New World: How to play with friends

New World characters fight a monster
(Image credit: Amazon Game Studios)

Wondering how to play with friends in New World? Now that Amazon's MMO, New World, is finally out in the wild, you'll want to team up with your pals and tackle all that Aeternum has to offer. Right now, you'll be queuing to get into servers for a while, so expect it to be a little patchy. Once you're in, you'll need to choose a unique character name and create your character's look, so make sure you're happy with the final product before you sink endless hours into this adventure. With that in mind, let's take a look at how to play New World, co-op style. 

How to add friends in New World

So far, it doesn't seem like you need to have a person on your Steam friend list to add them as a friend in-game. If you press Esc, you'll see the 'Social' and 'Group' icons to your left. To add a friend, type in their New World name—not their Steam name—and then you can add them as a friend. You can also choose to trade with them, invite them to a group and even duel them if you want, once you've reached Level 10.

This function also works if you want to block, mute or report a player—simply type in their name and you're all set.

(Image credit: Amazon)

New World co-op: how to form a group 

You can only play with people in the same world. Worlds are also grouped into World Sets, and you can only make one character per World Set. Players in the same World Sets cannot play together unless they are actually in the same world.

To form a group, you can either click the 'Invite to Group' button when selecting a friend or click the 'Group' icon to add them in. When you exit the menu, you'll see their name written in blue and a waypoint will appear with the distance to their location. Keep in mind that you can start in different areas of the map after the tutorial, so you might need to wait a while before you can team up.

It's also worth noting that voice chat is disabled for the first three hours after character creation, presumably for player safety. You can always use Steam's chat function or something else to talk with your buds, as well as the in-game, text chat.

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Guides Editor

The first three games Lauren played on PC were Star Wars: X-Wing, Zoo Tycoon and Barbie Fashion Designer, which explains her love of all things space, strategy and aesthetically pleasing. Lauren recently took over as PC Gamer's Guides Editor after three years of writing many dozens of Destiny 2 guides at VG247, as well as casually trying to shoehorn in The Witcher 3 articles wherever possible. When she's not trying to force everyone to play as a Warlock in Destiny 2, Lauren is either mastering her SEO abilities to help smash the competition, or patting one of her red sons.