You want to climb with a friend, but the invite never arrives, or joining from the friends list does nothing. Two things are going on. The Steam store page still describes multiplayer in PEAK as friends-only, and a patch on 2 September 2026 added a second way in: room codes. That second route only exists from that patch on, so guides written before it do not mention room codes at all, and the store sentence predates the change as well. This guide sticks to the developer announcements and the Steam store data. It covers the two ways to get a friend into your lobby, what to check when an invite or a join fails, and how to keep the room code out of the video you record or the screen you share. If you still need people to climb with, start with finding friends and parties for a game.
The short answer: invites through Steam or a room code, and the code is visible on the pause menu
There are two routes into a PEAK lobby. One is the Steam friends list, which is what the store page describes. The other is the room code added in patch 2.04.a on 2 September 2026. That announcement says a room code appears on the pause menu while you are in a lobby, that it can be copied and sent to your friends, and that they enter it by hitting JOIN GAME. The same announcement confirms that the older ways of inviting friends still work, so pick whichever is less effort for your group. Since the update on 5 November 2025, a player can be invited or join without having the game open first, as long as Steam is running. What you should not count on is a public lobby list: neither the store page nor any developer announcement describes a server browser or matchmaking with strangers, and the store page's multiplayer categories are multi-player, co-op and online co-op. If joins keep failing, the 2.6.a announcement asks players to report it through the bug reporting channel on the official PEAK Discord. If you are recruiting through Discord instead, finding a game Discord server covers how to judge whether a server is active and how to check an invite link before you use it.
Getting a friend into your PEAK lobby, step by step
- 1Sort out the Steam friendship firstThe store page describes PEAK multiplayer as friends-only, so add the other player on Steam and confirm that both of you accepted the request. Since the update on 5 November 2025, a player can be invited or join without launching PEAK beforehand as long as Steam is running. That makes the Steam side the first thing to check: if an invite never shows up, confirm the other player is signed in to Steam at all.
- 2Open a lobby and find the room code on the pause menuLaunch the game, get into a lobby, and open the pause menu. The announcement for patch 2.04.a, dated 2 September 2026, says the room code appears there and can be copied and sent to your friends. The same pause menu also holds the per-player volume sliders and the host's kick button, which were described in the 1.53.a notes of 27 January 2026 and the update of 30 March 2026. Copy the code and pass it to the other player over Discord or any messenger.
- 3Have them enter the code from JOIN GAMEThe person with the code launches the game, hits JOIN GAME on the main menu and types the code in. That is the exact path in the 2.04.a announcement. Watch for stray spaces or a line break if the code was pasted through a chat window. If passing codes around is more hassle than it is worth, the same announcement confirms the older invite methods still work, so join through the Steam friends list instead.
- 4If the join fails, check the code, the build and your modsEntering a code that does not exist used to leave the game stuck on a loading screen or break the menu buttons, and the developers fixed cases of that three times: 2.4.c on 14 September 2026, 2.5.a on 28 September and 2.6.a on 2 October. So the first move when a code does nothing is to update both copies of the game. The latest patch announcement at the time of writing is 2.6.b, dated 6 October 2026. The 2.04.a announcement also warned that merging the work done behind the scenes into the Steam build may cause installed mods to stop working, so disable mods and try again if you run any. If it still happens, report it through the bug reporting channel on the official PEAK Discord, as the 2.6.a announcement asks.
- 5Turn on hide-room-code before you record or streamThe 2.04.a announcement says the Settings menu has an option to hide the room code and that it is there for streamers. Turn it on before you play if anyone else is going to see your screen. If you record with DOR, set resolution, frame rate and clip length before you launch PEAK. The defaults are 1080p at 30 frames per second with a clip length of the last 30 seconds.
- 6After the session, deal with the part that shows the codeDOR records from the moment PEAK starts until you close it, as a single video. If you opened the pause menu without the hide option on, the room code is in that footage. When you finish playing, open the session video in My Clips, find the stretch where the pause menu was up, and trim the part you want to keep to a range where the code is not on screen. If the code sits in the middle of the moment you want, trim the two halves separately and join them in DOR Studio.
