The Online Multiplayer Public Beta is Here!

Whew! This morning we quietly released a giant update to Spelunky 2 on Steam that included online multiplayer and we were hit with some good news and some bad news! The good news is that matchmaking works as intended and it seems like the improvements BlitWorks has made over the past month have mostly paid off - players are having a great time teaming up with random players and going on adventures together.

The bad news was that invites seemed to be broken for quite a few players, forcing them to try and find friends through matchmaking! This did not come up at all during the closed beta, and we suspected that the addition of multiple servers in preparation for the (much larger, more global) public beta might be related to the issue. Reproducing these kinds of bugs can be tricky, but thankfully we were able to find a case of the bug to test and then put out a patch that seems to have fixed it for a lot of affected players!

What's next? Work will continue for the rest of the year and into next year to fix bugs with online multiplayer, as well as solve some of the unique design problems that have come up (hence, why we're calling this a "public beta" even though it's possible to play through the entire game online). As always, it's your support and your feedback that makes this possible at all. With that in mind, here are some of our other thoughts and plans surrounding online that may answer some of your questions about the future:

• Cross-play with PS4 and other QoL improvements will be added in the first half of 2021.

• This month's planned update for online multiplayer on PS4 is still being worked on.

• Online Arena Mode will be worked on after cross-play is added and all the basic features of online multiplayer are extremely solid.

• An alternative way to invite friends will be added in the future so that you can invite through Twitch, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

• During the beta, some or all of the servers may suddenly go down for improvements.

• We currently have a decent fleet, with servers located at Madrid (Spain), Beauharnois (Canada), Warsaw (Poland), Gravelines (France), Sydney (Australia), London (United Kingdom), Strasbourg (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Singapore (Singapore), Moscow (Russia), New York City (United States), Miami (United States) and Santa Clara (United States). We will more than double the fleet by adding servers in other locations everywhere (but mostly in Asia, South America, and the US West Coast).

• Other multiplayer options more fit for LAN parties and offline situations will be evaluated later next year.

If you still have questions about online multiplayer or feedback about your experiences, we'll be monitoring the Steam forums and our official Spelunky 2 Discord as usual! Thank you!

ːspel2caverːːspel2caverːːspel2caverːːspel2caverːːspel2ankhː

How to Invite Friends to Play on Steam!

1. First of all, you need to be in the game, in the online lobby. You can go there by selecting "Online" from the Main Menu. Make sure you're on at least version 1.19.7a, which has the invite fix. You can see the version number in the upper-right corner of the title screen.

2. From there, you can invite through Steam or Discord.

3. Inviting from Steam: From the lobby, press the key (displayed on the screen) to initiate an invite. That should open up the Steam Overlay and your friends list. Right-click a friend on your friends list and "Invite to Play".

If you