New World: how to play with friends
Learn how to invite friends to join your party in New World
Trying to figure out how to play with friends in New World? It's a frequent question among players just starting their New World journey, especially now that the game has received its full release. It's a fairly simple business once you know how, and the good news is that you can form a party with friends no matter how far away they are from you, as long as you know how to find and use the Social screen in-game.
Keep on reading and we'll show you exactly how to invite friends to play with you in New World.
If you're just getting stuck into playing New World, a great place to start learning would be our New World tips and tricks page!
New World: how to play with friends
There are two ways to play with friends in New World:
- Walk up to them in-game and open up their player menu to invite them into your party.
- From the Social screen, search for a player by name and invite them into your party.
Using either of these methods you can choose to invite another player into your group so you can play together. You can also add them as a friend in order to make it easier to play together in future; and you can also engage in various other activities such as direct messaging, trading, duelling - or, if they're decidedly unfriendly, you can mute, block, or report them using these options as well.
It's also worth noting that there doesn't seem to be any kind of level requirement for players joining parties, so even if you're a new player you'll be able to form a party with someone at the New World level cap - though of course don't expect the game to throw terribly balanced activities at you should you do so, considering how many points they'll have placed in their 5 core attributes compared to you! If you do want to catch up though, there are a few New World leveling methods that might be of use to you.
Because players often start their journeys in completely different areas of Aeturnum, a lot of the time your friends won't be nearby. There are no mounts to speak of, and while there is fast travel in New World, it isn't free, and so it's not viable for many very new players.
So the best way to play with friends is by opening up the Social screen. To do this, either hit "O" on your keyboard, or hit "ESC" to bring up the main menu, and then click on the "Online" icon near the top-left corner.
From here you can view your friends and invites, and you can also enter a player's name in order to find the person you want to play with. Once you've found them, hover over their icon to bring up all the same options that you'd have if you interacted with them while they were standing in front of you in-game.
And that is how you play with friends in New World. Nice and simple, as you'd hope from an MMO. If you and your friends are putting together a party, you might like our best New World character builds guide, which explains how to choose your character's weapons and attributes to best suit the role you've chosen for them.