If you’ve ever tried to tackle a high-level Void Chaser mission alone in The First Descendant, you know how brutal those boss mechanics can get. Even the best built characters can get overwhelmed by swarms of enemies and one-shot attacks when they don’t have backup. That’s why so many players search for how to play with friends in The First Descendant—co-op doesn’t just make the game easier, it makes almost every activity way more fun. I’ve spent dozens of hours running missions with friends across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, and I’ve had my fair share of failed lobby attempts when I first started playing, so I’ve worked out all the kinks of setting up lobbies, fixing connection issues, and making sure your team runs smoothly no matter what you’re taking on.
How to Play With Friends in The First Descendant: Step-by-Step Lobby Setup
Before you can invite anyone to your game, you’ll need to unlock co-op first. New players often miss this step, but you can’t access multiplayer features until you complete the opening prologue mission and arrive at the main hub, Albion. This only takes 10 to 15 minutes, so it’s a quick hurdle to clear if you’re eager to jump in with friends.
Once you’re in the hub, open the social menu from the top right corner of your screen. You can add friends by either their in-game Nexon ID or their platform ID, depending on if you’re playing with people on the same device or cross-platform. Send a friend request, and once they accept, you can invite them directly to your lobby from the social menu. You need to make sure all players are on the same game version to avoid connection fails, so double check that everyone has installed the latest patch before trying to group up.
You can adjust your lobby settings to be friends-only, private, or public if you want to fill extra slots with random players. For most runs with friends, I recommend setting it to friends-only to avoid random players joining mid-mission and messing up your team comp.
Crossplay Setup and Common Connection Fixes
One of the best parts of The First Descendant’s multiplayer is its full crossplay support, so you don’t have to worry about what console your friends own. Crossplay works across all supported platforms: PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One, as long as everyone has linked their platform account to a free Nexon account. I once spent 20 minutes trying to join my friend’s Xbox lobby from my PC before I realized I had crossplay turned off in my Nexon account settings, so trust me when I say that’s the first thing you should check if you run into issues.
If you can’t see your friend’s lobby or aren’t receiving invites, there are a few quick fixes that work for 90% of common issues. First, have all players check their platform privacy settings to make sure crossplay and game invites are enabled. PlayStation users often have crossplay disabled by default in their PSN settings, so that’s a common culprit for console players. Next, try adding each other using your Nexon ID instead of your platform ID, since cross-platform invites work more reliably with Nexon IDs. If you get a “failed to join lobby” error, have the lobby host restart their game first—this takes less than a minute and fixes most server-related connection bugs.
If you’re still having issues, make sure none of you are running VPNs or have strict NAT settings, since those can block connections to the game’s co-op servers.
Best Co-op Team Comps and Mission Tips
Once you’re grouped up with your friends, you can adjust your team setup to make missions run smoother, even if you don’t have a full 4-player squad. You don't need a perfectly balanced team for most low to mid-tier missions, but for high-level content like Void Intercept Battles, assigning clear roles will make even the hardest bosses feel trivial. You can mix and match roles depending on how many players you have, but these are the core roles that work for almost every endgame activity:
Always share loot pickups with your team—you get the same rewards no matter who picks up a mod or material, so there’s no reason to hoard items. If you’re farming for specific character blueprints, you can run the same mission multiple times with friends, and everyone gets individual drops, so no one misses out on rewards even if you run the same mission 10 times in a row.
For harder missions, make sure to communicate with your team about boss mechanics, like when to dodge or when to focus on breaking a boss’s shield. Even just a quick voice call makes missions way easier than trying to coordinate with text chat.
Activities You Can and Can’t Play With Friends
A lot of new players assume every part of the game is co-op compatible, but there are a few small restrictions to keep in mind. First, you can play almost all post-prologue content with friends: all main story missions, void missions, resource farming runs, boss raids, world boss events, and even free roam exploration of all the game’s open zones. You can also take on side missions together, as long as all players have unlocked the mission in their own progression.
There are only a few activities you can’t play with friends. The opening prologue is single-player only, as are small character-specific side quests that are locked to your own account progression. Competitive ranked PvP modes also don’t let you invite friends directly to lobbies, so you’ll have to queue separately if you want to play against other players.
All co-op activities scale to the number of players in your lobby, so you don’t have to worry about enemies being too easy or too hard if you have 2, 3, or 4 players in your team. If a friend is lower level than you, they can still join your missions, they just get scaled up to the mission's recommended level temporarily, so they don’t get one-shot immediately. They’ll also earn extra XP to help them catch up to your level faster, which is perfect if you’re playing with someone who just started the game.
At the end of the day, The First Descendant is built for co-op play, and the extra effort to set up your lobby with friends is always worth it. Whether you're running quick resource farming runs or tackling the hardest endgame raids, playing with people you know makes every win feel more satisfying. Now that you know how to play with friends in The First Descendant, you can stop struggling through tough missions alone and start building the perfect team to take on every challenge the game throws at you. Don't forget to test different team comps to find what works best for your group, and don't get frustrated if you run into connection issues at first—most fixes take less than a minute to implement.