Revision 6

Witchbrook ships with two complementary ways to play: a single-player campaign crafted with the same depth as the group experience, and an online cooperative mode that lets up to four friends live through the same academic year together. Chucklefish has been explicit that co-op is not a stripped-down side mode. Every major system that a solo witch enjoys, from attending Witchbrook College to running home consultations across Mossport, remains available when a group is playing, and the developers have framed the shared campaign as the full Witchbrook experience with more voices at the table.

Overview

Cooperative play in Witchbrook is online only. Players connect through the internet rather than through a couch split screen, and Chucklefish has described the session model as a group of friends stepping into the same Mossport together. The design emphasis is on hanging out: racing each other across the park on brooms, taking coffee in the town's cafes, flying to class in a formation, and treating the town as a shared hometown rather than a race to the finish. The developers have repeatedly stated that multiplayer is never required to enjoy the game, which means solo players keep the full academic arc intact while groups gain a social layer on top of it.

The tone of co-op is communal rather than competitive. Witches can compare class notes, divide civic errands, and choose to specialise in different schools of magic so that a coven covers more ground. One friend might focus on alchemy and keep the group supplied with tonics, while another leans into divination and handles client consultations, and a third pushes arcane arts for the party's ritual work. Group play therefore rewards planning and coordination without forcing it: the academic year runs at its own pace whether one witch attends class or four show up in the same lecture hall.

Player Cap and Setup

The confirmed player cap is four. This matches the cooperative scale used by Chucklefish on earlier life-sim work, and it is the number the studio has pointed to in every public description of Witchbrook's multiplayer. Beyond the group size, the pre-release material confirms that sessions are online rather than local: there is no split-screen mode announced, and all four witches play from their own devices over the internet.

Because Chucklefish has not yet published a final manual for joining a session, specifics like lobby browsing, friend invites, and session persistence when the host logs off will be confirmed closer to launch. What is established is that the four-player cap is a hard ceiling rather than a scaling target: the game is balanced around up to four witches sharing Mossport, not around larger groups.

Co-Op Activities

Most of the activities that define Witchbrook's single-player loop have been shown in co-op contexts as well. The pre-release trailers and developer descriptions have presented the following as shared group activities, playable together rather than only in isolation.

The common thread across this list is that none of these activities are locked to one player. Classes, consultations, rituals, broom travel, alchemy, and the civic life of Mossport can all be engaged with whether the player is hosting the session or visiting a friend's world. That is the design promise Chucklefish has made repeatedly: whichever witch you are in a given session, you still get to be a full witch.

Shared and Independent Progression

Witchbrook has not published the full set of rules governing how progress carries between single-player and co-op saves, but the developer messaging paints a clear outline. Hosts and visitors both participate in the core academic content, which means classes attended, rituals performed, and consultations offered all count as real play rather than decorative participation. The design intent described by the studio is that no one at the table feels like a passenger, and that a witch who shows up in a friend's Mossport still grows as a character during the visit.

What remains open for later confirmation is the exact way world state, relationships, and specific item collections travel between sessions. Life-sim co-op traditionally separates the persistent world (owned by the host) from personal progression (owned by each witch's own save), and Chucklefish's framing of co-op as an optional overlay rather than a replacement mode points in that direction. Until the studio publishes the final rules, groups should expect that the hosting friend's Mossport is the canonical world for that session, while individual witches retain their own identity, class schedule, and social history.

Host and Visitor Roles

Public material confirms a straightforward distinction between the player whose world is being visited and the friends who join that world. The host loads their Mossport, their cottage, and their ongoing academic year, and the group plays inside that instance. Visitors bring their own witch characters along for the ride. The key promise from the studio is that this arrangement does not downgrade the visiting players: everyone can still engage with classes, consultations, exploration, brewing, flying, and rituals, rather than being stuck watching the host work.

Because the distinction between host and visitor is about which world is loaded rather than which player matters more, swapping roles in subsequent sessions is straightforward: today's visitor can host tomorrow's hangout, and the group rotates through each friend's Mossport over the course of a shared school year.

Platforms and Crossplay Status

Witchbrook is confirmed to launch on PC via Steam, on Nintendo Switch, on Nintendo Switch 2, and on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. The Xbox release is a day-one Game Pass title. Each of these platforms supports the online cooperative mode independently, so a group on PC can play together and a group on Switch can play together. What remains unconfirmed at the time of writing is full cross-platform play across all four storefronts: Chucklefish has not yet published an explicit statement that, for example, a Steam player can join a Switch friend's Mossport session directly.

Groups planning a coven should therefore coordinate on platform before committing: four friends on the same storefront have the clearest path to playing together at launch, while mixed-platform groups should watch for later announcements clarifying crossplay. For a broader summary of when Witchbrook arrives on each device, see the main platforms and release article.

Solo vs Co-Op Differences

Chucklefish has stressed that the single-player campaign is the full Witchbrook experience, not a demo. Choosing to play solo does not lock off storylines, classes, schools of magic, consultation clients, or seasonal events. What co-op adds on top of that baseline is social texture: friends in the world make Mossport feel busier, distribute the workload of civic witchcraft, and create natural rivalries and rituals that simply cannot happen in a single-player save.

Mixing modes is also supported: nothing in the public messaging suggests that starting a save in single-player prevents later bringing friends in, or that co-op play forces abandoning solo progress. Players can treat solo Witchbrook as the default and reach for co-op when friends are available, which fits the life-sim rhythm of returning to Mossport across many short sessions.

Tips for a Group of Witches

Because the cooperative mode sits on top of the same year-long structure as solo play, a coven that wants to get the most out of their time in Mossport benefits from a little upfront planning. None of the following is required, but all of it is in the spirit the developers have described.

• Agree on a host rotation. Because the session loads one friend's Mossport at a time, rotating who hosts lets every witch build out their own cottage and academic year across the group's play sessions.

• Split the schools of magic. With four witches, assigning one friend each to alchemy, divination, and arcane arts (and keeping one flexible) lets the coven cover the whole curriculum without duplicating work.

• Use broom formation for travel. Flying together between class, consultation appointments, and forageable spots turns routine movement into a social moment rather than dead time.

• Schedule rituals for group nights. Rituals and seasonal events land harder with a full coven present, so saving them for sessions when everyone is online pays off.

• Respect the host's save. While everyone plays, the loaded world is one friend's Mossport. Acting as a guest in that cottage, rather than rearranging it, keeps the host's single-player progression clean between group sessions.

Cooperative play in Witchbrook therefore reads as an extension of the same idea that drives the solo campaign: a full year of quiet civic magic in a seaside town, made bigger and warmer by the friends who decide to live through it alongside you.