There’s nothing quite like taking down a towering Anjanath or chasing a rare elder dragon alongside a crew of your closest hunting buddies in Monster Hunter Wilds. If you’ve been grinding solo for a while and are ready to team up, learning how to play Monster Hunter Wilds with friends unlocks a whole new layer of fun, plus exclusive party-only rewards and faster hunt clear times. I’ve put in over 120 hours of co-op play since launch, so I’ve worked through all the kinks of setting up sessions, fixing broken connections, and building teams that can take on even the hardest endgame hunts. This guide will walk you through every part of the process, no confusing tech jargon required.
How to Play Monster Hunter Wilds with Friends: Setting Up Your First Lobby
First, a quick heads up for new players: multiplayer isn’t available right from the start of the game. You must complete the initial prologue hunt and gain access to the first main hub before multiplayer features unlock. That takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes of playtime, so don’t panic if you don’t see the multiplayer option right after you boot up the game for the first time. Once you unlock the hub, setting up a lobby is straightforward.
Head to the central quest board in the hub, select the “Multiplayer Quest” option, then choose “Create Lobby”. You’ll see a handful of customization options: set the lobby to private if you only want invited friends to join, add a password if you want extra security, and set the quest rank filter to match the type of hunts you plan to run. Crossplay is enabled by default for all platforms, but you will need to link a valid Capcom ID to your game account to play with users on other systems.
To invite friends, you can either send direct invites through your platform’s native friend list, or share the 8-digit lobby ID with your crew so they can search for it directly. If you’re running a public lobby for random players to join, you can set tags for the type of hunts you’re running, like “low rank farming” or “endgame elder dragon runs”, to attract players with the same goals. I always recommend setting a password for friend-only lobbies to avoid random players joining and messing up your planned hunts.
Building a Balanced Hunting Party for Smooth Runs
You don’t need to follow a strict meta team composition to have fun in co-op, but a little bit of planning will save you a lot of failed hunts and wasted time. For 4-person parties, mixing different weapon types and roles will make even the hardest endgame hunts feel manageable. A balanced 4-person party will usually include at least one support user with Wide-Range skill to share healing items across the group.
Try to avoid stacking too many of the same weapon type, especially slow melee weapons like greatswords or hammers. Too many heavy melee users will lead to constant tripping, where players knock each other out of attack animations mid-swing. Mixing 2 to 3 melee users with 1 ranged user (bow or light bowgun) works well for most hunts, as the ranged player can focus on breaking hard-to-reach monster parts like back spikes or tails that melee players struggle to reach.
Before you start any hunt, make sure your whole party is prepared with the right supplies. I’ve wiped to too many low-rank monsters because my friends forgot to bring basic healing items, so I always make sure our team covers these essentials:
- At least 10 potions and 5 mega potions per player, even if you have a dedicated support build
- One set of trap tools, 2 tranq bombs, and 3 shock traps per hunt for captures
- A stack of dung pods to chase away unwanted monsters that interrupt your hunt
- At least one player with a meal buff that boosts party defense or attack for the full hunt duration
You don’t need every player to carry all these items, just make sure someone in the party has each supply covered. For example, I usually play support, so I carry all the traps and tranq bombs, while my damage-focused friends bring extra attack buffs and ammo for their weapons.
Fixing Common Multiplayer Connection Issues
Even if you set everything up correctly, you’ll probably run into connection issues at some point when playing with friends. Most of these issues have simple fixes, so you don’t need to be a tech expert to get your session running. The most common issue I see is players being unable to find each other’s lobbies. First, check that all of you are running the same game version—outdated patches are the number one cause of lobby not found errors. If you’re playing across different platforms, double check that everyone has crossplay enabled in their game settings.
If you keep getting disconnected mid-hunt, the issue is almost always related to your internet connection. If you keep getting disconnected mid-hunt, try forwarding port 27015 on your router, or switching to a wired internet connection instead of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi connections are prone to lag spikes that will kick you out of hunts at the worst possible time, so a wired connection is always better for co-op play.
Another common issue is friends being unable to join your quest because their hunter rank is too low. Wilds has a built-in rank scaling feature that adjusts monster health and damage to match the average rank of the party, so you can work around this by hosting a “scaled quest” from the quest board. Scaled quests let higher rank players play with lower rank friends without one-shotting monsters or getting one-shot themselves. Just remember that lower rank players won’t earn master rank rewards from scaled master rank quests, so you’ll still need to grind rank up together if you want to access endgame loot.
Coordinating Hunts to Maximize Loot and Clear Times
Once you have your party set up and connection issues sorted, a little bit of coordination will help you get more loot and clear hunts way faster. The first thing you should do before every hunt is decide what parts you’re farming for, and assign players to target specific monster parts. For example, if you need a monster’s horn to craft a new weapon, assign the hammer user to focus all their attacks on the monster’s head, since blunt weapons break horns faster than cutting weapons.
Mark parts you need broken using the in-game ping system so your whole team knows what to target first. The ping system is way faster than typing in chat mid-hunt, and you can use it to call out when a monster is enraged, when you’re about to use a big attack, or when you need healing. I used to hate using pings until my group started using them, and our average clear time for master rank hunts dropped by almost 40% overnight.
Always prioritize capturing monsters over killing them if you’re farming for rare parts. Capturing gives you 2 to 3 extra reward slots at the end of the hunt, so you’re way more likely to get rare drops like monster mantles or gems. You only need to get the monster down to about 20% health, then trap it and use tranq bombs to capture it. Wilds also has a new part trading feature that lets you swap monster parts with friends after hunts, as long as both of you participated in the hunt that dropped the part. So if your friend gets the rare mantle you’ve been grinding for, you can trade it for a part they need instead of running the same hunt 10 more times.
At the end of the day, the best part of Monster Hunter Wilds is the chaotic, fun moments you share with friends while taking down impossible monsters. Learning how to play Monster Hunter Wilds with friends doesn't have to be complicated, even if you run into a few connection hiccups or messy first hunts. Don't stress too much about meta builds or perfect runs at first, just jump in, experiment with different team compositions, and have fun. You'll be taking down endgame elder dragons as a coordinated crew before you know it.