- Give all players a pause limit. A certain number of minutes per game and per pause, and a number of pauses. Players can't pause anymore after going over their time limit or pause count limit. The game resumes after a pause's time limit is reached.
- Pausing should happen after a delay of a certain number of seconds. So a player hits pause, countdown starts before actually pausing.
- Resuming from a pause also has a timer.
- Players' pause stats are retained. People who take more pauses or spend more time pausing the game get matched with each other.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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Valves game Deadlock, currently still in playtest, does petty much this.
Edit: and come to think of it... Counter Strike does this as well.
It's a big reason why I don't play multiplayer games, unless it's with my husband or our close friend group.
Multiplayer games are rarely parent-friendly.
As long as it's communicated amongst the participants. Yes! If anyone could just pause it because they wanna go see a movie now or make a baby? NO!
Solution: everyone in a sessions needs to enable this. So a friends-group can actually take a break for a tinkle. Or that everyone has to enter the menu or such and then the game pauses.
Just allow it for preformed groups
I'm hooked on Nightreign right now. It would be pretty nice if there was a special pause ping you could do that paused the game if the other two players agreed with reply pings.
Pausing in StarCraft allowed any player to pause, and any player to unpause. Additionally, each player could only pause a finite number of times (like 5 per game). I think this could work in nightreign.
The hard part is that there's no chat in nightreign, so someone will pause and you have no idea if it's legit or they're just griefing.
Dying Light: The Beast has this, it's very refreshing. When all players go into the menu (including the inventory) the game pauses. Should be a standard feature.
So everyone has to wait while you go to the toilet?
In a coop game? They're going to wait nomatter what, if not, it's not really a coop game, if coop isn't needed.
There are levels to coop. Of course in something like Chained together you have to wait because your character is literally chained to the other character. But I think most people would agree that Valheim is designed with coop in mind. If someone goes to the toilet others can still collect wood, expand the base etc. The more open-ended the game is the less it becomes a requirement to stop the game for everyone else.
That is of course if you're not some kind of a coop purist. If you are then there's no room for nuance here and this discussion is irrelevant.
people gotta poop sometimes, man. I know you really want to sell those cabbages but give 'em five minutes or so.
also it's nice if someone has kids and needs to go afk.
Why not? I co-op with my wife mostly, sitting in the same room.
If I recall correctly, Starcraft 2 has a pause in online match. Other players get pause screen and can unpause the game. It all comes down to both(all) players agree on pause, and can be useful if correctly implemented.
Payday 3, if all players enter the pause menu, the game actually pauses. Anyone can exit the menu at any time, and re-enter it - which again pauses the game, if all other players remain in the pause menu.
It's nice because it lets players loot and plan while others are away, but if they too need to afk, the team isn't screwed by a guard coming around a corner with nobody to react.
Have you ever tried playing a multiplayer game where other players can pause the game? Stellaris has this feature and it is an immense annoyance. In fact, it is considered BM to pause the game when playing with anyone other than your real life friends that you inform in a voice call.
I grew up playing NES, where it was super common for either player to be able to pause the game. Pausing and unpausing right as someone is making a jump will never get old.
Like any other game mechanic, there are times it makes sense to have it as an option, and times it doesn't. If it's a 100% PvE cooperative game you're playing with a close friend you know well, sure; why not? Let either player pause the game for everyone. At least some of Hazelight Studios' games feature this (A Way Out, It Takes Two, Split Fiction).
But for competitive fighting games or ones with many players, it could be abused, or just be too annoying to enable. Maybe in the latter type an in-game voting system where everyone has to agree to pause the action?
An easy solution to this problem is to allow any player to unpause the game.