How to Play Co-Op With Friends in PEAK: The Final Ascent (Multiplayer Guide)

There are plenty of co-op games where playing with friends makes things easier. PEAK: The Final Ascent is not one of them.

If anything, having three friends attached to the same expedition creates three times as many opportunities for disaster.

One player misses a jump. Another panics and drops the rope. Someone eats something they absolutely should not have eaten. Then, five seconds later, the entire team is falling down the mountain while everyone is screaming over proximity chat.

And honestly? That is exactly why I love PEAK.

Developed by Aggro Crab and Landfall Games, PEAK has become one of those rare multiplayer games where failure is often more entertaining than success. The new The Final Ascent update pushes that idea even further with new endgame challenges, dangerous biome variants, additional equipment, and tougher progression.

If you’re planning to tackle the mountain with friends, here’s how PEAK co-op works, what you need to know before starting a run, and the strategies that can make the difference between a glorious summit victory and four people staring at a cliff from the bottom.

How to Play PEAK Co-Op With Friends

Getting a multiplayer session running is thankfully simple. PEAK doesn’t bury the co-op options behind complicated menus or progression requirements.

Start by launching the game through Steam on PC and head to the multiplayer/cooperative section from the main menu.

From there, you can either host your own game or join a session created by someone else.

If you’re hosting, I strongly recommend making a private lobby when you’re playing with people you actually know. PEAK is at its best when everyone is communicating, especially once you start reaching the more ridiculous sections of the mountain.

The basic setup looks like this:

1. Launch PEAK through Steam.
2. Open the multiplayer/co-op option from the main menu.
3. Choose Host Game or Join Game.
4. Invite your friends through Steam if you’re hosting.
5. Wait for everyone to enter the staging area.
6. Choose your preferred difficulty and begin the ascent.

The standard team size is four players, including the host.

And yes, you absolutely want four players for your first serious attempts. You can play solo, but PEAK feels fundamentally different when everyone has to depend on someone else. A friend can pull you over a ledge, rescue you after a bad fall, carry useful equipment, or simply tell you that the thing you’re about to eat is probably a terrible idea.

PEAK Multiplayer Player Limit and Crossplay

One thing you should know before organizing your group is that PEAK’s official multiplayer structure is built around four scouts.

At the moment, everyone in your group needs to be playing the PC version through Steam.

That also means you shouldn’t invite your friend on PlayStation or Xbox expecting them to join your lobby. PEAK’s console situation is separate from its current Steam multiplayer experience, so PC players should plan around Steam-based co-op for now.

There are also community-created modifications that can change the player limit. Personally, I’d leave those alone until you’ve already experienced the normal game.

PEAK’s physics can barely be trusted with four people behaving normally. Throwing a huge modded lobby into the mix sounds like an excellent way to turn the mountain into a physics experiment.

How Co-Op Progression Works in PEAK

This is one of the more interesting parts of PEAK multiplayer.

Your friends don’t necessarily need to have identical progression levels for everyone to have a good time.

A more experienced player can lead a group into a higher Ascent difficulty, giving newer players an opportunity to experience content they wouldn’t normally reach on their own.

That creates a fantastic dynamic. Instead of forcing everyone to grind through the same early stages separately, an experienced player can effectively become the team’s mountain guide.

Of course, there’s a catch.

You still have to survive.

PEAK is not going to hand you everything simply because your friend dragged you into an advanced run. If you’re constantly falling into pits, getting injured, or making reckless jumps, the mountain will eventually collect its payment.

The best approach is to treat higher-difficulty runs as training sessions. Watch what the experienced player does. Learn how they manage stamina. Pay attention to where they place ropes and how they approach difficult climbs.

Then try doing it yourself.

The New Ascent Challenges

The Final Ascent update also expands the late-game experience, including the mysterious Ascent 8 difficulty and changes to the higher Ascent tiers.

One of the most interesting changes affects Ascent 7.

Previously, its no-revival rules could make a single mistake feel devastating. The updated approach is much more interesting for multiplayer teams because reviving teammates comes with additional consequences rather than simply removing the mechanic altogether.

That creates a nasty but entertaining choice: Do you risk another revival, or do you leave your friend behind?

If you’ve ever played PEAK with friends, you already know this decision is going to cause arguments.

The Final Ascent: Surviving Gloom

The new Gloom variant is probably the environment where communication matters most.

Visibility becomes a serious problem, and the atmosphere changes dramatically compared with the more familiar mountain sections. You’re not simply climbing anymore. You’re trying to figure out where you’re going while the environment actively works against you.

This is where proximity voice chat becomes incredibly useful.

Don’t have everyone running in completely different directions.

Keep the group relatively close together, call out hazards, and let the person in front communicate what they can see. If someone discovers a safe route, the information needs to reach the rest of the team quickly.

And don’t waste time.

The environmental pressure in Gloom makes hesitation dangerous. Standing around trying to figure out the perfect route can be just as deadly as making a bad jump.

Keep moving, stay together, and communicate constantly.

That’s my biggest piece of advice for this biome.

How to Survive The Citadel With Friends

The Citadel takes a completely different approach.

Instead of relying primarily on darkness and visibility problems, this biome throws a collection of mechanical hazards at your team.

Think swinging traps, rolling obstacles, spikes, narrow passages, and sections where timing matters far more than raw climbing ability.

This is where having four players can actually feel like a huge advantage.

