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How to Play with Friends

To play with your Friends in Nightingale, you have two options: rent a dedicated server or spin up a listen server directly from your PC. In both cases, you’ll need to either select one of your existing characters or create a new one to join or host a game.

No matter which option you choose, you can bring existing characters into a friend’s realm and carry progress back to your own world using the Play Solo option.

When starting, create a new character or select one from your roster. If you’d like to use a character that was previously online, choose Download Characters from the main menu to access characters created after the Realms Rebuilt update.

Dedicated Servers

Why choose a dedicated server?

Dedicated servers are ideal for groups who want a persistent world. Because the server runs separately from your game client, your friends can continue exploring even when you log off. If you’re comfortable with port forwarding and server management, you can self-host; otherwise, renting a server through a partner is a convenient option.

Set up a dedicated server

Since these servers persist beyond your session, you’ll need to arrange hosting, either by running the dedicated-server app on your own machine or by renting one through a partner. See the Dedicated Servers page for detailed setup instructions.

Join a dedicated server

To join, select Play from the main menu, pick your character, and choose Join a Game. From there, you can connect via Steam or IP/LAN. The host shares the server’s address and port, which you can enter manually into the IP/LAN field. Alternatively, you can use the Steam option to join directly from Steam.

Listen Servers

A listen server is the simplest way to play with friends. It runs inside your game client, meaning your PC hosts the world while you play. They’re quick to set up via the Host a Game option and require no additional software or rentals. However, since the server only exists while the host is online, the game is unavailable once they log off.

Set up a listen server

After choosing or creating a character, select Host a Game and choose a connection type:

  • Join Code - share a code with your friends that they can use to connect to your listen server automatically from Steam or Epic. Friends on Steam can also join through Steam friend join.
  • Steam Friend - the same as Join Code.
  • IP/LAN - similar to a dedicated server, you’ll need to share your IP address with friends for them to connect.

We recommend using the Join Code connection type as it is the simplest, most robust, and avoids the need to port forward through your firewall.

Host with Join Code

After launching the game with Host a Game, open the social tab (keyboard letter O by default) to find the Join Code for your game. Give this to friends over Discord or other messaging systems, and they can join your game automatically by entering the Join Code on the Join a Game screen.

Joining with a join code will try to make a direct connection between the client and host computers if it can, and fall back to a network relay automatically if necessary.

Host with IP/LAN

Most IP/LAN connections fall into one of two categories.

  1. You're on the same network as the host (ex: at the same house).
  2. You're connecting over the Internet (ex: your co-worker is hosting the game at their house)

Please see the following sections below for instructions for these two categories.

Connecting on the same network

The host will need to follow these instructions, and then tell the other players the IP address of their computer.

On the Hosts computer

  • Press Windows key -> Type CMD -> Run command prompt
  • In the command prompt, enter ipconfig
  • Look for your IPv4 address.
  • Share this IP address with the other people connecting on your network.

Connecting over the Internet

If the other players are connecting over the internet, you'll need to do a few more things to get them to be able to connect to your computer.

First, you'll need to find out what your IP address is on the Internet. If you visit https://ipv4.icanhazip.com/ or https://whatismyipaddress.com/ It will tell you what your address is. This is the IP address that you will share with other players to connect to.

The Second step is to forward port 7777 from your router to your PC.

Here’s how to get your game accessible to other players using port 7777. Your game server needs a way for outside players to reach it. This is done with port forwarding:

  1. Log into your router’s admin page (usually at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1).
  2. Look for a section called Port Forwarding, Virtual Server, or NAT Rules.
  3. Create a new rule that forwards TCP and UDP traffic on port 7777 to your computer’s local IP address. To find your computer's local IP address, see the Connecting on the same network steps above.

Here's an expanded example that may help.

My friend wants to play Nightingale with me.

  1. I press the windows key, type cmd, and run "Command Prompt".
  2. In the black box that comes up, I type ipconfig. In the output I see the line IPv4 Address : 192.168.1.50. Yours will be different, but it will probably look something like that.
  3. I log into my router's admin page(this can be tricky to find, but your ISP or google can help), and configure it to forward traffic from port 7777 to 192.168.1.50 on port 7777. It often works to go to your web browser and enter in your IP address but change the last part of the IP address to .1. In the example above, I would go to 192.168.1.1 in my web browser.
  4. I visit https://ipv4.icanhazip.com to discover the IP address according to the internet. Ex: I see 198.51.100.6 in the output of icanhazip.
  5. I tell my friend to connect to 198.51.100.6

Join a listen server

Joining works the same way as with dedicated servers: connect via Steam or enter the host’s IP/LAN address. Remember, the host must remain online for the session to continue.

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