Valheim Crossplay co-op for up to ten Vikings

Ten players, every platform

Valheim 1.0 is online co-op for 1–10 players with full crossplay across Steam (Windows, Mac, Linux), Xbox One, Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2. There is no official Iron Gate fleet of servers. Your group either hosts from a client or rents a dedicated process. This Players Hub covers that choice, join codes, and who holds the adminlist. Step-by-step sailing, portals, and base rules live in the multiplayer guide.

The player cap is ten, not a hundred. Plan beds, food, and boss altars for a raid group, not an MMO raid. If eleven friends want in, rotate or stand up a second world. Crossplay uses a join code from the pause menu: copy it, send it, and the friend uses Join Game → Add server. Platform-specific store overlays still apply (Xbox Game Pass versus Steam libraries), but the world itself is shared.

Player-hosted versus dedicated

Player-hosted (Start server from the in-game menu) is the least friction. The host’s PC or console is the world. When the host sleeps, the forest sleeps. That is fine for a weekend crew and painful for a guild that logs in at staggered hours. The host is an admin by default. Performance follows the host’s hardware and NAT. If the host is on a laptop in the Deep North with draw distance cranked, everyone feels it.

Dedicated keeps the world online while nobody is in character. You run the Valheim dedicated server tool on a PC or a rented box, point it at a world file, set a password, and add Steam IDs or platform IDs to adminlist.txt. Stop the process before you edit that file. Dedicated is the right call for 6–10 regulars, crossplay mixed with Xbox and PS5, or a public-ish build server. It is also the setup where vanilla cheats do not run. devcommands is a client toy; see the console commands hub for what still works (ping, save, kick/ban) and what needs extra mods.

Password the server. Crossplay does not mean “open to the entire ocean.” Share the join code in a private chat, not in a public Reddit thread. If you pasted the code on stream, generate a new world password and rotate.

Admins, modifiers, and etiquette

Admins can kick and ban without turning cheats on. Put at least two trusted IDs in the adminlist so a single lost account does not lock you out. Do not give admin to every friend who asks for god after a deathsquito. If the group wants softer rules, change world modifiers instead: Casual portals for metal through teleports, lower raids, or Hammer for a creative longhouse. Those sliders apply to the world, not to one privileged player.

Agree on rules before Eikthyr, not after someone portals ore on a default world and another player calls it cheating. Default portals still block metals and ores. Fire Hazards, No Map, and Player-Based Raids change how bases die; say those words out loud. The getting started guide is the onboarding doc you send to a friend who has never pressed E on a workbench.

Beds and logout spots matter more in co-op than in solo. A ten-person logout in one tiny hut will spawn a mess of bodies if a raid hits. Build a hall with extra beds, a portal room that does not sit on your farm, and a ship you are willing to lose. The sailing guide and building guide cover the practical bits.

When someone cannot connect, check platform overlays, the join code, version (everyone must be on 1.0), and whether the host enabled crossplay. A Steam-only dedicated box without the crossplay flag will look “online” to PC and invisible to Xbox. Download size is about 4.3 GiB; a friend on a metered connection may still be patching.

This hub is for people and servers, not a character database. Valheim has no gacha roster. If you meant bosses, use the bosses guide. If you meant who should tank, that is a food and armor conversation on the tier list.