Traxion has published a fresh ranking of the ten best racing games you can still play in local split-screen, updated for 2026. The outlet’s list focuses specifically on couch multiplayer — two or more players sharing one screen in the same room — a feature that has quietly become an endangered species in the racing genre.

Details on the full rankings are over at Traxion, but the premise alone is worth noting: the pool of racing titles that support split-screen at all has shrunk enough that a curated list is genuinely useful rather than filler. Most modern sims and simcades have dropped local multiplayer entirely, citing the performance cost of rendering two full views of increasingly detailed physics and graphics engines. If you want to race a friend on the sofa in 2026, your options are limited enough that you need a guide.

Why should sim racers care about a feature the hardcore end of the hobby largely abandoned years ago? Because split-screen is still one of the best onboarding tools this hobby has. Plenty of people now running direct drive rigs got their start passing a controller around or racing a sibling on a shared screen. Online lobbies, safety ratings, and league schedules are a steep first step for a newcomer; an evening of couch racing isn’t. If you’re trying to get a partner, a kid, or a sceptical friend into racing games, a title from a list like this is a far softer entry point than dropping them into a public online lobby.

It’s also a reminder of a trade-off we rarely talk about: every generation of added fidelity has cost something in accessibility. Lists like Traxion’s exist because the genre kept choosing graphics over the second player. Worth a read if there’s anyone in your house you’d like to race.

Originally reported by Traxion.