So, a friend bought GZ today and we can’t play together. I continue my session, press “T” in the multiplayer menu and invite him, he pushes the “start game” button in the steam invite but nothing happens. He doesn’t show up in my multiplayer list, even if he enters the game via continue from the main menu. We are both on PCs and neither of us has connection problems because another player could find both of our separate instances. He tries to invite me and the same problem persists. How do we proceed? Is this a bug?
hmm wierd i play on xbox so i dont really know how your platform appears (i used to have steam so i kinda know). It may be because you have invite only or something like that, i dont really know.
maybe your friend needs to redownload the game or restart, steam can mess up game file downloads sometimes, but hey only time will tell maybe it IS a glitch. Hope i helped a little bit, Have a great Day/Night!
Okay, update. Apparently, my friend can invite me, but I can’t invite him. I send an invite, he starts the game from the invite, ends up in the main menu and not in my game session. If he starts the game, he is not in my session.
Here’s the thing though; I have progressed significantly further in the game than he, he just started a level 1 character. Maybe that has something to do with it? Maybe I am supposed to be able to boost him/any lower character, but he can’t join my progress because he hasn’t unlocked some items or memos or whatnot?
Try creating a new character, see if that helps. Though I think this may be a firewall issue. What antivirus/firewall are you using?
there has been some bugs submitted also from people using the same Wifi modem , i dont know if this is any help or it has been resolved.
Hello Egobyte!
Your session is private by default. If you want friends to join your game you need to go to your pause menu > MP and change “who can join” setting.
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The only firewall I have is the windows firewall. What do I need to do? We have already established (not int this conversation, but me and my friend^^) that a new character on his part didn’t change anything. I could try creating a new one, but creating a new character would kind of defeat the purpose as I want him to be able to join me where I am now.
Nah, he is playing from another location. ^^
Yup. Did that as I assumed it was the problem, but switching to “Anyone can join” instead of “invite only” still didn’t make him join my session. We ended up in different instances.
Another thing to note is that I am listed as “offline” in his steam list, which is weird. I don’t know if that affects anything. I think I have set my permanent status as “invisible”. Is that something that prevents me from inviting people to multiplayer gameplay sessions?
Oh, another update. Apparently I CAN now invite, but only by him using “Find Game” ingame, not by inviting him through Steam.
Why is the match making system so crappy? Again it seems as we can’t play together where we have played together before. I try to find game as he has the “Anybody can join” option selected, but I turn up in other people’s games. Why such a randomized join mechanic? As it is now, we have to press join and hope that the game sort of “discovers” the right session. Why is it so unnecessarily complicated? And the invite through the Steam invite has stopped working again.
As far as I know the only way to join your friend on PC is via Steam invite. I’m in a game right now and while we’ve had some hickups we can invite eachother just fine every time. The matchmaking system is for playing with strangers only.
Alright, well that’s the problem then. Inviting via Steam invite just brings the invitee into the game’s main menu, then if he chooses to “continue”, he just ends up in his own game again. We have managed to actually successfully invite through Steam once or twice, where the invitee accepts, the game boots up and foregoes the main menu in favor of loading him straight into the invitor’s game session. But that is more of an exception than a rule and it always feels almost accidental if it succeeds.
As far as I know it works best to be ingame, in the menu, then be invited. That loads you into the session.
The player inviting uses the steam friend list hitting T in Multiplayer choice from the Main menu.
The player invited should stay in Main menu, waiting for the invitation. Do not hit “Continue” nor “Select character”. The distant host will connect and will bring you to the host world. The last played character will be used. It does not always work, you need sometimes to be re-invited. Exiting the game and restarting into Main menu may help.
Same issue. Only my friend can invite me, but when he’s a host I have a bad ping. We live in one town. This is BS, bought this game only for COOP with friend but network code and lobby is crap AF. Why can’t just I invite him from Steam?
Hey @Cynacyn 
Let’s see if we can figure this out!
Could you provide some more detailed information and description of what the issue and behavior is? E.g. What happens step by step? Are you not seeing an invite option? Or are you able to send an invite, but nothing happens when your friend accepts the invite?
If there is any type of message shown when attempting this please try to share a screenshot or type out what the message says.
How To Invite A Friend Via In-Game Invite Option (Steam):
- Have befriended Steam users / accounts
- Player A + B: Boot the game
- Player A: Host a session via continue / new game
- Player A: Open the multiplayer menu via ESC > Multiplayer
- Player A: At the bottom of the screen an ‘INVITE’ button prompt should appear, press the advised key in order to open up the Steam shell interface (Note that it can sometimes take a few seconds before the ‘INVITE’ button prompt appears)
- Player A: Send invite to Player B via the Steam shell interface
- Player B: While on e.g. the main menu, accept the invite from Player A via Steam shell interface
Another thing to keep in mind is the “Who Can Join” setting which can be found in the “pause” multiplayer menu (ESC > Multiplayer) by the host player after having hosted a session via continue / new game. Make sure that this setting is set to what is appropriate for what you are trying to do (Default for this setting is ‘Invite Only’). At this time Steam does not have the ‘Friends’ option that the other platforms have, which allows friends to join each other via an in-game friends list.
Regarding the bad ping… are you or your friend by any chance on VPN? If that is the case try disabling the VPN and see if that helps / improves your ping / latency.
If you try anything and the situation changes please let us know in this thread, and as mentioned above some more detailed information would be helpful in case we need to do some more troubleshooting.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for reporting! 
Even after the very recent 16GB update, I was having trouble inviting a friend to join game.
The source of the problem is at step 5 above. There is no INVITE option or button but I did find a solution.
I had to set my game to Multiplayer, Allow Everyone.
At that point I could invite my friend by toggling over to the Steam friend list and there was a new option ‘Invite to Lobby’
From there, player B could join and then I changed the game settings back to ‘Invite Only’ which prevents others from joining.
It is a small workaround but it works for now.
its R… it is not T anymore… i only figured it out when i raged and pressed all the keys on keyboard… although they have to be online and a friend on steam… idk about other platforms