Chains

Online, cross-play, and the couch

You can play alone or with up to four friends online with cross-play, or on a couch together. The session holds up to four players, not four extra guests on top of you. Solo is a supported way to play.

Cross-play covers Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, with Game Pass on Xbox and on Windows PC. Remote Play Together covers friends who are not in the room. Launch has each store’s price and the clock for 15 October 2026.

Couch play is the local option. It is not a separate mode with its own beast roster. Everyone in the session is still in the chained crew, whether the other players are in the room or on another platform.

The gamepad rule

Same-screen co-op needs at least one gamepad on PC and Mac. A keyboard-only couch pair does not meet that rule. If you are the only local player, the rule is about the extra person on that screen, not about online friends on their own machines.

Bring the pad before you sit down. A laptop that meets the CPU and GPU lines can still be the wrong setup for two people on one display. A normal gamepad works, including DualShock and DualSense, and full controller support covers the whole session, not only the extra person on the couch.

Windows, Mac, Linux, and Steam Deck

Windows and Mac are supported. Linux is not. There is no native Linux build and no recommended compatibility layer. Treat a Linux install as unsupported.

Steam Deck compatibility has not been rated. The Windows and Mac minimums on Launch are a PC spec, not a handheld certification.

What the chain changes in a fight

The chain is the party’s shared tether. Positioning is a group problem: a player who sprints at a pickup pulls the people on the other end. Drift without a plan and the chain can wrap a pillar. Move together and you can trip the enemies in front of you. A sprint toward a pickup can also drag a teammate into spikes or a pit of snakes. No length in meters, and no shared health pool, is known.

Afflictions hook into that proximity. Annoying makes allies likely to swing when you crowd them. Impulsive and Infatuated have their own rules on Afflictions. Six further names have no known effect.

Weapons change who wants to stand at the end of the tether. Sword, spear, mace, and flail were in the November demo; the bow arrived in May 2026; the axe arrived in the July open beta. The table is on Beasts.

Where the chain came from

The project began as a 48-hour jam called Enterchained, inspired by the chained scene in Gladiator, and was shelved after six months. The retail game is the later project, not that jam build. The directors are Tim Kaldor and Dylan Bevis.

The chapter route those chains now walk is Carthage, Germania, then Rome. Compare the three stops on Arenas. Earlier public tests of Carthage and Germania are separated from 1.0 on Demo.

Handheld and the local screen

Steam Cloud keeps saves, and Family Sharing can lend the game inside one library. Neither feature raises the four-player cap or drops the gamepad rule on a shared screen.

Couch co-op is one screen, not a second online lobby. PC and Mac require a gamepad for that shared screen, so two keyboards do not qualify. Online still caps the group at four and keeps cross-play across Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. Running at a pickup hauls the chain with you, which is why spacing is a group skill.