There’s nothing better than showing off your newly built Nahida or tackling a brutal weekly boss with people you know, but if you’re new to the game, you might be confused about how to play with friends on Genshin Impact. HoYoverse locks most co-op features behind early progression gates for good reason, but the process isn’t always clearly explained for first-time players. I spent my first two weeks of playing Genshin wondering why I couldn’t join my roommate’s world, so I put together this guide to walk you through every step without the confusing jargon. We’ll cover everything from unlock requirements to unspoken co-op etiquette so you can start playing with your crew right away.
Pre-Requisites to Follow Before You Learn How to Play with Friends on Genshin Impact
Before you can jump into a friend’s world, there are a few non-negotiable requirements you have to meet first. These gates exist to make sure you understand basic game mechanics before you team up with other players, so you don’t get overwhelmed or accidentally drag your team down during tough fights. You must reach Adventure Rank 16 and complete the prologue Archon quest "Lupus Aureus" to unlock co-op mode entirely. Most regular players hit this rank after about 8 to 10 hours of casual gameplay, so it doesn’t take too long to unlock if you focus on main quests and daily commissions.
You also have to pay attention to World Level differences between you and your friend. If your friend’s World Level is 2 or more higher than yours, you won’t be able to join their world unless they lower their World Level manually from the Paimon menu. The reverse is not true, though; higher rank players can join lower rank worlds without any restrictions. That means if you’re AR 30 and your friend is AR 16, you can join their world no problem, but they can’t join yours unless you drop your World Level down to 1.
One last thing to check: If either you or your friend is in the middle of an active Archon quest or story quest that restricts co-op, you won’t be able to join each other’s worlds. I once spent 10 minutes trying to join my friend’s world before I realized they were in the middle of the Sumeru Archon quest where you’re trapped in the Akademiya, which disables co-op for the entire quest segment. If you get a “world is locked” error, ask your friend if they have an active story quest running first.
How to Host or Join a Friend’s Genshin Impact World
Once you meet all the pre-requisites, joining or hosting a co-op session is pretty straightforward. To start, open the Paimon menu and navigate to the Friends tab. You’ll see a list of all your added friends, with a small icon next to their name that shows if their world is open, locked, or offline. If their world is open, you can click the “Request to Join” button to send them an invite, and they can accept or deny it in one click.
If you’re hosting a session, go to the Co-Op settings tab in the Paimon menu to adjust your permissions. You can choose between three settings: “Allow Direct Join” which lets any of your friends join your world without asking, “Ask to Join” which sends you a request before someone can enter, and “Closed” which locks your world to everyone. We recommend setting your co-op permissions to "Ask to Join" by default so random people don’t pop in when you’re in the middle of a story quest or farming rare resources. You can always switch to “Allow Direct Join” if you’re planning a dedicated co-op session with a group of friends.
If you want to play with more than one friend, you can host up to 3 other players in your world, for a total of 4 players per session. You can also join public co-op sessions for specific domains or bosses if you don’t have friends available to play, but that feature is separate from private friend sessions. Just keep in mind that only the host can progress their main story quest during a co-op session; guests can’t advance their own story quests while they’re in someone else’s world.
Fun Activities You Can Do Together in Genshin Impact Co-Op
A lot of new players assume co-op is only for grinding domains and bosses, but there are tons of fun casual and productive activities you can do with friends in Genshin Impact. I’ve spent entire 2-hour co-op sessions not grinding a single thing, just messing around with my friends across Teyvat. Some of the most popular co-op activities include:
The only real limit to co-op activities is your creativity. My friend group recently started a weekly tradition where we all dress our characters in matching outfits and race from Mondstadt’s gates to the top of Stormterror’s Lair, no fast travel allowed. We don’t earn any rewards for it, but it’s still one of the most fun parts of my week. Just remember that only the host gets credit for open world chests and quest progress, so if you’re farming for Primogems, you’ll want to take turns hosting if you all want to earn rewards.
Common Co-Op Mistakes to Avoid for a Smooth Group Experience
Genshin Impact’s co-op mode has a lot of unspoken etiquette rules that new players don’t learn until they accidentally annoy someone. I’ve made almost all of these mistakes myself, so I’m sharing them to save you the embarrassment of getting kicked from a friend’s world out of nowhere. Always ask permission before gathering limited respawn resources in a friend's world. Items like Violetgrass, Jueyun Chili, and Glaze Lily take 48 hours to respawn, so if you harvest all of them without asking, your friend might not have enough left to ascend their own characters. Most people are happy to share, but it’s polite to ask first.
Another common mistake is bringing underbuilt characters to high level boss fights without warning. If you bring a level 20 unascended character to a level 90 Raiden Shogun weekly boss fight, you’re making the rest of the team carry you, which is unfair if they didn’t agree to help you power level a new character. It’s fine to bring lower level characters if you tell everyone ahead of time, but don’t spring it on people last minute. I once joined a friend’s boss fight thinking we were going to farm talent books, only to realize they brought three level 1 characters they wanted to level up, and we wiped three times before they finally switched to a built character.
You also don’t want to start a domain or teleport to a boss without checking if everyone is ready first. A lot of players use the time between runs to upgrade artifacts, level up characters, or restock on potions, so teleporting them away without warning can be really frustrating. If you need to end the co-op session, give everyone a 1 minute heads up so they can finish what they're doing before you kick them or close the world. Nothing is more annoying than being mid-way through collecting a batch of Crystal Core only to get booted from the world with no warning.
If you’re running into connection issues during co-op, try switching to a closer server, closing background apps that use a lot of bandwidth, or moving closer to your Wi-Fi router. Genshin’s co-op is pretty stable for the most part, but slow internet can cause lag that makes boss fights way harder than they need to be. If you’re the host and you’re lagging, everyone in the session will lag too, so it might be worth asking someone with better internet to host if you’re having consistent issues.
At the end of the day, learning how to play with friends on Genshin Impact turns a fun single-player game into a shared experience you can come back to for years. You don’t have to stick to grinding domains and bosses either; some of my favorite Genshin memories are from messing around with friends, racing down the hills of Mondstadt or building silly obstacle courses in our Serenitea Pots. As long as you follow the basic co-op etiquette we covered, you’ll have no trouble setting up fun sessions whenever you want. If you don’t have any friends who play the game yet, you can always join official community groups to meet other players at your Adventure Rank who are looking for co-op partners too.