Workshop · multiplayer
Does Paralives have multiplayer? No — the official game is single-player and offline by design. What exists instead comes from the community, in two very different forms: ParaSplit, a mod that lets two people share one PC in local splitscreen, and ParaTogether, an online co-op project whose sync features are described by its author and not tested by this site. This page keeps the three layers separate, walks a safe install path, and marks every unverified claim as such.
Official Paralives: single-player, offline, no shared worlds — builds and CC are shared through the Workshop, not live sessions. For co-op there are two community options: ParaSplit enables local splitscreen on one PC (typically F9 to activate, F11 to exit), and ParaTogether is a newer mod whose author describes real-time online co-op with one player hosting and a friend joining. Both are unofficial — this site has tested neither and endorses neither.
Most multiplayer confusion comes from mixing these up. Here is what each option is, where it runs, and what risk you take on.
Single-player and offline by design. Paralives Studio has not shipped multiplayer, servers, or online co-op in Early Access, and nothing beyond the published roadmap is confirmed.
Runs: wherever the game runs, nothing to install
Risk: none — this is the supported experience
A fan mod (listed on Nexus Mods) that finishes a dormant multiplayer skeleton in the game so two players can control different Paras in one household on a split screen. Local only — it cannot connect two computers.
Runs: one PC, a second controller recommended
Risk: work-in-progress bugs and patch breaks; back up saves first
A newer community mod (Nexus Mods) whose author describes real-time online co-op: one player hosts, a friend joins, and the mod syncs builds, actions, needs, skills and jobs. That sync list is the author's description — this site has not tested it.
Runs: two or more PCs over LAN or port forwarding; both players install BepInEx
Risk: the newest, least proven option — the author himself flags possible desyncs in the experimental split-household mode
Paralives is a single-player, offline life sim in Early Access. There are no lobbies, servers, or online sessions to unlock — any multiplayer on your PC comes from mods, so set expectations before installing anything.
Two players in the same room? ParaSplit's local splitscreen is the older, simpler path. Playing with someone in another city? That is ParaTogether's host-and-join online setup — a BepInEx mod whose network requirements the author documents on the Nexus page. Expect neither to behave like an official feature.
Copy your save folder before any multiplayer experiment — code mods can corrupt or break saves after patches. If you are trying ParaTogether, confirm both players run the same Paralives build: the mod's handshake refuses mismatched versions, which is why it temporarily stops working after every game update.
Download from the mod's current Nexus Mods page — never from reupload sites. ParaTogether needs BepInEx 5.x (Mono, 64-bit) with the mod DLL in the BepInEx/plugins folder; ParaSplit goes into the same mods setup. Our install-mods guide shows the folder layout, and you should enable one multiplayer mod at a time so conflicts stay obvious.
Start a test household before touching your real save. Expect UI focus fights, desyncs in ParaTogether's experimental modes, and breaks after every patch. Disable multiplayer mods before reporting bugs to Paralives Studio — a modded session tells the developers nothing useful about the vanilla game.
One input reality sits behind that second pad: Paralives has no native controller support, so every controller is emulated through Steam Input — here is how controller support works on each platform.
None of these mods is official, and none of the community claims on this page have been verified by our own testing. Here is the risk boundary in plain terms.
Officially nothing has changed: no netcode, no servers. Online play exists only through community mods like ParaTogether.
Both mods track the game's build. After a Paralives patch there is usually a waiting period — check the Nexus page before declaring the mod dead.
Paralives is an offline single-player game with no anti-cheat and no account bans; the real risk is to your saves, not your account. Still, keep bug reports vanilla.
Official status versus the two community options, in plain language.
Install path, post-patch troubleshooting and stability — pages that pair with multiplayer mods.
