If you’ve spent hours carving out a cliffside base, beating the first shroud warden, or hoarding enough copper to forge an entire armor set alone, you’re probably ready to bring your crew into your world. Learning how to join friends in Enshrouded opens up a whole new layer of the game, from tackling tough vault raids together to splitting resource farming duties so you can build that floating castle half the map twice as fast. I’ve spent dozens of hours testing multiplayer across PC, console, and cross-play setups, so I’ve rounded up every step you need to skip the error screens and jump straight into co-op fun.
How to Join Friends in Enshrouded: Core Step-by-Step Process
The base process for joining a friend’s world is the same across all platforms, even if you’re playing cross-play between PC and console. You don’t need any special subscriptions outside of your platform’s online membership if you’re on PlayStation or Xbox, and the setup only takes a couple of minutes once you know what to do. Follow these exact steps to avoid most common connection headaches:
- First, ensure you and your friend are on the same game version, even a small hotfix mismatch will block connection attempts entirely
- Have the host load their existing save or start a new world, then open the in-game menu and navigate to the multiplayer tab
- The host needs to toggle their world to friends-only or invite-only, then send a direct invite through their platform’s friend list, or share their 8-digit world code if they’re using cross-play
- On the joining player’s side, open the multiplayer menu, select “join by code” or filter for friends’ worlds, enter the code or select your friend’s active world, and hit connect
- Wait 10 to 30 seconds for the world to load – don’t close the game or back out during this process, even if the screen looks frozen briefly
That’s the basic process for how to join friends in Enshrouded, but there are a few extra details you should know depending on your platform. For PC players on Steam, you can also send invites directly through the Steam overlay without opening the in-game menu, which is a handy shortcut if you’re in the middle of a fight and want to call for backup. Console players will need to use their platform’s native friend system to send invites, or use the 8-digit code if they’re playing with someone on a different console or PC. One important thing to note: your character progression, including gear, unlocked recipes, and skill points, carries over between worlds, so you don’t have to start from scratch when you join a friend’s save. That means you can bring your best pickaxe to a friend’s world to help them mine obsidian, or bring your high-level armor to help them beat a tough boss they’ve been stuck on for days.
Common Connection Errors and How to Fix Them Fast
Even if you follow all the steps above, you might run into the occasional error message when trying to join a game. Most of these issues have simple fixes that take less than a minute to try, so you don’t have to spend an hour troubleshooting before you can play. The most common error players see is the “world not found” message, which pops up when your game can’t locate your friend’s active server.
Restart your router and game client first – this fixes 70% of connection issues, per the devs’ official support notes. A lot of times, temporary internet glitches block the game’s connection to multiplayer servers, and a quick restart resets that. If that doesn’t work, if you’re on PC, make sure Enshrouded is allowed through your Windows Firewall. A lot of times the default firewall blocks incoming multiplayer connections without you noticing, especially after a game update. You can check this by searching for “Windows Defender Firewall” in your start menu, then selecting “allow an app through firewall” and making sure both public and private boxes are checked for Enshrouded.
If you’re using cross-play, make sure both players have cross-play enabled in their game settings. I’ve had friends miss that toggle when they first installed the game, they spent 20 minutes confused why they couldn’t see each other’s worlds. Also, if you’re trying to join a friend on a different platform, you’ll need to use the 8-digit code instead of platform friend invites, those don’t always cross over between Steam and PlayStation for example. If you keep getting kicked mid-session, ask the host to check if they have enough free RAM on their PC or console – if the host’s device is overloaded, it’ll kick random players to free up space.
Best Settings for Smooth Co-op Gameplay
Once you get connected, there are a few settings tweaks you can make to avoid lag, crashes, and lost progress during your co-op runs. These are especially important if you’re the host, since your device and internet will dictate the experience for everyone else in the lobby. First, if you have a slower internet connection or an older PC, limit your lobby size to 2-3 players instead of the max 16. The more players you have in a world, the more bandwidth and processing power you need to keep the game running smoothly, and you’ll cause lag for everyone if you push your setup past its limits.
Turn off cloud saves for your multiplayer world if you have frequent crashes. Cloud sync conflicts can corrupt your save if you’re hosting and closing the game abruptly, and you could lose dozens of hours of build progress if that happens. You can toggle this in the game’s save settings, just make sure you manually back up your save file every few plays to be safe. For joining players, make sure you have at least 10GB of free space on your hard drive. The game stores temporary cache for other worlds you join, and if you’re low on space you’ll get kicked mid-session without warning.
If you’re playing with people from different regions, the host should select the nearest server region in the multiplayer settings, that cuts down on lag a lot. I played with a friend from Europe last month when I’m in the US, we switched the host region to US East and our ping dropped from 180 to 45 instantly. You also don’t have to stick to the same host every time you play. If someone in your group has a better PC or faster internet, swap hosts for longer play sessions, you can all bring your existing characters to the new host’s world with no lost progress.
Rules to Follow When Joining a Friend’s Enshrouded World
A lot of new players don’t realize that the host’s world is their personal save, so any changes you make are permanent. Following a few basic unwritten rules will make sure everyone has fun, and you don’t get banned from your friend’s world after one play session. These rules aren’t enforced by the game, but they’re standard across most Enshrouded co-op communities, and they’ll save you a lot of unnecessary drama with your group.
Always ask before modifying or taking resources from the host’s base – nothing kills a co-op run faster than someone tearing down a build someone spent 10 hours on to grab a few stone blocks. If you need materials for your own build, ask first, or go out and gather them yourself instead of raiding the group storage chests. If you’re joining a friend’s world that’s further along than your single player save, don’t rush to activate main story quests without checking with the group first. Activating certain quests pushes the world difficulty up, and that can make regular shroud enemies too tough for lower-level players in the group to handle.
If you find rare resources like shroud cores or ancient seeds, leave a few for the other players if you already have enough. It’s no fun if one person hoards all the good loot and leaves everyone else stuck with low-tier gear for weeks. Also, if you’re going to be gone for more than 10 minutes, log out instead of going AFK in a dangerous area. You could draw enemies back to the base if you’re attacked while away, and your friends might come back to find half their builds destroyed. I learned that the hard way when my friend AFK’d near a shroud infestation, and a pack of wraiths followed him back and destroyed half our storage chests while we were off mining.
At the end of the day, Enshrouded is built to be more fun with friends, and once you get the hang of the multiplayer system, you’ll wonder how you ever played alone. Now that you know how to join friends in Enshrouded, you can skip the frustrating connection issues and jump straight to building, exploring, and fighting together. If you run into a problem I didn’t cover here, drop a comment below and I’ll help you troubleshoot so you can get back to your co-op run as fast as possible.