How to play multiplayer and couch co-op in Path of Exile 2

Playing Path of Exile 2 multiplayer or couch co-op is a great way of increasing your loot gains while also having a fun time slaughtering monsters with a friend or three. Though you can happily forge your way through the game on your lonesome, PoE 2 supports parties of up to six, meaning you can recruit five other compatriots. You can also try couch co-op if you have a friendly human in your immediate vicinity and two controllers.

There are a few slightly different elements to the game in multiplayer, such as loot working differently, and if you ever need to revive a fallen comrade. I'll run through how the whole thing works, plus give you a step-by-step on how to set up PoE 2 couch co-op on your PC.

How to play PoE 2 multiplayer

To play multiplayer in Path of Exile 2, you first need to acquire some friends. You can do this if you:

• Press J to access the Social Screen (or click the three-lined button in the bottom left and manually navigate to it)
• Type your friend's character name into the 'Friend Invite' box at the bottom and press enter

Once your friend is online, you can form a party by right clicking on their portrait in this menu and selecting the 'Invite to Party' option at the top of the list. When they join your party, their portrait will appear on the left side of the screen. You can teleport to their location by clicking the spiral underneath their portrait. 

Here are some other important things to remember about multiplayer:

• Loot is shared rather than individual. After certain valuable items drops, there is a brief window in which no one can pick it up, so you can't steal everything straight away. This lets you discuss with the party and decide who wants or needs what. Multiplayer is a lot better loot wise, presumably because enemies are harder, so it can be more lucrative.
• Enemies and bosses have larger health pools, though you might find them easier to beat. You'll also see a lot more named elite enemies if you're playing in a group, so you won't be able to just steamroll everything.
• You can trade with players to swap loot. Right click their portrait on the left and select the 'Trade' option. Wait for them to accept, then whack in whatever items you want to swap and choose 'Accept'.
• You can only access areas you've unlocked. This means that if another player has unlocked an area later in the act, you'll have to get there, too, before you can join them. You can, however, progress together and complete objectives at the same time in multiplayer.

How to revive other players

One of the trickier parts of multiplayer is working out how the revive system functions. If a player in your party goes down, but you're still up, you can revive them. To do this, you need to stand in the golden AoE around their corpse and click and hold where it says 'Revive' on the banner over their body. You need to keep holding until they're revived, otherwise it'll stop the animation. Getting attacked will also interrupt the animation, so you need to time it as best you can.

How to play PoE 2 couch co-op

Now, this is a little more complex and you need to have two controllers and two characters in order to do it. To set up couch co-op:

• Navigate to the character select menu and click the settings cog in the top left
• Select input at the top and switch to controller (this option will be grayed out if no controller is detected)
• Select 'Controller #1' and choose your first connected controller
• Scroll down to 'Controller #2', select ''Controller Device' and choose the second controller (when you do this a pop-up will appear saying 'Couch Coop Mode Enabled')
• Now save the changes and exit the menu to see two characters standing next to each other

Once you both select your characters you can start playing. There are a few important details to remember about couch co-op, such as that you both share a screen and you share gold with each other.