14 Video Games to Play When You're Good and High

If there’s a better way to spend time than smoking weed and playing video games, I’m never going to know about it because I’m too busy smoking weed and playing video games.

In celebration of 4/20, I’ve gathered 14 of the best video games for all kinds of stoners, from zonked-out loaders who just want a peaceful experience, to those “social” people who like to interact with “friends” when they’re high. There’s something here for you. Just add weed.

If you’re looking for an effortless, blissed-out journey of a video game, Flower is your joint (so to speak). You’ll get in touch with the serenity of nature as you float through lush settings, collecting flower petals and just getting zen on the vibes, man.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, iOS, PlayStation Vita

Maybe you’re not the kind of stoner who likes getting blissful. If so, fuck all that Flower shit and slap in Golden Light, a grim survival horror game where twee little hippies are eaten alive. Golden Light’s roguelike structure means you’ll never have the same nightmare twice, and its surrealist style pairs nicely with both indica and sativa.

Platform: PC

If your idea of a good time is getting fucked up and laughing with your no-account friends, you can’t go wrong with Jackbox. Playable online or in person, these party mini-games are perfect for extroverts, clever people, and cut-ups of all kinds. Even non-gamers like Jackbox. There are eight different Jackbox “party packs” available, but number three is my favorite. It includes three of the best Jackbox mini-games: “Quiplash,” “Trivia Murder Party,” and the ultimate, funniest Jackbox game of all time, “Tee KO.”

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PC, Mac

Like the animal that inspired it, Goat Simulator is dumb as hell. In it, you are a goat who is placed in various environments and encouraged to cause chaos. So run people over, bleat loudly, break everything, and hurl yourself off high buildings—do all the goat biz you’ve ever dreamed of. If you’re the kind of stoner looking for mindless chaos, Goat Simulator is for you.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux

Unlike chaos-generators like Goat Simulator, Cities: Skyline rewards careful and meticulous planning. It’s not for everyone, but if your brain starts contemplating complex systems whenever you flood it with THC, Cities: Skyline will keep it occupied forever. Then, when you get tired of urban planning, you can drop into the body of one of your citizens and walk around the bustling metropolis you’ve created.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, macOS

It’s tough to explain Katamari Damacy, but it makes perfect sense if you’re high. You are The Prince of the Cosmos and your father, The King, wants you to rebuild the moon and stars (which he destroyed, make up your mind dad). So he sends you down to earth to roll everything up into an adhesive ball that grows larger and larger as it picks up cows, cars, people, buildings, and everything else, until there’s enough stuff to transform it into a planet. Surreal, hilarious, and uniquely Japanese, Katamari Damacy is the quintessential stoner video game. (The soundtrack is also filled with one stoner bop after another.)

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Google Stadia

Elden Ring’s punishing boss battles and deadly dungeons crawls are the opposite of what I want when I’m high, but the open-world part of the game is perfect for an altered mind. From the peaceful-but-accursed vibe of Limgrave to the blasted hell-scape of Caelid, its settings are on-another-level beautiful, and contemplating the somber enigmas of The Lands Between will keep your mind busy too.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows

If you’re the kind of stoner who likes fucking with your friends’ minds, break out Richie’s Plank Experience after a few bong rips. Like the name suggests, Plank Experience does one simple thing: it puts players on a virtual reality plank high above a busy street. It’s a viscerally terrifying experience the first time you try it; after that, it’s endlessly hilarious to watch other people give it a go, especially when everyone is smoked out.

Platforms: Oculus Quest, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows

Sometimes you want to return to the classics, and they don’t get more classic than Joust. The controls of this ostrich combat simulator are easy to master, but the game itself is challenging in that “we’re trying to suck quarters out of you” way. You’ll be better at Joust if you are high though—a trick all 1980s juvenile delinquents knew. Sadly, there probably isn’t a battered Joust cabinet at your local pizza place, so you’ll have to settle for downloading a port.

Platforms: You can play Joust on an Apple II, Atari 2600, your phone, your PC, your web browser, and on almost everything else.

It’s hard to believe, but I hear some people like doing physical things when they’re high. If you’re one of them, Beat Saber is for you. This VR rhythm game drops you into an abstract sci-fi environment, slaps a couple lightsabers in your hands, and throws targets at you to slash. It’s otherworldly, completely engrossing, and gets you into a whole-body “flow” state where even a clumsy lummox like me feels graceful. The music is even good too, whether you pay for tracks from artists like Billie Eilish and Greenday or stick with the free beats that come with the game.

Platforms: Oculus Quest, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows

Getting high and playing Mario Kart has been an American institution since Super Mario Kart came out in 1992. It’s the most fun to play with friends couch-style, (even though the screen is split), but playing against people online is good too. Hell, so is playing against the game’s AI! If you haven’t smoked up and played Mario Kart, maybe we shouldn’t be friends.

Platforms: Every Nintendo platforms since the SNES has had at least one Mario Kart game.

If you want pure, uncut techno-psychedelia, you have to play Rez. It’s a shooter where your shots alter both the music and the wire-frame world you’re floating through. This cult favorite game has been ported to modern systems (even VR), since it was released in 2001, but if you want the purest Rez experience, you need to play it on a PlayStation 2 with the almost-impossible-to-find Rez Trance Vibrator peripheral.

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, Android, Microsoft Windows, Oculus Quest, Xbox 360

Like Elden Ring, Breath of the Wild features a huge, lush, beautiful open world to explore, but unlike Elden Ring, you’re not going to be attacked and murdered by grotesque abominations from the deepest pits of hell every time you wander off the beaten path. BotW is largely safe, so you can turn off your mind and freely experience its complex and fascinating land, and even turn your attention to packing another bowl without dying.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch and Wii U

If you’ve ever gotten high in a dorm room and contemplated the scale of the Universe, you’ll love Everything. This simulation lets you inhabit, well, everything. At first you can only brain-transfer to things smaller than you, causing the game’s scale to change with each shrinkage, down to the sub-atomic level. That’s when the terribly small becomes infinitely large, and you can inhabit planets and galaxies. Because, like, what’s the difference between “big” and “small” anyway? What if every atom is actually an entire universe, man, and each atom of that universe is a universe too? Whoa.

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Linux, Nintendo Switch