Last Epoch is a popular new ARPG that recently hit its full 1.0 release. When it first launched in early access a few years ago, the game was only playable solo. However, the developers promised they were hard at work on bringing co-op multiplayer into the game. After all, the best part of killing thousands of enemies and finding cool loot is doing it with your friends.
Last Epoch got co-op multiplayer with its 0.9 update
On March 9, 2023 the Last Epoch 0.9 update, its final massive update before the full release, added co-op. Since then, up to four players can party up and repair timelines together. The entire campaign as well as the many endgame activities are completely playable in cooperative mode. Additionally, players can trade items with each other. This comes in especially handy when you receive drops for a different class than the one you’re using, which could be the perfect piece of gear for a buddy.
Trading gear with friends requires you to play enough time with them first. After some time, you’ll both receive a drop called Resonance. Either a Golden or Obsidian version of this item will appear, just as any other piece of gear or rune would, from dead enemies. Moreover, the item will say it allows you to gift an item to the specific player you’re playing with. The only restrictions are that Golden Resonance cannot be used to trade Exalted or Uniques, while Obsidian Resonance allows gifting of any type of gear.
Co-op restrictions and problems
The only restrictions in place for partying up with your friends in Last Epoch is that hardcore and ‘softcore’ characters cannot play together. In other words, your friend’s standard character will not be joinable if you’re on a hardcore one. You’ll both have to be using a hardcore or softcore character in order to play together at all times.
Since Eleventh Hour Games launched the full release of Last Epoch, there have been many server problems. Some of the most notable were while trying to play co-op. Early on, it was nearly unplayable, and would lead to disconnections, crashing, and sometimes some other interesting bugs. Fortunately, things are far better since then.
I’ve personally played many hours already with a few friends and had nearly zero problems over the last few weeks. The most significant issue still occurring is rubber-banding while in towns populated by other players. Inside dungeons when it’s just myself and my party members, we rarely lag or have any issues. However, towns with other players appearing in the world seem to cause weird connection issues, so you’ll be making the same walk or talking to the same NPC a dozen times before it works.
Thankfully the problems are gone when you’re playing the actual game, not just trading and stashing in town. EHG continues to do excellent work on server stability and other improvements, so we have to imagine co-op will only get better from here.
