Welcome to the sky. As of its June 8, 2026 launch, Cyberwave’s highly anticipated floating-island survival game is finally in the hands of players. Between constructing a wooden airship deck, managing windmills, and laying down solar panels, the game offers a beautifully complex automation loop. But if you are wondering exactly how to play co-op Solarpunk, the process is straightforward but comes with a few technical caveats regarding session hosting and save files.
Unlike massively multiplayer survival games that drop you into a persistent public server, this game offers an intimate, highly cooperative experience designed for small groups. Your floating archipelago is private, your resources are shared, and your survival depends entirely on how well you divide the labor of farming, engineering, and exploring.
Here is the definitive guide to getting your crew into the clouds, managing your shared progression, and avoiding the logistical pitfalls that ruin early-game bases.
Step-by-Step: How to Play Co-Op Solarpunk on Launch Day
Getting a multiplayer session off the ground requires one player to act as the permanent host. Because the publisher, rokaplay, and developer Cyberwave opted against public infrastructure at launch, there are exactly 0 dedicated servers. Instead, the system relies on a peer-to-peer hosting model where one specific host holds the save file for a session of max 4 players online.
Infographic: Network structure explaining how to play co-op Solarpunk without dedicated servers.
To start a session, the designated host must launch the game and select "Host Multiplayer" from the main menu. Once the world is generated—whether it is a brand-new archipelago or an existing save—the host can send invites directly through their platform's native overlay (such as the Steam Friends List or the Xbox dashboard).
Friends accept the invite and drop directly onto the host's starting island. There are no complicated IP addresses to share or server passwords to configure. However, because the connection is entirely peer-to-peer, the host’s internet connection dictates the latency for everyone else. If your designated host has a spotty Wi-Fi connection, the clients will experience rubber-banding when trying to place fences or harvest crops. Always assign the hosting duty to the player with the most stable wired connection and the most powerful CPU, as calculating the physics of automated transport drones becomes computationally heavy in the late game.
Understanding How to Play Co-Op Solarpunk With Shared Progression
The most critical aspect of multiplayer in this game is understanding who actually "owns" the progress. Cyberwave has explicitly stated that the multiplayer functions similarly to the hit survival game Raft. You have a Raft-style inventory where chests are globally accessible. You pool your materials to build shared resources like airship docks, and when a severe weather event appears on the weather dial, everyone suffers the consequences together.
Comic grid showing players interacting with shared resources, weather dials, and a Raft-style inventory.
Because the host holds the save file, the world simply does not exist when the host is offline. Clients cannot log in to water their plants, tinker with their airships, or gather resources while the host is at work. If the host uninstalls the game, the group's entire 20-hour progression is gone.
This shared progression means you are building a single, unified homestead. While each of the four players can eventually construct and pilot their own personal airship, the base itself—the energy grid, the farms, the battery banks—belongs to the collective. You can decorate your friend's house, harvest their crops, and accidentally drain their power reserves if you aren't careful. It is a game of total ecological and logistical cooperation.
Unlike The Forest or Rust, where multiplayer often devolves into an arms race against the environment or other players, Solarpunk enforces a pacifist, ecological approach. You cannot hunt the local fauna for quick calories. Instead, you must coexist. This fundamentally changes the multiplayer dynamic. You aren't building a fortress to keep monsters out; you are building a sanctuary to keep your livestock safe and your crops irrigated.
Limitations on How to Play Co-Op Solarpunk: Crossplay and Servers
While the game launched simultaneously on PC (Steam and PC Game Pass), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, the multiplayer ecosystem is currently fragmented. At launch, there is no crossplay support.
If you are on Steam, you can only invite other Steam players. If you are playing the day-one Xbox Game Pass release, you are locked into the Xbox ecosystem (though Xbox Play Anywhere does allow seamless transitioning between an Xbox console and the Xbox PC app). PlayStation 5 players are similarly isolated.
If your gaming group spans multiple platforms, you cannot currently play together. Cyberwave has not officially confirmed a timeline for implementing cross-platform play, so coordinate your purchases carefully. Furthermore, because there are no dedicated servers, you cannot rent a third-party server from hosts like Nitrado or G-Portal to keep the world online 24/7. You are entirely dependent on the peer-to-peer system.
