14 Best PSP Multiplayer Games

Open Warfare 2 is the direct sequel to Worms: Open Warfare, and it came out for the PSP and the DS in 2007. Teams of worms take turns trying to blow each other off the map, and the multiplayer side got new modes on top of classic deathmatch. There is a fort mode, plus a race where you get around with a jetpack and a rope. You can customize teams and schemes as much as you like. On your own there is a full Campaign and a Puzzle mode.

THQ shut down the online servers for the PSP release only, and it was heavily criticized for that. Reviewers had one other complaint: you can't save or restart in the middle of a battle. Neither problem matters much when the other team is sitting next to you. Worms has always been at its best with friends in the room, and that part still works.

Renegade Squadron is the third Battlefront and the first one made only for a handheld. It came out on October 9, 2007 in North America as a PSP exclusive, and it was one of the first games sold in a bundle with the newly released PSP redesign. The story follows Han Solo as he recruits a secret squad of the galaxy's toughest scoundrels, with missions that run from the Valley of the Sith on Korriban to the volcanic planet Sullust.

Multiplayer is the reason it is here. Up to 16 players could fight online in Infrastructure mode, and eight could play together over ad hoc. You build your own soldier with a 100-point spending system, and the kits come in more than a million combinations. Critics called it an improvement on the PSP version of Battlefront II and praised the customization and the online play. The campaign was called brief and shallow, which is fair, but nobody bought it for the campaign.

ModNation Racers is a kart racer with all the drifting and boosting the genre needs, built around making your own stuff. When it was first announced, it was likened to LittleBigPlanet, because the customization was the whole point. The cars and characters are styled after vinyl art and collectors' toys, and you can change a racer's clothes and overall look as much as you like. The Track Studio tool lets you build and modify your own race tracks too.

The comparison stuck. Players tend to recommend it in the same breath as LittleBigPlanet PSP, and it is easy to see why: both games give you the tools and let you make a mess. Racing with other people came with chat by text or voice. A sequel, ModNation Racers: Road Trip, was a PlayStation Vita launch title in February 2012.

Elite Squadron came out on November 3, 2009 in North America and November 6 in Europe, on both the DS and the PSP. The PSP version was made by Rebellion Developments, the studio that made Renegade Squadron two years earlier. Unlike the classic Battlefront games, its Instant Action mode is played with only four players, usually one from each faction.

That makes for smaller, quicker fights, and those suit a handheld better than you might expect. You spend less time running across a huge map looking for someone to shoot. Players who recommend Star Wars on the PSP tend to name the Battlefronts as a set, and this is the last of them. If you liked Renegade Squadron, this is the same studio taking another swing at the same idea, with the same love for the big battles from the films.

Gods Eater Burst is the enhanced version of God Eater, with an expanded story and new game mechanics. It came out in Japan on October 28, 2010, and D3 Publisher brought it to North America on March 15, 2011, with Europe three days later. You make your own God Eater and fight the Aragami across more than 100 missions. New-type God Eaters can switch their God Arc between gun and blade form, and Burst added Bullet Customization and Burst Mode on top.

Up to three teammates can join you over local ad hoc wireless, and AI teammates fill in when nobody is around. The story is more involved than most hunting games bother with. After your leader Lindow is declared missing in action, you get promoted to lead the first unit yourself. It is a hunting game with a sharper anime edge, and a weapon that turns from a sword into a gun.

Lord of Arcana is a brutal action RPG from Square Enix, and its gameplay is very close to Monster Hunter and the other hunting games on the PSP. It takes place in a world called Horodyn, where an ancient stone known as the Arcana holds great magical power. Up to four players can team up to slay its monsters together. Those monsters were designed by many illustrators from Japan and abroad, including some of Square Enix's own staff. The big ones go down with cinematic kills.

The music has big names behind it too. Hitoshi Sakimoto produced the sound, and Nobuo Uematsu is one of the composers on the score. Players tend to recommend it next to Monster Hunter when someone wants more of that kind of game. On a handheld where the hunting genre ruled the multiplayer scene, that is the best company a game could keep.

Monster Hunter Freedom was the first handheld game in the series, known as Monster Hunter Portable in Japan. It is an enhanced port of Monster Hunter G, which was never released in the U.S. or Europe, and it was rebalanced so you could finish quests on your own. Even so, it was built around local multiplayer rather than online play, so the best way to hunt was with friends nearby. The only new monster is Yian Garuga.

It asks for planning and skill instead of brute force, and the big monsters punish anyone who just swings wildly. You carve materials from what you kill and turn them into better gear. There is even a tavern where you can swing your beer mug or pass out from drunkenness. Freedom Unite does almost everything here better, which is why this one ranks lower, but this is where the series found its handheld home.

