Ghost of Yotei Legends: How to Start Online Co-op – Lobby & Modes Guide

To start Ghost of Yōtei Legends on PS5: press Options in-game, go to Settings, and choose Enter Legends Co-op Mode. The same option sits on the title screen if you have not loaded a save. There is no separate download and no purchase — Legends arrived free in patch 1.5 on 10 March 2026 (11 March in some territories). Your first entry runs a short tutorial, then drops you into the social hub.

From there the order that saves you a wasted evening is: pick a class, spend your points, run Bronze Story Missions until your Loadout Ki is around 15, then Incursions, then Survival. The single most common new-player mistake is queueing Incursions on the first night at a difficulty the game is already warning you about.

Checked July 2026. The mode is fully live and playable. Its last major content update was patch 1.600 on 10 April 2026, which added the four-player Raid — and Sucker Punch has since confirmed that was the final major planned update for Legends. Everything described here is the finished shape of the mode, not a work in progress.

Step 1 — Get into Legends

Two routes, both one menu deep:

• From the title screen: select Enter Legends Co-op Mode directly.
• From inside the game: press Options → Settings → Enter Legends Co-op Mode.

Make sure you are updated first — highlight Ghost of Yōtei on the PS5 home screen, press Options, and choose Check for Update. Patch 1.5 is the minimum for Legends to exist at all; 1.600 or later is what you want for the Raid and the post-launch equipment.

The first time you enter, the game runs a tutorial. Do not skip through it on autopilot — it is where the class-swapping and Ki systems get explained, and re-learning them mid-Incursion is miserable.

Step 2 — Get oriented in the hub

Legends drops you into an interactive hub rather than a menu screen, which is disorienting for about ten minutes and then makes sense. What is worth doing before you invite anyone:

Pick a class

Four classes, unchanged since launch — no new class has been added:

Pick the role your group is missing rather than the one with the best trailer. Legends is a co-op RPG with real role gaps, not just more Ghost of Yōtei.

Spend your points before you queue

The hub is where you open your class tree, spend available points, manage gear and charms, and check feats. Walking into your first mission with unspent points is the most common self-inflicted weakness in the mode, and the difference is noticeable immediately.

The hub also holds cosmetics and light activities — Zeni Hajiki, the coin-flicking duel, is the one you will actually keep playing while waiting for a friend to finish their update.

Step 3 — Party up and pick a mode

You reach content through the central stone in the hub: interact with it and select Play to open the mode list. From the hub you can invite friends directly, or matchmake into any activity if you are going in solo.

The flow with the fewest headaches, in order:

1. Start a PS5 party first. Press the PS button and open a voice party. This gives you comms and a backup invite path if the in-game lobby misbehaves.
2. Everyone enters Legends from their own title screen or Settings menu.
3. Party leader goes to the central stone and selects Play.
4. Invite through the co-op screen to pull your PSN friends into your instance.
5. Everyone hits Ready. The activity will not start until all checkmarks are lit — this trips up more groups than any mechanic in the game.

If someone cannot see an invite or ends up in a different instance, have them join your PS5 party and then use the system-level Join Session option from your profile. That resolves nearly every matchmaking oddity.

Step 4 — The modes, and the order to play them

Start with 2-player Story Missions

Difficulty scales gently, the missions are short enough to iterate on, and this is where your first meaningful gear drops and class XP come from. Run a few on Bronze, get comfortable with your class, then step the difficulty up for better loot. Treating Story Missions as a gear lane rather than content to be “finished” is what makes the rest of the mode work.

Then Incursions

Incursions are the boss finales of each story strand: larger fights against demonic versions of the same bosses, with mechanics that punish sloppy play. They unlock after each set of three Story Missions. Going in undergeared is genuinely miserable, and the game will tell you — respect the warning.

Then Survival, with assigned roles

Survival is where coordination matters most and where build gaps hurt most. What works: Samurai and Mercenary covering the busiest lanes, Archer rotating between objectives and sniping elites, Shinobi flexing between revives, burst damage and back-capping. If it is your first night, save Survival for the back half of the session after three or four Story Missions.

Raid last

The Raid is strictly four players — you cannot brute-force it with fewer bodies — and it is tuned to punish poor coordination more than low stats. Treat Incursions as your mini-Raid bosses and Survival as your mechanical stress test, and build a regular group before you attempt it.

