

Valheim supports up to 10 players in co-op, and in our experience, local servers can suffer from lag and connection trouble even with just a handful of players in the same instance, especially once you venture out into multiple biomes. It's fairly straightforward - but this might not be the best option if you have loftier ambitions. Invite your friends via Steam or tell them to look for it in the 'Join Game' tab and enter the password.Set a password to share with your friends and click 'Start'.

Tick the 'Start Server' and 'Community Server' options if you want it to show up in the server browser.Click 'New' to generate a world and then select it.Boot up Valheim and create or select an existing character.

If you have a decent gaming rig and a reasonable internet connection and you just want to play the game intermittently with a few friends, you could host a game yourself with ease.

It's good to preface this article by saying that you can play Valheim fairly comfortably without going to all the effort of setting up a dedicated server. How to host Valheim multiplayer with friends without a dedicated server If you're looking for more help, we have explainers for how to build a base in Valheim, finding flint and iron and getting a workbench. Watch on YouTube 19 Beginner's Tips to Get You Started in Valheim
