If you’ve spent hours scavenging for resin, fighting Fell foes, and building your first base in Embervale alone, you’ve probably wondered how much more fun it would be to bring friends along for the ride. Enshrouded’s 16-player co-op mode lets you split resource gathering duties, take on tough boss fights as a team, and build sprawling shared bases far faster than you ever could solo. But if you’re confused how to invite people on Enshrouded, you’re not alone. Many new players run into confusing menu options and hidden settings that stop them from joining up with their group right away. This guide breaks down every step of the process, plus fixes for the most common issues you’ll run into along the way.
How to Invite People on Enshrouded: Step-by-Step for All Platforms
Enshrouded supports full crossplay across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, so you can team up with friends no matter what device they’re playing on. When you first learn how to invite people on Enshrouded, you might miss the crossplay toggle, which is hidden in the general game settings menu instead of the Social tab. Make sure that’s enabled first if you’re playing with people on different platforms.
The core invite process works the same across all platforms once crossplay is active: first, launch your game and load your existing saved world, or create a new one if you’re just starting out. Open the in-game menu by pressing Esc on PC, Options on PlayStation, or Menu on Xbox. Navigate to the Social tab on the top of the menu screen, and you’ll see a list of your platform friends who are currently online, plus any recent players you’ve teamed up with.
Find the name of the person you want to invite, click or select their name, and hit Send Invite. If they don’t show up in your friends list, you can use the Search by Player ID function to find them using their unique Enshrouded ID, which is listed at the bottom of your own Social tab. If you’re running a dedicated server instead of a player-hosted world, you don’t need to send direct invites—just share the server IP and password with your group, and they can join directly from the server browser.
How to Adjust Lobby Settings for Private or Public Play
By default, your world is set to Friends Only when you first launch it, which means only people you send invites to can join, plus people already on your platform friends list. You can adjust these settings any time before you load your save, to fit the kind of group you want to play with. You don’t have to restart your entire playthrough to switch settings, either—you can edit them for existing saves with just a few clicks.
Each lobby setting has specific use cases, so pick the one that matches what you’re looking for:
- Private: Only players who receive a direct invite from you can join your world. No random players will find it in the public server list, and no one can join without your explicit permission. This is the best option if you’re playing with a small, trusted group and don’t want any strangers dropping in unannounced.
- Friends Only: All players on your platform friends list can join your world without a direct invite, as long as you’re online and the world is loaded. This is a great middle ground if you want your friends to drop in anytime without waiting for you to send an invite, but don’t want random players joining.
- Public: Your world will show up in the public server browser for all players, and anyone can join at any time up to the 16-player limit. This is perfect if you want to meet new players to team up with for tough boss fights or large building projects, or if you don’t have enough friends online to fill out a group.
You can also set a custom password for your lobby, even if it’s set to Public or Friends Only, if you want an extra layer of control over who joins. Just head to the World Settings tab before you load your save, and enter a password in the designated field. Only the world host can adjust these settings, so if you’re joining someone else’s world, you won’t be able to change who has access.
Common Issues When Inviting People on Enshrouded (And How to Fix Them)
Even if you follow all the steps correctly, you might run into small hiccups when trying to team up with friends. Most of these issues have super simple fixes, so you don’t have to spend hours troubleshooting instead of playing. If you’re still having trouble figuring out how to invite people on Enshrouded after trying these fixes, you can check the official Enshrouded Discord for up-to-date patch notes and known issues that might be affecting multiplayer.
The most common issue is invites not showing up for your friend at all. 9 times out of 10, this happens because crossplay is disabled on one of your accounts. Double check that both you and your friend have crossplay enabled in the Game Settings tab, especially if you’re playing on different platforms. If that’s not the issue, try restarting your game, or sending the invite through your platform’s native friend system instead of the in-game Social tab.
If your friend gets a “version mismatch” error when joining, that means one of you is running an older version of the game. Enshrouded gets regular patches to fix bugs and add new content, so make sure both you and your friend have downloaded the latest update from your platform’s store before trying to connect. If you get a connection timed out error, that’s usually a network issue. If you’re the host, make sure your firewall isn’t blocking Enshrouded’s connection, and that you’ve port forwarded 15636 (the default port for Enshrouded) if you’re running a public lobby. If you’re the one joining, try switching from a Wi-Fi connection to a wired Ethernet connection to reduce latency.
Best Practices for Smooth Co-op Play After Inviting Friends
Once you’ve got your group together, there are a few small things you can do to make your playthrough run way smoother, and avoid frustrating conflicts down the line. You don’t have to enforce strict rules or anything, but a little bit of planning early on will save you a lot of headaches later.
First, assign loose roles to your group members if you’re playing with a consistent team. You don’t have to stick to rigid classes, but having one person focus on building, another on gathering rare resources, and another on combat can make progress way faster. It also means you won’t have three people all searching for the same rare material at the same time, wasting everyone’s time.
Always build a shared Flame Altar within the first hour of playing together. The Flame Altar defines your base’s claim area, and any builds within that area are protected from other players, even if you’re running a public lobby. Make sure every member of your group is added to the Altar’s permissions list so they can build, edit structures, and access shared storage. Sync your quest progress early on too. If one of your group members is way ahead on the main quest, you might not get quest rewards for completing missions with them unless you’ve already unlocked the same quest step. To avoid this, try to run main story missions together, and let the player who is furthest behind host the session when you’re doing story content.
You should also set up at least one shared chest near your base for common resources like wood, stone, and healing potions. That way no one has to waste inventory space carrying stacks of basic materials, and everyone can grab what they need for builds or fights without asking. If you find rare resources like shroud cores or ancient spires, put those in a separate marked chest so everyone knows they’re for group progression, not personal use.
Bringing friends along on your Embervale adventure turns a fun survival game into an unforgettable shared experience, and once you know how to invite people on Enshrouded, you’ll be able to jump into co-op sessions in seconds. Don’t stress if you run into connection issues the first time you try to team up—most problems have simple fixes that take less than a minute to apply. Whether you’re running a private lobby for your close friend group or opening a public server to meet new players, Enshrouded’s co-op mode is easily one of the best parts of the game. Grab your group, stock up on healing potions, and get ready to take down the Fell together.