Me and some of my friends from college wanted to reconnect and we wound up wanting to play since online games too, but two of us only had Macs (which don’t have many supported games) and one of us didn’t have any console.

This meant that our options were limited, but we came up with a couple of solid (in my opinion) options:

• Play an online MOBA that supports phones. We wound up picking Pokemon Unite. It’s far from the best game I’ve played, but we can chat on Discord while we play, and it’s fun enough
• Play a game on Tabletop Simulator. It supports Mac and isn’t graphically intensive. We like playing Uno with it, but my understanding is it can basically be used for almost any game.

Tabletop Simulator. Play some board games, have some drinks. Definitely a lot of fun, one purchase lets you play endless possible games.

MMOs like FFXIV and Guild Wars 2 are good for casual content while you hang out. don’t need powerful rigs to play them either

there are also lots of ways to take old games and play them multiplayer nowadays too

Light hearted easy games that I would play would be things like:

• Overcooked
• Stardew Valley
• Castle Crashers
• Fall Guys
• Crystal Crisis

My reasoning would be that they’re mostly (other than Stardew Valley) are quick and easy games. Not knowing what the other person is really into any more, it might be just an easy way to dip toes into the water.

Mobile games wise, while I don’t play many, I would recommend:

• Kitty Letter
• Exploding Kittens

I’d agree with the others who said to go for games that can be played as co-op, rather than competitive with each other.

Some good ones include: Don’t Starve Together, Valheim, Deep Rock Galactic, Minecraft, Portal 2 (main co-op campaign, and the somewhat hidden co-op free dlc campaign that also exists and is imo even better).

Most survival games that have multiplayer have a co-op/no friendly fire option, and they have adjustable difficulty oftentimes, so you can set it up to be as easy or hard as you want.

Or you could go fully the other way and try the old classic Magica (not Magica 2, the first game is much better) and kill each other in ridiculous ways

My top recommendation for you though is Divinity Original Sin 2, and Divinity Original Sin 1 as well. The second game especially is the king of co-op RPG’s, and both have an incredibly fun combat system, to the point that part of the game would be fun even without the rest of it. And each player in the 2nd game can play a pre-made character with their own story, or they can make a custom character.

Edit: actually I’m not sure of the system requirements for the divinity games, so my top recommendation is now Minecraft and other survival games. They can be really good for hang-out games partly because you can usually wander off and do your own thing while you talk if you want, or you can collaborate, and they leave a lot of room for talking about stuff besides the game.

I’d also suggest trying synchronized movie/tv watching, if ya’ll are the sort to enjoy talking over movies or tv like that. Just pick one, set up voice chat, and press play at the same time. Bonus points for “so bad it’s good” movies like birdemic etc.

I’m in the same range, and have moved from Canada to the UK. So basically multiplayer games and the Internet are the only way for me to reconnect with buddies back home.
One game we’ve been rocking pretty hard when we all have time is Deeprock Galactic. It’s good fun, team based mission shooter-looter. Don’t really need super tight controller skills, spray and pray is a viable strat. And rounds are usually like 15-30mins which is great for some of my friends back home with kids.

I just reconnected with my old friends through Diablo 4, we used to play WoW together so much back in the day.

I am now in a process of trying to “re-group” some of my friends to play together again. I don’t have any specific games yet that I am gonna propose to for us to try out but definitely there is one general thing I’d recommend.

You mentioned you were never “the ultra competitive types” but I’d suggest to not go into even a mild competitiveness territory (no Dota, LoL, Apex or any competitive games of this sort). We even tried stuff like mythic + dungeons in WoW in past or ultimate raids in FFXIV as casually as possible but over time it was obvious it’s basically “impossible” to get everyone on the same page. Various expectations and goals evolved for everyone and we eventually couldn’t agree on anything and splintered and eventually fully disbanded all of our tries into even “very mildly competitive gaming”. Usually these games are IMHO not very good at rewarding “failure”. And I think this will sooner or later lead to some issues (sure did for us).

Obviously, YMMV but I’d strongly recommend (based on my experience) only absolutely non-competitive, fully chill gaming that is basically aimless and the only aim is to have fun together. Not beat a certain boss or get a certain rating or anything of this sort.

Here is a list of games I am thinking about: Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Portal 2, Divinity: Original Sin 2 (also Baldur’s Gate 3 coming soon), Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2, Monster Hunter Rise, Grounded for example.

Any survival games would be great considerations for rounding people up. Terraria, Minecraft, Valheim… too many to name.

I play Minecraft with old friends primarily as a means to chat with them

Age of Empires I/II have some remastered versions that are in pretty good spots as far as I know. Could bring back some good nostalgia.

One of my coworkers did this very thing with Rocket League.

There are two main strategies:

1. Play something fast-paced and frenetic. Your Overcookeds, Apex Legends’s, or Fall Guys’. Brings out the banter and the comaraderie. You can’t do much but focus on working together to win the day.

2. Go slow-paced and strategy-heavy. Think Minecraft, Valheim (or whatever survival-craft-'em-up you like) or just plain poker. More conversation, cuz it’s more laid-back.

Whenever I’ve reconnected with somebody, it’s been through the first strategy initially.

I’ve always enjoyed left 4 dead as a casual co-op, and Back 4 Blood is a great revamp of the originals. Idk about others, but I’ve always had a hard time getting competitive in these games. Though if you want a little friendly competition, versus still exists with a lot of fun new special zombies.

How many of you are there? I’ve found that to be the biggest factor.

My friends and I are in our early 30s, but we started playing Age of Empires 2 together during lockdown. The main benefit to that is that you can play with up to 7 other people so there’s a lot of options in that regard. You also don’t need a decent PC or anything, and can comfortably play it on a laptop. There’s also Age of Empires 4, but we haven’t played that so I can’t comment on it.

We started to get bored of that after it became predictable, and have since moved on to Warzone (well, Warzone 2 now). The main benefit is that it’s free to play and is available on PC, Xbox & PlayStation with the ability to crossplay between them. The downside is we can only play in teams of up to 4 (or multiple smaller teams).