Where Winds Meet Co-op: How to Play With Friends

Where Winds Meet has full co-op: once you reach level 10 you can invite up to four friends into your world, for a group of five, and campaigns and raids allow up to ten players. The one big exception is the main story, which only progresses in solo play, so co-op is for bosses, dungeons, exploration and events rather than story chapters. Co-op is also crossplay, so friends on PC, PS5, Xbox and mobile can all join the same group.

We checked this against Game8's multiplayer guide, Icy Veins' and MeinMMO's explanations of the game modes, the Steam and Xbox store listings and the official October 2026 patch notes in November 2026.

How Multiplayer Is Structured

Where Winds Meet blends a single-player story with an online world, and the modes decide how much of each you see. Icy Veins describes three ways to play, and all of them share the same character progression:

• Solo Mode: your own world. You explore, complete quests, fight world bosses and gather, and you can summon NPC allies for some boss fights. Difficulty options include Story, Normal and Nightmare.
• Co-op: you form a team through the Social menu and invite friends into your session. Icy Veins notes that co-op rewards are better than solo rewards.
• Online (MMO) Mode: a shared world full of other real players, with guild raids, PvP, marriages, bonds, Hero Unions, bounty hunts and a battle royale mode.

Icy Veins says you can switch modes at any time with no cooldown. Game8 uses the in-game names for the two main states: Lone Wanderer for solo, and Shared Journey for multiplayer. MeinMMO adds an important detail about Online Mode: the story campaign and side quests are not available there, and ordinary enemies no longer appear in the open world. That is why most players keep switching between modes rather than living in one.

When Co-op Unlocks and How to Invite Friends

Everyone starts in Lone Wanderer mode. Game8 says you can switch to multiplayer once you reach level 10, which comes quickly in the opening hours. MeinMMO describes the same moment as the point where you can move freely in the open world. From there, there are three ways to group up:

1. From Online Mode: tap the person-with-hat icon at the top of the screen, select Online Mode, then search for a friend's ID or pick someone from the player list.
2. From Solo Mode: click the Solo/Co-op button on the left side of the screen and invite a player the same way. Your friends join your world while strangers stay out.
3. From the world: click a nearby player to bring up the multiplayer prompts.

The Social menu also holds your friends list, so adding someone once makes later invites quick. If you and your friends play on different devices, nothing extra is needed: crossplay is on by default. Our crossplay guide covers platform details and how to keep one character across devices.

A practical tip for the first session: make sure everyone has passed level 10 before you arrange a time to play. A friend who installed the game that evening will not be able to join until they reach it.

Party Sizes for Each Activity

Group size depends on what you are doing. Game8 says the open world supports up to five players, which is you plus four others, and the Steam and Xbox store pages both describe co-op as up to four friends.

• Open-world co-op: up to 5 players.
• Campaigns and raids: up to 10 players, organized through the Wandering Paths menu, according to Game8.
• Dungeons: MeinMMO reports the player cap rises to 5 or 10 depending on the dungeon's difficulty, and drops back afterward.
• Guild Wars: 30 against 30 in instanced battles.
• Online Mode world: the Xbox store lists online multiplayer for 2 to 300 players.

Because the open-world group tops out at five while raids take ten, a regular group of friends often grows into a guild. That gives you a bigger pool to fill raid spots without relying on strangers.

What You Can and Cannot Do Together

The biggest limit is the story. Game8 states plainly that main quest progress only counts in solo mode, and Icy Veins makes the same point about story missions. Plan your evenings around that: do story chapters alone, then group up for everything else.

What co-op does cover is broad. Combining Game8's and Icy Veins' lists, you can team up for:

• World bosses and boss battles.
• Strongholds and fortresses.
• Group dungeons, both guild and non-guild.
• Trials, adventures, outposts and bounties.
• Minigames, including Wrestling and the Sentient Being mini activities.
• Treating severe injuries, such as bone fractures that the clinic doctor cannot fix.

That last point is easy to overlook. Some conditions, such as dislocations, can only be cured by a player with the Healer career, so a friend who has trained as a healer saves the whole group a lot of trouble. Our healing guide explains how the treatment minigame works.

The seasonal group challenges also refresh regularly. Version 2.3, released October 15, 2026, added Sword Trial bosses Lodestar and Bell Toller and Hero's Realm bosses Halcyon and Veiled Woman, and reset Taiping Mausoleum for the Ever Aflame season.

Guilds, Guild Wars and PvP

Guilds are where Where Winds Meet feels most like an MMO. MeinMMO reports that guilds can have up to 100 members and fight 30v30 instanced Guild Wars against other guilds. The Steam page also lists guild wars, multiplayer dungeons and raids among the features a guild unlocks.

Guild War timing is set per server region. The official October 29, 2026 patch notes explain that Guild War start times will not move with daylight saving changes in Europe and the Americas, so the local start time in some regions shifted by an hour once clocks went back in late October. Check the in-game event screen for your region's current time before you promise your guild you will be there.

Outside guilds, PvP is opt-in. MeinMMO notes that open-world duels require both players to accept, while the Arena offers one-on-one and group duels. Arena Season 5, Ever Aflame, began with Version 2.3. There is also a battle royale mode where players fight in a shrinking area until one player or team remains.

Being a Good Co-op Partner

Helping others is rewarded directly. Icy Veins explains that you can earn up to 1,000 cooperation points per week for assisting other players, and spend them on cosmetics, materials, titles and emotes. On the other side, griefing or sabotaging a group costs honor, and repeated offenses can lead to temporary bans.

Roles matter more in groups than solo. A party of five damage dealers clears normal enemies quickly but struggles against bosses that punish mistakes. If your group lacks a healer or tank, consider leveling one: our build rankings show the Silkbind - Deluge healer and Stonesplit - Might tank paths, both rated S for PvE.

Levels matter too. A friend still working through the early Solo Mode tiers will be under-leveled and under-geared for tougher group content, however well they play. Our level cap guide explains how Solo Mode levels and Exploration Days pace a new account, which is useful to know before inviting a brand new friend into endgame activities.

Planning a Good Co-op Night

A little setup turns a messy evening of invites into a productive session. This routine works well for a regular group:

1. Do story chapters first, alone. Since main quests only progress solo, have everyone finish the chapter they are on before the session starts, so nobody needs to leave halfway through.
2. Agree on the goal. A world boss run, a dungeon at a set difficulty or a raid each need a different group size, from five in the open world to ten in raids. Decide which one before inviting people.
3. Pick a host. The player with the most relevant unlocks should invite the others into their world, so everyone sees the same content.
4. Cover the roles. Check that someone brings healing and someone can take hits before entering anything with a hard boss.
5. Check the server region. The official patch notes name separate server regions, such as Yunya for Europe and the Middle East and Linhe for the US West, so confirm everyone created their characters on the same one before you set up a regular group.
6. Watch the clock for scheduled events. Guild Wars and other timed activities follow server time, not your local clock, so confirm the start time in the event screen.

Ending each session with a quick round of helping newer members also pays out, since assisting other players is how you earn the weekly cooperation points.

Joining Your Friends at Their Level

The most common co-op problem is a level gap: a friend who has played since launch wants to raid, and you are still clearing early Breakthroughs. The store's Where Winds Meet page includes account listings from independent sellers, typically labeled with level, gear score and server region, which some players look at to close that gap. The listings rotate daily.

Before going that route, read the game's Terms of Use, which state that you may not share, sell or transfer an account to anyone without the publisher's prior consent.

Frequently Asked Questions