The Early Access version of GTFO did not support matchmaking. As a result, players had to join lobbies manually if they wanted to join the fun.
The official GTFO roadmap confirmed that matchmaking would be added sometime in Early Access. The devs kept their promise and added this feature in October 2020.
Let’s take a quick look at how the matchmaking system works in GTFO after the game was officially launched.
How does matchmaking work in GTFO?
The in-game matchmaking system of GFTO puts you in a lobby and then connects you with random players.
You can successfully use GTFO’s matchmaking system for the early levels of the game (A and B). For the harder levels (C, D, and E), you may want to group up on Discord. You rarely get good groups for these levels using the in-game matchmaking system.
Use the official GFTO Discord channel to find friendly people in your region and play together. You can either join an existing lobby or host your own game.
Alternatively, you can also connect with your teammates on Steam. Create an invite link on Steam and send it to your friends to connect with them and play together.
GFTO matchmaking limitations
GTFO doesn’t have a large player base. On average, there are only 3-5 active lobbies during non-peak time. This makes it difficult to find good matches.
To make things worse, players often get dropped in matchmaking or end up leaving because they don’t like the mission they landed in.
Well, you can’t control people’s behavior.
But there are still a lot of good GFTO players using the in-game matchmaking system. You just have to be patient enough to find them.
Note: This guide was last updated in July 2022 to reflect the latest GFTO matchmaking changes. You can read the original report below.
10 Chambers Collective, the studio developing the game confirmed matchmaking is a top priority feature. In the best-case scenario, GTFO matchmaking will be added in the second half of 2020 and I’ll tell you why I believe this to be the case.
Rundown #002 will not contain matchmaking. We are aware of the demand and it is coming […] We want to do GTFO justice and implement matchmaking with all features we think are required; a sturdy matchmaking backend, voice chat, vote/kick system and server migration. We are going to work on matchmaking in parallel with the upcoming rundowns.
As you can see, there is no exact date as to when this feature will be available. Taking into account the importance of matchmaking in a co-op survival game, it would be great if the feature could be supported starting with the second half of the year.
In this manner, the devs will have plenty of time to make any adjustments necessary and squash all the bugs.
Matchmaking is a top requested feature
And there’s another reason why I believe matchmaking is going to be available in the coming months. This is one of the most requested features. Of course, the fact that so many gamers want this feature to be supported only adds extra pressure on the development team and this could speed up the whole process.
For the time being, manually joining lobbies via Discord works great but this is not a practical and fast method. As more and more players will join GTFO, this method will show its limitations for obvious reasons.
Meanwhile, you can keep an eye on the official GTFO roadmap and get the latest news about the game.