Bring a friend to BLACKOUT and give yourselves something more useful than a promise to “stick together.” Decide who is watching the exit, when you'll bank and what call means it's time to leave. Coordination can help you spot a bad turn earlier and protect a good haul. It still takes judgment from both runners.
In the current alpha, a Private Room uses the same individual scoring as a Street Night. Each runner has their own Bag, banked Take and car. There is no shared team score or protection from a friend's shove. At dawn, surviving runners place ahead of arrested runners, then survivors are ordered by Take. You can help each other have a better night; you cannot both take first place.
Get into the same night
Use a Private Room when you want to play with someone specific. Each of you needs a collected card in your Stash to select a runner. The playable card-game Roster is separate; the first-heist guide explains that starting point.
- Open BLACKOUT, pick an owned runner and select Private Room.
- One player chooses Host a room, then shares the six-character room code.
- The friend selects their runner, enters the code in Private Room and chooses Walk in.
- Check that both players are seated. Choose different cards: a private room refuses a card already being used by another runner.
- When everyone is ready, the host chooses Lights out. The room supports eight runners; house runners fill the empty seats.
If Private Room says “Sealed,” that server hasn't opened online BLACKOUT. When the room's friends list is available, it can also send an invite to a friend already connected to the game. Sharing the code is the straightforward way to arrange the same room; entering the public Street Night queue separately doesn't reserve a place together.
Before starting, agree with the people in your room whether you're practising cooperation or competing against one another. Use a call with your friend, or talk while playing together in the same room. The callouts below don't depend on a built-in voice feature.
Split your attention, then swap jobs
While one player cracks a box, the other can watch the approach, the district meter and the next-job warning. The lookout should stand somewhere they can still leave. Crowding the same doorway makes it harder to move and puts both runners beside the same problem.
These are temporary jobs, not character classes. After a deposit, swap. The player who spent the last trip watching should get a chance to work a box while their friend watches. If both of you spend the whole night cracking and neither checks the route, being in the same room has added very little.
There is a familiar idea here: Sea of Thieves describes a crew handling different shipboard tasks at once. In BLACKOUT, the useful division is smaller. One player can pay attention to the crack while another keeps an eye on what could interrupt it. Your cash and final places remain individual.
Say the thing your friend can act on
“Watch out!” makes somebody look everywhere. “Runner at the door—stop cracking” names the problem and gives them a decision. Keep calls short enough that your friend can hear the important part while moving.
| Call | What it means |
|---|---|
| “Door, runner coming in.” | Someone is approaching the exit you're using. Check the route before committing to another hold. |
| “Banking—two seconds.” | I'm depositing. Watch the approach and give me room to finish. |
| “Leaving this job.” | I'm heading out now. Don't assume I'm still covering your crack. |
| “Clear, follow me.” | I've checked a route. Look at where I am going before moving; it can still change. |
Use a doorway, car marker or district name you both recognise. “Left” gets confusing if you're imagining different routes. And say when you abandon a plan: silence can leave your friend waiting for cover that is no longer there.
Cover a deposit without creating another fight
In most districts, each runner must reach their own parked car and hold the Bank action for two seconds. Your friend's car doesn't bank your bag. Canal Market is the exception: you can bank anywhere inside that district, provided the context prompt is offering Bank. Check the district rules before making a long trip you don't need.
As a lookout, watch the approach rather than standing on top of the person depositing. A warning that lets them cancel and move can be more useful than charging into a crowd. If you shove to make an opening, check who's in front of you: the game doesn't recognise your informal alliance. You can interrupt your friend's deposit and spill their cash.
Banking ends when Bag falls and Take rises. Don't call a deposit finished just because somebody reached the trunk. Once it completes, leave together if the route and clock allow it; otherwise call your separate exits clearly.
A useful two-player decision
Imagine that you have $14K in your bag and your friend has $2K. Those figures are illustrative. Your car is nearby, the job is getting close to its end and a runner is moving toward the doorway. Another box is still available.
Your friend calls the approaching runner instead of starting that box. You stop extending the trip and head for your car. Your friend watches from a position with an exit, while you finish the deposit. If the approach gets crowded, they call it early; neither of you treats the plan as a reason to stand still beside danger.
The benefit is the decision you made sooner. One player noticed the approaching runner while the other was thinking about a payout. That can save a bag. It doesn't make a bad route safe, and the lookout still needs time to bank their own money and leave.
On the next job, reassess who needs help. Perhaps your friend now has the larger exposed bag. Covering each other works better than assigning one person to spend every night protecting the other's score. For the timing behind a return trip, see the worked escape example.
Your tools can interfere with your friend
Check the scene before using sabotage. Glue on an exit can slow the person you're trying to help. A burner phone targets a nearby rival, and the game counts your friend as another runner. Spikes and a crowbar can also act on another runner's car; a friendly agreement doesn't make that car immune.
Tools that change the shared space need a call too. If you clear a glued doorway with a crowbar, say which doorway is open. If you use spray paint to lower the district meter while it is still allowed, remember that other runners benefit from that lower meter as well. The pickup guide covers the individual tools and their limits.
In a practice room, start by coordinating routes and deposits. Add tools once both of you can recognise the action you're about to take. A friend should not have to guess whether the crowbar beside their car is meant to help.
Make leaving a shared habit
The next-job call is a good moment to compare plans. One of you may already be outside while the other is halfway through a crack. Say where you are, check the board and decide whether that last box still fits. Emptying the vault can end the job early, so another runner can remove time you expected to have.
When the job moves, cars relocate and the old district gets an eight-second grace period before its cordon closes. Use that time to get out. It isn't a promise that a car will stay behind for one final deposit. The cordon guide explains the transition.
If a friend is fully cuffed, they are out for the rest of that night. There is no teammate revive to turn a late return into a rescue. Keep your own route open and finish the run. Afterwards, talk about the earlier choice that left them inside, rather than treating the arrest as the only thing that went wrong.
Try one simple goal for your next room
Play a night where each of you completes a deposit and leaves every closing district on time. Swap who watches the next crack. At dawn, compare one moment when a call helped and one when it arrived too late.
Then play again and compete on Take. You'll have a better sense of how your friend reads the street—and a few fewer reasons to lose a good bag at the doorway. Open the browser alpha when you're ready; Google sign-in is required.