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Baldur's Gate 3 is the obvious suggestion at the moment. That and Civ 5 are both good if your group wants something at a slower pace. For a FPS, I highly recommend Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Your players might be surprised at how good it feels even today.
StarCraft is a solid pick if you'll have an audience.
I have yet to play bg3 and i can already tell that as a lan party that would easily be amazing
Lethal Company, a PC game, is currently hitting the charts. It's a horror game kinda where you have to find scrap metal. It's got some of the best AI enemies and they make it a challenge. I think it supports LAN but it's not tagged in Steam.
It does. The very first menu asks is you're playing online or LAN.
Classics FPSes included Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 3. Both scale from 1 on 1 to 16 players well, meaning days of fun. Xonotic the open source clone, which is also very good
Worms is a hoot, can hotseat or LAN, armageddon I think the high point of the series. Hedgewars a more than worthy OS reimagining
RTSes are soo many, Warcraft 3, C&C series, or Total Annihilation all modded, all great. My choice is Balanced Annihilation or OpenRA for 2023 and OS
4X have classics like civ, but Stellaris a worthy choice too. Open source here includes unciv
Racing games are often a hoot too. You can get far too serious here if you want, but I recommend SuperTuxKart for some mariokart like action
Scorched3d another option for artillery fun. But generally Open Source all offer LAN gaming!
Surprisingly, I don't think Terraria has been mentioned yet. Dedicated server can be downloaded for free and fun on Windows or Linux. I'm relatively sure that even spontaneous hosted games (from inside the game) are LAN accessible directly.
With Goldberg Emulator you can play a lot of online games on LAN from Steam:
Steam emulator for GNU/Linux and Windows that emulates steam online features. Lets you play games that use the steam multiplayer apis on a LAN without steam or an internet connection.
https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/
I used it a long time ago, but it always worked flawlessly.
Borderlands 2 was a blast. I don't think I've ever finished it sadly but I played it so much with friends
Factorio, Terraria, Civilization, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Street Fighter
Lethal company
Stronghold and Stronghold Crusaders
This was the one I was looking for. I believe there is an updated version of crusader as well.
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing your friends carefully crafted keep scaled suddenly by an army of ninjas.
Heroes of Might and Magic V, aka the best one (go on and fight me, HOMaM III gang). Even better with the unofficial 5.5 patch/mod which adds tons of gameplay.
I just can't not do 3. Never got into any other one.
I tried it, but just can't see the appeal after having played 5. The graphics are horrible and the gameplay is almost the same as 5.
there's also a mod that makes it so you can have simultaneous turn enabled permanently, although it does allow for some quirks and bug abuse, but it's such a massive time saver when every player can take their turn at the same time that its well worth it.
My friends and I stilll have a blast playing FarCry 2 on LAN.
Honestly nothing will beat Warcraft 3 (pre ~~reforged~~ refunded) custom games for LAN parties.
Some of my favorite maps: Warlock (any 1.0X version), either teams or FFA, Uther Party, Battle Tanks, Archer Wars Legacy, Survival Chaos, Legion TD, Farmer vs Hunter, Founders of the North, Hungry Hungry Felhounds, The Predator (Version FINAL), etc.
Honestly there's just too many to count and even remember
Don't forget the original DoTA maps.
veloren.net is a lot of fun already with friends, especially if you look up some of the admin commands an spawn in some cool flying mounts.
Halo