Online Co-op in Shady Job

Shady Job is built for a crew. Steam lists 1–4 player online co-op, Steam Achievements, and Family Sharing. Steam does not list local split-screen. Do not plan a couch session on one PC. Everyone who clocks in needs their own machine, their own Steam client, and a way to talk. The Steam launch is September 10, 2026. Playtests ended August 31, 2026.

GAZE IN GAMES pitched the game in the same chaotic co-op lane as Peak and Dear Passengers: one physics object, several people, and a vertical job that falls apart if anyone freelances. Here the object is Punchy Bag, the studio’s name for the living cargo. This page is how you run the party around that cargo. Mechanic depth lives on body bag, building, and Plunger Gun. Day-one setup lives on Getting Started. The Steam invite and party-size walkthrough is how to play with friends.

Party size and what Steam actually lists

One player can start. The store’s 1–4 range is not marketing fluff; solo is allowed. Solo is also the hardest way to keep a struggling bag, a collapsing bridge, and a plunger rescue in the same pair of hands.

Two is the smallest crew that can split carry and path. One person should own the bag. The other should own blocks, cranes, and the next ledge. Swap only on a stable floor, not mid-span.

Three adds a dedicated plunger lookout. That person does not decorate the skyline. They Shoot, Pull, and Release to keep cargo and people on the structure.

Four is the cap. The fourth is a floater: extra blocks, extra hands on a toilet or barrel ramp, extra rescue if two people go over at once. Four people grabbing the bag is not a strategy. It is how you teach Punchy Bag to hate you.

There is no listed split-screen, local co-op, or shared-screen couch mode. If a friend is in the same room, they still join online. Family Sharing is listed, which is a Steam feature, not a second copy sitting in the video options. Confirm the launch party UI in-game; this wiki will not invent a host button or a listen-server toggle.

Shady Job co-op concept recap

Voice and callouts

Steam lists in-game chat and online interactivity. That is not a full voice-design document. Bring a voice channel anyway. The bag does not wait for typed sentences. Agree on four calls before the first pickup:

• Bag — who is touching Punchy Bag right now.
• Path — who is allowed to place or break structure.
• Line — who has a plunger stuck to cargo, wall, or a falling teammate.
• Down — someone left the floor. Rescue first if a plunger can see them; do not all jump after them.

Call floors by the numbers painted on walls. Official shots show 13. Call ice and electric the moment you see them; press coverage flagged those hazards, and one screenshot froze a teammate named Valentine solid. The walkthrough is the route version of those calls. The controls page is where HUD language (green bar, slots 1 and 2, Shoot / Pull / Release / Drop) is documented without fake keys.

Role split that actually holds

Use the squad planner and the roles page to lock jobs, then keep them for a full loop. Suggested split:

• Carrier — two hands on the bag, no heroic yeets, no using the cargo as a ram. Read body bag until gentle handling is boring.
• Builder — blocks, cranes, moving platforms, wall and window breaks. One mistake can destroy the entire structure. Read building.
• Plunger — climb lines, bag yanks, fall recovery. Read Plunger Gun. Slot 2 in official shots can show an INDUSTRIAL FAN; do not invent a DPS rotation for it.
• Floater — sandwich duty if slot 1 is food, prop hauling (toilet, barrel), and the second rescue.

If you are two people, merge plunger into whoever is not carrying. If you are one person, you are all four jobs and you will drop something. That is expected, not a failed launch.

Playtest friend-invite rules (historical)

Wave 1 started July 24, 2026 (Playtest 1.0 through July 31). Playtest 1.1 landed around August 1. Playtest 1.3 / Wave 4 on August 14 added LEVEL 2. Access was random Steam invites, not a first-come queue you could brute force. If you got in, you could invite up to three friends who had been on your friends list 30+ days (Steam policy). A survey sat in the menu after playing. The studio asked for it. At announcement they were already looking at 20k+ playtest requests in three days.

Those rules were for the playtest. They are not a promise of the launch invite screen. Do not tell a new friend they are locked out of September 10, 2026 because they have only been on the list for a week — and do not tell them they are guaranteed a plus-three either. Confirm the live party flow in-game. The playtest recap keeps the timeline; patch notes will catch launch-week social changes.

How to recover from a fall

Falls are the default failure, not a rare cutscene. Unfinished floors, collapsing bridges, bag shoves, and plunger lines that pull people into space will all send someone down.

1. Call Down with a name and a direction. “Someone fell” is useless on a skyscraper.
2. Stop the bag. A loose Punchy Bag plus a dangling teammate is how you lose both. The carrier plants or the plunger pins the cargo before anyone hero-dives.
3. One plunger on the person, not three. Shoot, Pull them to a ledge, Release if the line starts eating the scaffold, Drop if the cup is stuck to a doomed plank.
4. Do not collapse the rescue path. Builders wait. Extra blocks on a stressed span while someone is hanging is how the whole structure goes. See building.
5. Reset roles on the landing. The rescued player is not automatically back on bag duty. Ice can freeze a body solid; electric floors are in press shots. Walk, then work.

If the whole crew went over, you are in a wipe, not a rescue. Rebuild from the last stable floor. The walkthrough argues bag-first versus path-first so you stop putting cargo on a plank that does not exist yet.

A good co-op session looks boring on a recording: one carrier, a finished span, a plunger that never has to panic-Shoot. That is the point. Save the chaos for Punchy Bag. More how-tos sit on the Guides Hub. The preview talks about friendslop risk if the crew treats every floor like a clip; this page is the antidote.