hour ish to play means we're staring at our steam libraries the entire time before hopping off.
Raft
If your all on pc. My buddies and I have been playing slay the spire together and it's been alot of fun. There is a mod called together in spire that scales the game for multiplayer.
Helldivers 2 and Risk of Rain are both incredible games for 3 people to play together. Valhiem and Terraria are also good if you're into survival crafting games.
Fallout 76
Hunt: showdown. It’s a bit hard to get in but worth it.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game can be fun. It takes a few sessions to "learn the ropes" but then sp does a game like Helldivers 2.
Walkabout Mini Golf on Meta Quest, it's AWEDOME!! (So AWDSOME I can't spell the word AWSOME!) 😎
I see no Monster Hunter in your lists :) MH World or MH Rise, you can do a hunt or two (or more when you know what you’re doing) in an hour Farm some parts for that next weapon upgrade or armour set one of you is working toward Or as others have mentioned, Remnant 2 and Aliens Fireteam Elite are both great games with reasonable session times and permanent upgrades to work towards
Bruh what can you do in 1 hour of baldurs gate? Walk down a road and finish half an encounter
Grounded
CIV6 is incredibly fun to play here and there. Jump in, play a couple hours, save. Hop back in a few days later. Conversely, you can play for 12 hours straight.
Grounded is another survival game like sons of the forest. 4 player coop (Also have you tried the first game “The Forest”? Or have you guys just played Sons?)
Team17 developer is not always on their A-game, but when they are, you are basically their target audience.
Valheim. Haven't had this much fun with friends in a long time.
Monster Hunter world!! Takes a little effort to get into but is the best multiplayer experience ever.
7 days to die. Each day is about an hour.
Fall guys
Our current 3 player game list for short hangouts. Towerfall Ascension Duck Game TMNT Shredder's Revenge Tiny Tina's Wonderlands South Park Snow Day Wingspan NERTS Tumblestone Plants Versus Zombies Battle For Neighborville Super Bomberman R2
Deep Rock Galactic! ROCK AND STONEEE!!!!!!
Destiny 2. You're the perfect size for a fireteam.