Early Game Co-Op Strategies: Surviving the First 5 Hours
When you first drop onto your starter island, the sheer verticality of the world is disorienting. Your immediate priority is establishing a safe perimeter. In multiplayer, the chaotic energy of four people running in different directions usually results in at least one person accidentally walking off the edge of the island into the abyss.
Start by gathering basic wood and plant fibers to construct a simple fence around the immediate perimeter of your spawn point. Once the area is secure, locate the downed airship on your starting island. This wreckage serves as your initial point of orientation and contains crucial early-game salvage.
Next, establish a centralized storage hub. Because Solarpunk uses a shared inventory system for placed containers, disorganized groups will quickly lose track of essential crafting components. Build three to four distinct chests and use the game's signage system to label them: raw materials, processed parts, agricultural seeds, and tools.
While two players focus on base infrastructure and storage, the other two should focus on the traveling merchant's platform. The merchant is your primary lifeline for acquiring advanced blueprints and exotic seeds that do not naturally spawn on your starter island. You will need to build an airship dock facing the merchant's platform to facilitate easy trading. Since you cannot rely on violence to loot resources from enemies, your entire economy relies on over-producing agricultural goods and trading the surplus.
Division of Labor: Optimizing Your Floating Island
Once you have successfully connected and survived the early scramble, the real challenge begins. Solarpunk is not a game about fending off cannibal mutants or surviving zombie hordes; it is a game about fighting inefficiency. The environment is your only adversary, and conquering it requires a strict division of labor.
Analysis report poster detailing co-op role delegation like The Grid Engineer and The Botanist.
To maximize your 4-player squad, assign distinct roles early on. You need a Grid Engineer to manage the battery banks when the wind dies down. You need a Botanist to cultivate crops, manage the livestock, and coax rare pig truffles out of the soil. You need an Airship Pilot to scout distant islands and trade with the traveling merchant.
The power grid is where most co-op groups fail. Solarpunk utilizes a fully simulated renewable energy grid that responds dynamically to the weather. A low-altitude island near calm air will kill your wind yield, while a prolonged storm will render your solar arrays useless.
Annotated diagram showing a floating island power grid with wind turbines and solar panels.
Wind turbines generate base load during storms, while solar panels provide peak daytime energy. You must build battery banks to store excess electricity for the night. Eventually, wireless power networks connect transport drones, and automated water pumps handle crop irrigation. If all four players try to build their own separate power grids, you will exhaust your starting island's copper and quartz reserves within the first three hours. Centralize your power production, share the output, and communicate before plugging a massive new industrial crafter into the network.
As you transition from the early game into the mid-game, manual labor becomes a severe bottleneck. Watering a massive field of crops by hand will consume the entire day-night cycle for two players. This is where the game's automation mechanics shine. You can craft programmable transport drones that follow specific logistical paths. A well-coordinated team will set up a system where drones automatically harvest mature crops, deposit them into a central silo, and transport the surplus directly to the merchant dock. However, these drones require a massive amount of ambient energy to function. If your power grid fails, your entire automated supply chain halts, and your crops will wither.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I rent a dedicated server for Solarpunk? No. At launch, the game only supports peer-to-peer multiplayer. One player must act as the host, and the world is only accessible when that specific player is online and running the game.
Is there split-screen local co-op? No. Despite being a cozy survival game, Solarpunk only supports online multiplayer. Every player needs their own copy of the game and their own hardware.
Does loot drop separately for each player? No. Resource nodes, chest contents, and harvested crops are shared. If one player takes all the wood from a storage chest to build a personal airship, the rest of the team will be left empty-handed. Communication regarding resource allocation is mandatory.
Can PC Game Pass players play with Steam players? Currently, no. The game lacks crossplay at launch, meaning PC Game Pass players operate on the Xbox network infrastructure and cannot directly invite friends who purchased the game on Steam.
How long does the main progression take? The core progression—unlocking the major automation tiers, building a fully functioning airship, and establishing a self-sustaining island—takes roughly 20 hours. However, the sandbox nature of the game allows for endless optimization and exploration beyond the main tech tree.
The sky is vast, but survival requires synchronization. Pick a reliable host, divide your labor, and respect the power grid.