Pier pals co-op guide

How co-op works

Source: Steam

Pier Pals is a cozy idle fishing game from Peng-O-Labs that lives on your desktop, and co-op is built around a simple setup: you and your friends fish together on a shared dock. Sessions run through online co-op on Steam, so you can host a lobby and invite friends or join a lobby that someone else started.

The game entered Early Access on Aug 10, 2026 at $3.99, and the co-op experience matches the rest of the design: no clicking, no pressure, and playable without timed input. Once you are on the shared dock, everyone casts and catches at the same time, and fish keep coming while you chat or work in another window.

• Inviting friends: create a lobby and send invites through your Steam friend list to bring people onto your dock.

• Joining friends: accept a lobby invite from a friend to fish alongside them. The Pier Pressure achievement unlocks the first time you join a friend's lobby.

• Built-in communication: chat messages and emotes work inside the session. You can earn Small Talk for 25 chat messages,Social Butterfly for 100, and the emote-based Mood Setter and Mood Maker for 10 and 50 emotes.

"No clicking, no pressure, just chill vibes while you work or play."

Player count and drop-in

A Pier Pals lobby holds up to 4 players total: you plus 3 friends. Filling the dock unlocks the Pier Group achievement, so if you want the full line of co-op achievements, you need to get three other players into one session. The game is listed as Online Co-op on Steam, with single-player also supported for the times when nobody is online.

Drop-in and drop-out is handled through the lobby system. Friends can join or leave at any time without restarting the session, and because the game is playable at your own pace, a player who steps away does not slow anyone else down. This makes co-op ideal for long, low-pressure sessions where people come and go throughout the day.

• Max players: 4 (you + 3 friends).

• Lobby type: online co-op through Steam; there is no local split-screen co-op listed.

• Session flow: players can drop out and rejoin without resetting the shared dock.

Progression and saves

Co-op in Pier Pals shares the dock, but your personal progress is tracked through your collection journal. The journal records fish of every rarity and grade, junk finds, bugs, and crops, and it feeds into long-term goals like Set Initiate(complete your first collection set),Set Maker(5 sets), and Set Master(10 sets).

Saves are backed up with Steam Cloud, so your journal, gear, and progress follow your account across machines. This matters for co-op because you can host a session from one PC and pick up your collection later on another without losing progress. Family Sharing is also enabled, which lets different Steam accounts keep their own journals on a shared library.

• Cloud saves: progress syncs through Steam Cloud, so hosting is not tied to one computer.

• Journal goals: a regular co-op group can work toward Field Guide(80 journal entries) while idling together.

• Level milestones: you gain levels as you play, with notable checkpoints at level 5,level 25,level 50, and level 100.

Tips

Co-op is low-stress, but a few habits make it more rewarding:

• Chase the co-op achievements:Pier Pressure and Pier Group both require friends, so plan at least one multiplayer session if you care about achievement completion.

• Stack chat and emote progress: idle fishing time is a free chance to earn Small Talk,Social Butterfly,Mood Setter, and Mood Maker while the catches roll in.

• Coordinate journal sets: if your group wants Set Initiate or Field Guide, agree on which collection sets each player focuses on so the whole group fills entries faster.

• Keep the session running: since the game has no timed input, you can leave the dock open in the background. Everyone keeps catching fish and building journal progress.