Wuthering Waves multiplayer and co-op explained
How to play co-op with friends in Wuthering Waves.
Multiplayer is a great feature in Wuthering Waves that lets you team up with friends to battle Echoes, go shiny hunting, and take each other's world materials to level-up characters faster.
However, multiplayer doesn't unlock until you reach Union Level 22 in Wuthering Waves, and there are some limitations to be aware of, so we've explained everything we know about multiplayer in Wuthering Waves below.
Be sure to also check out our page on how to add friends, so you can take advantage of those co-op features as soon as possible.
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Is Wuthering Waves multiplayer?
Yes Wuthering Waves has multiplayer capabilities in the form of co-op gameplay. You can explore a friend's world, or they can explore yours, to take on certain combat challenges together, or share resources.
As of writing, pvp (player-versus-player) multiplayer is not included in Wuthering Waves.
How many people in Wuthering Waves multiplayer?
Up to three people can join a multiplayer session in Wuthering Waves. If there are three players, each one has access to one character, but if there are only two, the host has two characters and the guest has one.
How to unlock multiplayer co-op in Wuthering Waves
You unlock multiplayer at Union Level 22 in Wuthering Waves. Union Level progresses when you get enough Union Experience, which is rewarded for completing lots of different activities in Wuthering Waves, like completing quests and opening chests.
The quickest way to get large sums of Union Experience is to complete main story quests, so we recommend you mainline the story if you want to unlock multiplayer as soon as possible. Spending your Waveplate is another quick way to earn Union Experience.
How multiplayer works in Wuthering Waves
Wuthering Waves has co-op multiplayer capabilities that let you team up with up to two other people in a maximum party of three, as this is how big single-player teams are in Wuthering Waves too.
If you're only playing with one friend, the host has access to two playable characters, while the guest gets one playable character.
Once you reach Union Level 22 and unlock multiplayer, you can join another player's world after seeking them out in the 'Co-op mode' multiplayer menu and clicking the 'Apply to join' button, or you can invite a friend to your world from the friends menu, and they can invite you from here too. If somebody has the 'direct entry' option enabled, you can also just join them without requesting to do so. All of these options can be filtered from the multiplayer menu.
Unfortunately, world level requirements were added to the launch version of Wuthering Waves not present in its previous betas. This means that even when you unlock co-op, you might not be able to join a friend's world if they are a higher SOL3 Phase than you.
Multiplayer features
What can you do while playing with friends? Well, one of the most useful activities is visiting a friend's world to take materials that they might not need right now, so you can level-up your characters quickly if you run out of that material in your world and don't want to wait for your materials to respawn.
You can also go hunting for shiny Phantom Echoes! If a friend sees a shiny, they just need to invite you to their world before fighting the Echo so you can catch it too.
Another huge asset to teaming up with other players is taking on Echoes together so you can farm for Echo sets with good stats. Not only can friends help you with the more difficult Echo bosses, but you all have a separate Echo respawn counter. So if you've defeated an Echo once in your world and can't challenge it again until the daily reset, you can just join a friend's world and fight it again with them, and vice versa. You can do this with as many friends as you like, every day.
Don't worry about who gets the final hit, or if somebody kills an Echo while you're not around, as every player in multiplayer has their own instance of loot, so you never miss out on rewards as long as you remember to absorb the Echo before the daily reset time.
Not available in multiplayer
As for endgame content, you're unfortunately on your own, as the Tower of Adversity and Depths of Illusive Realm are not available to play in co-op.
Have fun playing with friends in Wuthering Waves!