If you’ve been struggling to figure out how to invite friends in Nightingale, you’re not alone. The game’s UI hides a lot of multiplayer settings behind nested menus, and even players with dozens of hours of playtime sometimes run into snags when trying to get their group into the same Fae realm. Playing solo has its charms, of course—you can take your time exploring, build exactly the base you want, and tackle quests at your own pace. But nothing beats teaming up to take down a massive Fae troll or build a sprawling shared estate in a peaceful meadow, and this guide will walk you through every part of the invite process without any confusing jargon.
How to Invite Friends in Nightingale Before You Load a Realm
The first step to successful co-op play is setting everything up correctly before you even load into your realm, and this is where most players make their first mistake. You’ll first need to make sure all players you want to invite are on your in-game friends list, because you can’t send invites to random players unless your realm is set to public. You must add other players to your in-game friends list before you can send them a realm invite, even if you’re already friends on Steam or Epic Games.
If you’re playing with people on the same platform as you, your existing platform friends who own Nightingale will automatically populate your in-game friends list, so you don’t have to do any extra work. If you’re playing cross-platform, you’ll need to ask your friend for their Inflexion ID, which you can find in the top right corner of the social menu. Type their ID into the “add friend” bar, send the request, and wait for them to accept it before moving forward.
Next, when you create or load your realm, set the access level to “friends only” from the realm selection screen. If you leave it set to private, no one will be able to join even if you send them an invite, so this is a critical step. You can adjust this setting later if you want, but setting it upfront saves you a lot of hassle once you’re in the game.
Step-by-Step Invite Process Once You’re In a Realm
Once you’re loaded into your realm and ready to bring your friends in, the process is pretty straightforward once you know where to look. This is the most common method players use when learning how to invite friends in Nightingale, and it works for both cross-platform and same-platform groups. First, open your escape menu and select the “social” tab, which will show you all of your online and offline in-game friends.
Find the friend you want to invite from the list, click their name, and select the “send realm invite” option from the drop-down menu. They’ll get a pop-up notification in the corner of their screen letting them know you’ve invited them, and they just have to click accept to load into your realm. Hosts can adjust realm access settings at any time from the map menu to restrict or open access to new players, so if you decide you want to bring in another friend later, you don’t have to restart your entire play session.
If your friend is already in another realm when you send the invite, they’ll get a notification asking if they want to leave their current realm to join yours. They won’t lose any of their personal inventory or quest progress if they switch, so there’s no downside to jumping between friends’ realms if you want to help out with a build or fight a tough boss. Just note that any items stored in a friend’s realm storage will stay there, so take anything you want to keep with you before you leave.
Common Issues That Block Friend Invites (And How to Fix Them)
Even if you follow all the steps correctly, you might run into issues sending or receiving invites, especially if you’re playing cross-platform. Most invite errors happen because players skip a small step when learning how to invite friends in Nightingale, and almost all of them are easy to fix without contacting support. Here are the most common problems you might run into:
- Cross-play connection errors: If you're playing with someone on a different platform, make sure both of you have cross-play enabled in your settings menu, and are using the correct Inflexion ID to send friend requests. Typos in IDs are the #1 cause of failed invites here, so double-check for extra spaces or capitalization errors.
- Realm full error: Each Nightingale realm supports a maximum of 4 players at once, so you'll need to remove someone from your party or create a new realm if you get this pop-up. You can’t increase the player limit with mods right now, so stick to groups of 4 for stable play.
- Invite not showing up: If your friend doesn't see your invite, ask them to open their social menu manually and check the "invites" tab, as pop-ups sometimes get blocked by in-game notifications for new quests or Fae attacks. If it’s still not there, try sending the invite again, as server lag can sometimes make the first invite disappear.
Always double-check that your realm is not set to private before sending invites, as this is the most common fix for invite errors that don’t have an obvious cause. If you’ve checked all of the above and you still can’t send invites, try having the friend send you a request to join your realm instead, as this works around most UI glitches. If all else fails, restart your game client to refresh your social connection to the Nightingale servers, as temporary connection drops are common after game updates.
Tips for Smooth Co-op Play After Inviting Friends
After you’ve mastered how to invite friends in Nightingale, you can start planning more ambitious group activities that you’d never be able to pull off solo. First, set up a shared base as soon as you spawn in together, so you have a central place to store resources, rest, and respawn if you die. Set a shared respawn point at your base first so no one gets lost if they fall to a Fae creature far from camp, as default respawn points can be miles away from where your group is working.
Assign roles to your group members to make resource gathering and questing way faster. For example, one person can focus on chopping wood and mining stone for building, another can hunt for food and crafting materials, a third can work on building the base and crafting upgrades, and the fourth can scout the area for new points of interest and enemy camps. You don’t have to stick to these roles permanently, but having clear tasks when you start out stops everyone from running off and doing the same thing, which wastes a lot of time.
Remember that main quest progress is shared across the whole group, so if you complete a story quest with your friends, you won’t have to redo it when you play solo later. Your personal inventory, character level, and unlocked recipes are all saved to your account too, so you don’t lose anything when you join someone else’s realm. Just keep in mind that if the host leaves the realm, everyone else will be kicked back to the main menu, so make sure everyone saves their progress and takes any items they need from shared storage before the host logs off.
Once you know how to invite friends in Nightingale, you’ll unlock a whole new layer of the game that’s far more rewarding than playing solo. I’ve spent dozens of hours exploring hidden Fae ruins, building massive treehouses, and taking on endgame bosses with my own friend group, and we still find new surprises every time we log on. If you run into an issue we didn’t cover here, check the official game forums for updates on known server bugs, as the developers regularly release patches to fix multiplayer connection issues. Grab your friends, load up a new realm, and start exploring—there’s a whole magical world waiting for you.
