Multiplayer
Guide to multiplayer in Solarpunk: up to 4-player online co-op, per-player inventory and airship, and no cross-play at launch.
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Solarpunk supports online co-op multiplayer for up to 4 players. Players can work together to build, manage farms, explore islands, and set up automation chains as a team. The game is also fully playable solo.
In co-op, each player keeps their own inventory, and each player has their own airship rather than sharing a single group vessel. Players can choose to build a base together or work on separate projects, then meet up and combine their efforts.
Cross-play between platforms is not planned at launch. Everyone in a session must be on the same platform, so players on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 play within their own platform ecosystems.
Because the game has no combat, co-op is cooperative in the most literal sense: players divide up the peaceful tasks of running a sky-island home. Common ways groups split the work include:
One player manages farming and cooking, supplying the group with food and temporary bonuses.
One player focuses on building and base expansion.
One player handles automation and energy management.
One player explores new islands by airship and gathers distant resources.
Solarpunk supports controllers, which suits the console versions handled by Mi'pu'mi Games on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Co-op was a central part of the design from the Kickstarter campaign in 2023, but it was not always part of the planned launch. Earlier in development the team focused on the solo loop, and online co-op was added later as a stretch goal. In late 2025 the team announced that the launch was moving into 2026 specifically to give multiplayer the time it needed to ship in good shape, rather than going out alongside an unfinished co-op layer.
That decision shaped how the four-player mode works at launch. Each player gets their own inventory and their own airship, so groups can split up across multiple islands without queuing on shared resources. There is no shared bank and no shared airship in co-op.
Feature | At Launch |
|---|---|
Maximum players | 4 (online co-op) |
Solo support | Fully supported |
Cross-play | Not available; same platform only |
Inventory | One per player; not shared |
One per player; not shared | |
Base building | Together or separately, players choose |
Combat | None (the game has no combat) |
Agree on who owns what before placing big builds. Each player has their own inventory, but the world is shared, so two people stacking conflicting designs on the same plot wastes materials.
Decide together which platform the group will play on, since cross-play is not supported at launch. A console group must stay on consoles of the same family; a PC group must stay on PC.
Send one player out by airship on a long resource trip while others stay home to tend crops or run automation chains. Because there is no combat, work-splitting is the main optimisation in co-op.