Fat Princess is a comic medieval battle where two teams fight to bring their own princess home from the enemy castle. The catch is that the other team keeps feeding her magical cake, which makes her harder to carry. You choose from five character classes and can switch at any time, so one player can heal while another charges in. The PSP port, Fistful of Cake, was made by SuperVillain Studios and published by Sony in March 2010.

The rules change with the mode. In one, the first team to kidnap and imprison the other side's princess three times wins. Another, Queen's Rule, is only available on the soccer map. It is a team game first and a very silly one, and the cake joke never gets old. Few games on this list are as easy to hand to someone who has never played anything like it.

Head-On was made by Incognito Entertainment and released by Sony on March 24, 2005 for the PSP. It is the seventh game in the Twisted Metal series and the first to ship fully online-enabled, so you could fight other cars over the internet early in the PSP's life. The story is a direct sequel to Twisted Metal 2 and ignores the events of Twisted Metal III and 4. Some characters only unlock when you finish the minigames on certain levels.

Critics liked it. GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PSP version 78.84% and 79 out of 100. A PlayStation 2 port, Extra Twisted Edition, followed on February 5, 2008, and it was never released outside North America. The idea is as simple as car combat gets: pick a car and drive at someone. With a few friends and a few PSPs, that never stopped being fun.

Phantasy Star Portable was Sega's long-running RPG going handheld for the first time in North America. Japan got it in July 2008, and other markets followed in 2009. The story begins a few months after Phantasy Star Universe and its expansion, Ambition of the Illuminus, and you join a new character, Vivienne, to clear out an area contaminated by the alien SEED. Character creation goes deep, down to the eyelashes and the voice pitch.

Next to the story mode there is a co-op mode for up to four players, and that is where the game belongs. Up to three friends can join you for wireless exploration and combat, with more than 150 items to collect along the way. It plays like a smaller Phantasy Star Online that fits in a pocket. It also set things up for a much bigger sequel.

Battlefront II was made by Pandemic Studios, and the PSP version was developed by Savage Entertainment. It came out in PAL regions on October 28, 2005 and in North America on November 1. Troopers from different factions fight across over 16 battlefronts, with space combat and the chance to play as Jedi and other heroes. The campaign retells part of the Star Wars story from the point of view of a veteran clone who becomes an Imperial Stormtrooper.

The modes keep you coming back. Galactic Conquest returns from the first game, and 2-flag CTF has you stealing the enemy's flag and running it back to your base. On Mos Eisley, a hero deathmatch lets every hero from every faction fight each other for points. Reviewers praised the story. It was released again on the PlayStation Store on October 20, 2009, for download on the PSP.

Phantasy Star Portable 2 came out in Japan on December 3, 2009, and in North America on September 14, 2010, with Europe a few days later. It is set three years after Phantasy Star Portable, and you play a mercenary trying to save the Gurhal system. You can transfer your character over from the first game. On top of that comes a gigantic dose of new content, from combat moves to customization options.

The big change is online play through Infrastructure mode, which took the series back to its online roots. You could team up with players around the world instead of only the people in the room. It is a bigger, busier game than the first one in every way, and the online play is the part that makes it feel like real Phantasy Star. If you only pick one of the two, pick this one.

Fireteam Bravo is a tactical third-person shooter developed by Zipper Interactive and published by Sony, and it came out in North America on November 8, 2005. The biggest difference from the main series is the aiming, since the PSP has one analog stick where the home controllers have two. Online, it supports up to 16 players at a time, with voice chat and a variety of modes.

It sold 910,000 copies in the United States by the end of 2007, and Wayne Rooney claimed the game helped with team-building at Manchester United. The online servers shut down on August 31, 2012, along with the other PS2 and PSP SOCOM games. Players still recommend the Fireteam Bravo games as a series, and this first one is where the squad got started. It proved a handheld shooter could have a real online community.

Freedom Unite is the expanded version of Monster Hunter Freedom 2. It came out in Japan on March 27, 2008 as Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, and in North America on June 23, 2009. In Japan it was the most successful PSP title, and the box promises over 500 hours of play across some 400 missions. Up to three friends can join you over ad hoc to hunt together, working out a plan and then carrying it out. On your own, a new AI Felyne fights at your side and gathers resources.

Capcom worked hard to win over the West with it. It ran a temporary Gathering Hall in London's Charing Cross from July 3 to September 1 for Unite players to meet up and play. Ask players what to play on the PSP and Freedom Unite is one of the first names they give. Some don't explain it at all beyond "trust me".