Ways into a PEAK lobby and where they break (checked 16 October 2026)
| Route | How it works | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Steam friends list invite | Add the other player on Steam, then invite them from PEAK or join their game from the friends list. The store page describes multiplayer as friends-only and says you invite scouts through Steam. | Since the update on 5 November 2025 a player can be invited or join without launching the game first, but Steam has to be running on both sides. |
| Copy the room code | Enter a lobby, then copy the room code shown on the pause menu and send it to the other player. This arrived with patch 2.04.a on 2 September 2026. | The same announcement states that existing invite methods keep working. Pass the code along exactly as shown, with no stray spaces or line breaks. |
| Join with a room code | The person you sent the code to hits JOIN GAME and types it in. That is the join path described in 2.04.a. | Entering a code that does not exist used to hang the loading screen or break the menu buttons, and that was patched in 2.4.c, 2.5.a and 2.6.a. If a code does nothing, update both copies of the game first. |
| Join after the run has started | A player drops into a run the host already began climbing. | The 2.6.b notes of 6 October 2026 address problems players hit when joining an in-progress run and list fixes for late joins, calling out players on slow computers or bad connections in particular. |
| Look for public lobbies | Neither the store page nor the developer announcements describe a public lobby list or a server browser. | The multiplayer categories shown on the store page are multi-player, co-op and online co-op. Plan on gathering people through invites or codes rather than waiting in a queue with strangers. |
| Hide the room code | Turn on the option in the Settings menu that hides the room code. The 2.04.a announcement introduces it as an option for streamers. | If you opened the pause menu at any point while recording or streaming, check that stretch for a visible code before you publish anything. |
| Random players turning up | The 1.5.a announcement of 24 June 2025 says that with default Steam settings someone can join your game by searching your Steam username, and points to View My Profile > Edit Profile > Privacy Settings, changed to Friends Only (or Private). | The same announcement says a fix was pushed so that cannot be bypassed, and the 1.54.a notes of 17 February 2026 say lobby security was tightened so players who should not be in there get kicked faster. |
What to check when a PEAK invite does not work
- The other player is on your Steam friends list. The store page describes PEAK multiplayer as friends-only.
- Steam is running on both machines. Since the update of 5 November 2025 the game does not need to be open first, but Steam does.
- The room code was passed along exactly, with no spaces or line breaks. Codes that do not exist used to hang the loading screen or break the menu buttons until the fixes in 2.4.c, 2.5.a and 2.6.a.
- Both copies of the game are up to date. The latest patch announcement at the time of writing is 2.6.b from 6 October 2026, so check the Steam library for a pending update.
- Mods are disabled for the test. The 2.04.a announcement warned that merging the work done behind the scenes into the Steam build may cause installed mods to stop working.
- The host did not kick that player from the current game. Per the 1.53.a notes, a kicked player cannot rejoin the game they were kicked from, and the list resets when the host starts a new game.
Recording a PEAK session with DOR, without leaving the room code in the video
DOR is a free recording app for Windows PCs. It picks up PEAK when the game starts and saves everything up to the moment you close it as one video. On a personal PC the option is on by default, in a gaming cafe it is off by default, and you can switch it per game under Settings > Game, Full gameplay recording. You save the moments you want with F8, which keeps the last 30 seconds (choose 15, 30, 45 or 60), and for a longer stretch F7 screen recording captures the whole monitor. Resolution, frame rate and clip length are set before launching: the defaults are 1080p and 30 frames per second, while 1440p and above and 120 frames per second and above are Pro settings. For this guide the relevant part is the pause menu. Because the whole session is recorded, any stretch where the pause menu was open stays in the video, and if the hide option was off the room code is in those frames. Two habits handle it. Turn on hide-room-code in the game's settings beforehand, and before you use the footage, scrub to that stretch and trim the clip to a range with no code on screen using the trim tool, which outputs 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1 and needs you to be signed in to finish. If the code sits in the middle of the moment, trim both halves and join them in Studio. Audio is recorded as a single track with Record All Sounds on by default, so your friends' voices are in there too and worth checking before anyone else sees the file. Keep an eye on disk space as well: below 30GB free you get a warning, below 20GB recording stops, and the Full gameplay video share of storage is 5GB by default, so when that share fills up the oldest session folder is cleaned up along with the F8 clips inside it, while liked videos stay. Like or trim what you want to keep the same day, and if the space warning keeps coming back, work through the fix for low disk space when recording Steam games.
