LAN & CO-OP Games for 8 to 12 people

Backstory. Some older guys that used to LAN together all the time back in College (late 90's) up through a few years ago (like once a year but always the same games like UT2004, Halo, COD4) and now some newer guys that want get together and have a LAN party.

We need more game ideas. I'll make the list up and repost responses.

Serious Sam 3 has 16 player coop. The earlier games have coop campaigns as well, but not sure how many can play at once.
I only ever played multiplayer in Carmageddon 1 through TDR 2000, but the much newer Carmageddon Max Damage should be fun, especially if it stays close to the original's modes and feel. It only allows 6 players at a time though AFAIK.

Minecraft, Team Fortress 2, or anything that is 5-10 years old. Reasoning being anything a little easier for a laptop to run might mean more folks can participate, and the game price barrier to entry will be quite reasonable.

Bump and here's the start of our list.

Oldies but Goodies
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
UT 2004
Team Fortress 2
Neverwinter Nights 2
Halo
Counterstike

Newer Stuff
Carmageddon: Max Damage
Serious Sam 3
Battlefield 4
Rocket League
GTA5 Online
Overwatch
PUBG
Sea of Thieves
Rainbow Six Seige
Rust
Friday the 13th

Civilization 4
Gang Beasts

Viscera Cleanup Detail

Left 4 Dead 2 with some mods can allow 8 players. I've read.

Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator can have up to eight ships on the same map, with each ship having at least two human players, and designed for five bridge officers plus a captain. The theoretical maximum once you throw in fighter pilots is over eighty.

Factorio can have multiple players on the same map, including an optional PVP scenario. (Minecraft and Terraria are also popular, though less focused, multiplayer building experiences.)

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings is a traditional LAN party classic, though it's limited to 8 players per game.

ArmA: Armed Assault can have to up to 32 players, though it's not exactly a game that's easy to pick up as a newbie.

I'm personally really fond of AI War, but it's a long campaign that may not be best as a LAN party thing.

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 can allegedly support up to 80 players. It's available on GOG.

Based on the last time I did a LAN party (which was admittedly ages ago) the big barrier was in just getting the games installed. My strategy would be to pick a few top things and make sure everyone has those out of the box.

Side note, LAN parties are a lot easier these days since gaming laptops exist, though of course that requires you to have a laptop that can handle it. Still easier than carting around a desktop back in the day. (Not as easy as having access to a university computer lab with Steam installed, of course...)

16 players could be a good size for some fun games of Savage 1 or 2.

Gremlin wrote:

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 can allegedly support up to 80 players. It's available on GOG.

The IL-2 games can be great fun, but a joystick is pretty much mandatory and they'll have a bit of a learning period, even on simple flight models.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

16 players could be a good size for some fun games of Savage 1 or 2.

Gremlin wrote:

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 can allegedly support up to 80 players. It's available on GOG.

The IL-2 games can be great fun, but a joystick is pretty much mandatory and they'll have a bit of a learning period, even on simple flight models.

It's not a '90s LAN party without joysticks (or too much Quake)...but that's a good point.

astralplaydoh wrote:

Left 4 Dead 2 with some mods can allow 8 players. I've read.

Versus mode is 8 players without mods. I had great fun with this back in the day when I could regularly get 6-7 online friends together at once. It encourages players to stick together which I think is more fun in a LAN environment than deathmatch-type games where people run off and do their own thing. Also, cheap and easy to set up and learn quickly.

Nothing more satisfying than boomer-puking all over the survivor team.