Wild Hearts multiplayer online is triggered through either the Campfire, Hunter's Gates or map menu, allowing you to work with other players and hunt Kemono together. While there's a few ways to get to that point in Wild Hearts, the end result is always the same - up to three hunters all working collectively to bring down a giant monster. Whether you want to host a game, join a game, play with friends online or just pair up with strangers, we'll explain how Wild Hearts online multiplayer works here.
Wild Hearts multiplayer and online coop explained
To play Wild Hearts multiplayer online and coop with friends and strangers, you have several options:
- The Campfire. Build a Campfire via the Dragon Karakuri menu and rest at it, where there'll be an option for online play. You can then put in the parameters of the game you're looking for - what monsters you want to fight, the way you want to fight them, language and so on - and search for any compatible lobbies you can join.
- Hunters' Gates. Regularly dotted around the map are Hunter's Gates, little blue wooden arches. If one has a blue, swirling portal inside it, you can interact with it with the option to join players that are doing a similar mission or objective to what you're doing. It's a seamless, if slightly random process that just gives you the chance to hop into a stranger's match and help them out.
- Request Assistance. While in the map, you can select a mission or target monster, and there'll be an option to "Request Assistance", which also comes up when you approach the Kemono later on (as shown above). This effectively turns your game into an open lobby for people to come and join if they want, though there are no guarantees - you might do the entire thing without anybody showing up.
How to play Wild Hearts with friends
To specifically play with friends in Wild Hearts, just do the following:
- Build a Campfire and rest at it
- Select "Play Online"
- Select "Create Session"
- Change the "Search target" option to "Friends Only"
- You can also choose tags you want associated with your lobby, and a password to stop random people coming in
- Have your friends go into the Campfire and select "Search Sessions".
- They should then enter the same tags to help narrow down the search.
- Your Session should appear on the resultant search, where they can enter the password if required.
At this point they can join your session and help you kill monsters! Co-op has its advantages - you can revive each other to prevent loss of lives, draw aggro away from ranged fighters, and generally have a lot more fun by bouncing your skills off other players.
Keep in mind that everybody needs to pull their weight accordingly. Challenges do scale to reflect the increased advantage to players, but it's still generally a little easier in co-op, especially if you've all picked complimentary Wild Hearts weapons, and if you can cooperate on the tougher challenges.
