How to enable crossplay in Valheim

Valheim crossplay isn't something you might've considered needing up until now. But Iron Gate has recently announced that its Viking survival game is heading to the Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass on PC on September 29, so you might want to hop into Valheim's co-op to show your non-Steam friends around the Viking afterlife.

Valheim entered early access last year and player numbers quickly exploded, with its popularity taking the then five-person development team completely by surprise. The big Mistlands update, which includes a whole new biome, is expected later this year. 

While there are a couple of weeks to wait before crossplay is needed, you can test it out on Steam right now. So if you're ready to learn more, here's how to enable Valheim crossplay, as well as how to test it before it goes live.

Valheim crossplay: How it works 

Crossplay isn't enabled in the live game quite yet but you can test it on the Public Test Branch. Here's how:

• Right-click Valheim in your Steam library.
• Select Properties>Betas.
• Enter "yesimadebackups" and click Check Code.
• The Public Test Branch should now be available in the drop-down.
• Select this and the game will download a small update.

Just be sure to back up your worlds and characters before you do this. You can revert back to the live game by following the steps above but selecting "None" from the dropdown.

When you create a world in Valheim, you're given a few options, such as changing the seed, starting it up as a server, and adding a password if you want to restrict who can join. The crossplay option is also on this screen, and like the server option, you can toggle this on and off as you choose. Just make sure everyone that wants to join is running the same game version.

If you're running a dedicated server, you can use the parameter "-crossplay" to allow players on other platforms to join.