Don’t treat your teammates as extra bodies. Give them jobs.

One player can move ahead and identify the next obstacle. Another can operate a lever or activate something that changes the environment. The remaining players can cross once the route is safe.

It sounds organized.

It won’t stay organized for long.

But having even a loose plan is better than four people sprinting toward the same trap at exactly the same time.

The Most Important PEAK Co-Op Tips

After spending enough time watching co-op runs descend into complete chaos, I’ve found that a few basic habits make a surprisingly big difference.

1. Don’t Leave Your Teammates Behind

This sounds obvious, but it’s incredibly easy to forget when you’re focused on reaching the next checkpoint.

If someone falls, stop and assess the situation.

Sometimes the fastest way forward is actually helping the person behind you. A teammate with low stamina or serious injuries can become a liability later, especially when the terrain becomes more demanding.

PEAK rewards teams that understand that the summit is a group achievement.

2. Use Ropes and Climbing Equipment Intelligently

Don’t burn useful resources just because you can.

A well-placed rope can turn a horrible section into a manageable one for everyone following behind you. Think about the entire team rather than just your own route.

The player at the front should always be asking:

“Will this make the climb easier for the people behind me?”

That mentality can save an entire run.

3. Watch Your Stamina

Stamina management is probably one of the easiest things to underestimate.

You can have the perfect route and still fail because you attempted a climb with an empty stamina bar.

Don’t constantly sprint. Don’t make unnecessary jumps. And don’t assume you can recover from every mistake.

Sometimes waiting ten seconds for your stamina to recover is smarter than attempting a jump that has a 50/50 chance of killing you.

4. Treat Injuries Seriously

Injuries aren’t just cosmetic inconveniences.

Repeated falls and environmental damage can make your scout progressively less capable by reducing your effective stamina.

That means a player who keeps taking unnecessary damage isn’t only hurting themselves. They’re making the next part of the expedition harder for the whole team.

Use campfires when possible and take opportunities to recover.

And yes, share useful resources.

PEAK is a cooperative game. Act like it.

New Items That Can Change a Multiplayer Run

The Final Ascent update adds several tools that can completely change how a team approaches vertical sections.

The Jetpack is particularly exciting because it can help players deal with enormous vertical gaps that would otherwise require a much more complicated route.

The Glider is another valuable piece of equipment. It can help with scouting and potentially save you from a disastrous fall.

Then there’s the wonderfully ridiculous Warp Fungus, which can provide an emergency solution when a teammate becomes stranded somewhere inconvenient.

These items aren’t just toys.

Used properly, they can turn a failed expedition into a successful one.

And then there is Clown Luggage.

Because apparently climbing an enormous mountain wasn’t chaotic enough.

Opening these unusual containers can produce strange items such as the Cannon, Lollipop, and Balloon Bunch. Some of these tools are useful for movement or rescue situations, while others seem designed specifically to make your friends question why they agreed to play with you.

I wouldn’t complain.

Those moments are what make PEAK memorable.

What Is the Best Team Setup for PEAK?

You don’t need formal classes or rigid roles, but having players naturally specialize can help.

These roles don’t need to be permanent.

In fact, switching responsibilities is often better. The important thing is that someone is always paying attention to the bigger picture.

The worst PEAK team is four players who are all doing their own thing.

The best team is four idiots making the same terrible decision together.

At least then you can blame someone else when it goes wrong.

How to Fix PEAK Crash on Launch on PC (Windows 11): 2026 Definitive Guide

Is PEAK Better With Friends?

Absolutely.

Solo PEAK can be tense, challenging, and rewarding, but multiplayer turns the game into something completely different.

Every climb becomes a story.

Someone will accidentally knock another player off a ledge. Somebody will discover an incredibly useful item and immediately waste it. One player will insist that they know the correct route, only for everyone to discover that they absolutely did not know the correct route.

Then, occasionally, everything works.

You climb together. You rescue someone who should have been dead. You survive a ridiculous sequence of traps. Your stamina is almost gone, your inventory is a disaster, and everyone is yelling.

Then you reach the summit.

Those are the moments that make PEAK: The Final Ascent such a fantastic co-op game.

The mountain is brutal, but that’s the point. You’re not supposed to glide effortlessly to the top. You’re supposed to struggle, laugh, make mistakes, recover, and hopefully learn enough to do slightly better next time.

So grab three friends, open Steam, start a private lobby, and prepare for the inevitable disaster.

Just remember one thing: if your friend says, “I think I can make that jump,” don’t trust them.

Final Thoughts

The Final Ascent gives veteran PEAK players plenty of reasons to return, but the game’s real strength remains the same: co-op chaos built around simple mechanics and surprisingly deep teamwork.

The four-player structure is perfect for this kind of experience. Everyone has enough freedom to make their own decisions, but nobody is completely independent.

You need your friends.

You need their ropes. Their equipment. Their warnings. Their occasional rescue attempts.

And sometimes, you need them to distract the terrifying thing chasing you while you run away.

That’s PEAK.

If you approach the game as a serious climbing simulator, you’re probably going to become frustrated very quickly. If you treat it as a cooperative survival adventure where everything can go wrong at any second, The Final Ascent becomes one of the most entertaining multiplayer experiences you can have with a group of friends.

Just don’t forget to communicate.

And bring enough stamina for the final climb.

PEAK – How to Play With MORE Than 4 Players (EASY GUIDE)