Difficulty tiers and the Ki numbers that matter

Legends has four difficulties: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. Higher tiers give faster XP, faster class progression and better loot, so you want to climb — but only as fast as your Loadout Ki allows.

For Incursions specifically, the recommended Loadout Ki by difficulty is:

Those numbers are the single most useful thing to know as a new player. If you are sitting at Ki 20 and queueing a Silver Incursion, you are not being brave, you are wasting a run. Drop a tier, farm a couple of quick Story Missions, come back.

Advanced habits that smooth out a co-op night

• Lobby check before each mission. Everyone confirms they have spent points, equipped new gear, and looked at their charms. Thirty seconds, saves a wipe.
• Pair classes deliberately. Samurai plus Mercenary front, Archer plus Shinobi roaming, works in both Survival and boss phases.
• Call deaths and cooldowns. “I’m down, five seconds on ult” prevents chain wipes better than any build change.
• Re-check the tree between runs. A single new passive frequently moves the needle more than a gear upgrade at low Ki.
• Use the hub as downtime. Resetting between hard attempts in Zeni Hajiki genuinely helps more than immediately re-queueing on tilt.

What patch 1.600 added

The April update was the mode’s last big content drop. Alongside the Raid it added new Legends equipment including Weightless Spirit and four new charms, plus a set of Legends balance adjustments. If you bounced off Legends at launch and are coming back now, that is the delta you missed — and it is the whole delta, since Sucker Punch has confirmed no further major updates are planned. We wrote about what that abrupt end of support actually means for the mode when the confirmation landed.

One honest warning about population

Legends works, but it is not busy. Since support ended, the most common complaint from new players is not difficulty — it is finding three other people. Survival in particular can be slow to fill outside peak hours, and the community’s general read is that Ghost of Tsushima’s Legends still has the healthier player base, more maps and more build variety.

What that means practically:

• Bring your own group if you can. A pre-made four is the difference between an evening of Legends and an evening of queue screens, especially for Survival and the Raid.
• Play at peak hours if you are matchmaking solo.
• Raid matchmaking exists now. It was deliberately switched off at the Raid’s launch and turned on a couple of weeks later, so older guides saying “you cannot matchmake the Raid” are out of date.
• Incursions are your solo-friendly option. They scale from one to four players, which makes them the only part of the mode you can reliably touch alone.

None of that makes the mode bad — it shipped free, it is complete, and the combat is the best part of it. Just go in knowing it is a finished thing to play through with friends rather than a live game with a queue that always pops.

FAQ

Do I need to finish the campaign to play Legends?

No. Legends is accessible from the title screen once you are on patch 1.5 or later. It is a separate mode with its own progression.

Does Legends cost anything?

No. It shipped as a free update in patch 1.5 on 10 March 2026.

Can I play Legends solo?

Partly. Incursions support 1–4 players, so solo is genuinely viable there and it is where solo players spend most of their time. Story Missions require two, and Survival and the Raid require four, so a full solo run of the mode is not on the table.

Are new classes or modes coming?

No. The Raid in patch 1.600 was confirmed by Sucker Punch as the last major planned update. The four launch classes are the full roster.

What Ki do I need for the Raid?

Treat Gold-tier Incursion readiness — around 75 Loadout Ki — as your practical floor, and go in with a group that has cleared Incursions together. The Raid punishes coordination gaps harder than stat gaps.

Your first night, condensed

1. Update to at least patch 1.5, ideally 1.600 or later.
2. Title screen or Options → Settings → Enter Legends Co-op Mode. Run the tutorial.
3. In the hub: pick a class, spend every available point, check your gear.
4. PS5 party first, then in-game invites, then everyone hits Ready.
5. Bronze Story Missions until Loadout Ki is around 15.
6. Bronze Incursions, then climb tiers as your Ki reaches 45, 75, 100.
7. Survival with assigned roles once you have a full four.
8. Raid when the group is coordinated, not just geared.

If you want the wider context on how Legends came together and why its arrival mattered, our piece on the co-op mode’s 2026 arrival covers it, and the Ghost of Yōtei mastery guide is the better starting point if the single-player campaign is what you are actually here for. Everything else we track lives on the Ghost of Yōtei Legends hub.