Valheim supports one to ten players, and it works well as a duo: you split roles on bosses, each carry one dragon egg, spar with wooden weapons and share feasts. This guide covers tips for two players in version 1.0 (patch 1.0.20 from 15 October 2026), the things that still don’t work, and a short comparison with Enshrouded. The technical side of connecting is covered in separate guides, linked right in the first section.
How to connect
There are two ways to play together. The simpler one is for one of you to host and the other to join with a join code. This also works across platforms: PC, Xbox, PS5 and Switch 2. The step-by-step process is in our Valheim crossplay guide.
If you want the world to stay up even when the host is offline, set up a dedicated server. Iron Gate doesn’t run official servers, so you host it yourselves. Servers are capped at ten players, which leaves room for more friends later.
Splitting roles on bosses
Bosses go better with more people: one player tanks, holding the boss’s attention and blocking, while the other deals damage. With two players that split comes naturally, and it’s worth agreeing on it before the fight. A few examples where it helps:
- The Elder is weak to fire. Whoever handles fire arrows will need a lot of them, think a hundred or more. The pillars around the altar block projectiles, so you can use them as cover.
- Bonemass resists most damage types; blunt damage works best, for example a mace or a sledge. He attacks with a poison cloud, so both of you need Poison Resistance Mead.
- Moder flies and fires ice projectiles, so you need a ranged weapon and frost protection. More in our Moder guide.
- The Queen summons Seekers and Seeker Brood. One of you can wear Carapace armour and tank while the other attacks with magic. The road to her is covered in our Queen guide.
You hang each boss trophy on the stones at the spawn point to unlock a Forsaken Power. It’s activated with a key and lasts 300 seconds.
Dragon eggs, metal and other hauling
To summon Moder you need three dragon eggs from nests in the Mountains. They’re extremely heavy: you can’t carry two at once on your own, and they won’t go through a portal. With two players it goes faster, because each of you carries one.
Metal works the same way. Ores and metal bars (copper, tin, iron, silver, Black Metal Scrap and their bars) can’t pass through a portal, and having them in your inventory is enough to block you. So metal travels on foot, by cart or by ship. As a duo you can split the work: one mines while the other builds the ship or gets the smelting going. Portals pair up by matching names, and the names are case-sensitive, so agree on what to call them. More in our guide to portals and ships.
Sparring and feasts
The Call to Arms update added wooden training weapons. They’re for sparring with friends without hurting each other, so you can practise combat with no risk.
Since The Bog Witch patch there are feasts. They last longer than regular food and can be shared by several players, which suits a duo better than each of you cooking separately. Version 1.0 added the Northern Morning Fare feast. How food works overall is covered in our food guide.
A shared base
Building as a pair is faster, but the rules are the same as solo. Valheim tracks structural stability: hover over a piece with the hammer and its colour shows how stable it is, from blue (the foundation) through green, yellow and orange to red. The details are in our building guide.
What doesn’t work yet
- Moving saves between platforms. There’s no cross-save. The exception is Xbox and PC, if you launch the PC version from the Microsoft Store.
- Crossplay right after a patch. When a patch reaches one platform later than the others, crossplay with that platform can break temporarily. Most recently this hit patch 1.0.20 on the Mac App Store, and at the 1.0 launch it affected Switch 2.
- More than ten players. Servers are capped at ten.
Valheim or Enshrouded for two?
Enshrouded often gets compared with Valheim. These are the main differences according to editorial comparisons:
| Valheim | Enshrouded | |
|---|---|---|
| World | procedurally generated from a seed | a single handcrafted world |
| Building | structural stability matters | no gravity, even floating platforms |
| Travel | portals with item restrictions | unlockable fast travel points |
Valheim also has no thirst or hunger. Food gives you buffs to health and stamina, and you can’t starve to death. For a duo that wants a different world every time and builds that have to hold up, Valheim makes sense.
Join our Discord at https://discord.com/invite/feTRJNn9wE to find a co-op partner or a whole group for your server. Come say hi on the GamersTogether Discord.
FAQ
One to ten. Servers are capped at ten players.
The host copies the join code from the pause menu, you click Add server under Join Game and paste the code. It works across PC, Xbox, PS5 and Switch 2.
One. You can’t carry two at once on your own and eggs won’t go through portals, which is why preparing for Moder is quicker with two players.
Yes. Call to Arms added wooden training weapons for sparring without injuring each other.
No, Valheim has no cross-save. The only exception is Xbox and PC, when you launch the PC version from the Microsoft Store.
Information verified on 19 October 2026. Find more guides in our Valheim guides hub.