Quick Answer: Solo matchmaking exists only on Hallowgrove, the first map, in Normal and Chaos difficulty. The second map, Brandrgarde, is trio-only, and parts of the main quest chain route through it — the loudest complaint about the game. It is not a hard lock. Players have completed the contested quest steps solo on Chaos-difficulty Hallowgrove, and you can enter Brandrgarde alone by queueing trio with fill slots turned off (or with randoms, fill on). What solos genuinely cannot reach yet: Cataclysm difficulty and its Holy weapons — though the developers confirmed on August 5 that a Brandrgarde Solo Mode covering both Normal and Cataclysm is coming in the middle of Season 1 in September. There is still no dedicated duo mode, officially ruled out "in the short term."
Solo Weavereach: one map, all of the tension. (Screenshot: Bellring Games)
Version note: Current for the August 6 client update, checked August 7, 2026. Assembled from developer posts and player reports, linked inline; solo access is the most patch-sensitive topic on this page — the developers confirmed a September Solo Mode on August 5, and the August 6 update opened the Einherjar Mist Lords.
What Solo Actually Gets You
- Hallowgrove, the first map, has a true solo queue: other solo players, AI monsters and bots. It runs in Normal and Chaos difficulty. Chaos holds the better loot and the quest-relevant boss fights.
- The camp layer is identical for solo players — warehouse, Auction House, talents, forging, camp building, seasonal Battle Pass. Nothing meta-side is squad-gated.
- Ranked ("Path of Glory") works solo. Enabling it is a per-player choice, and per the official DevNote you only lose rank points when you fail to extract.
- The game is balanced around trios first. The developers' AMA says solo and trio get separately tuned balance passes. Expect solo fights to feel more rock-paper-scissors.
The Quest-Chain Breakpoints
The game never tells you where the quest chain stops working alone. Players mapped it out instead — community-tested, not officially documented (main report, whose author posted the workarounds in a later edit):
| Quest step | Status for solo players |
|---|---|
| Early steps on Hallowgrove | No issues — designed for solo |
| First Mist Lord requirement | Looks trio-gated, but completable solo via Chaos-difficulty Hallowgrove bosses |
| Otto / Harald / Salmar steps | Doable solo by farming Chaos-mode bosses ("General Harald" is the boss fight the July 30 patch touched) |
| Einherjar (hard-mode) Salmar | Open since the August 6 client update, which also started Dried Flower Knot drops (patch notes) |
| Cataclysm difficulty / Holy weapon parts | Trio-map only — the launch announcement lists Cataclysm as Brandrgarde content, and officially "the most common way to obtain top-tier gear is by defeating Mist Lords on Cataclysm difficulty" |
Two things to do with that table:
- Don't abandon a quest because it names a boss. Check whether the target spawns on Chaos Hallowgrove before you assume you need a squad.
- Buy Brandrgarde-only camp upgrade materials off the Auction House. You'll pay a markup, but nothing in camp progression is hard-locked — see the Market & Warehouse Guide for how not to overpay.
Getting Into Brandrgarde Anyway
The trio queue has fill slots, and that gives solo players two different doors into the second map. Both are documented by players (solo-progression thread), not by the developers.
Option 0: If you're a duo — queue trio, the game fills the third
The game never says this, so start here: two friends can queue the trio map together and the system fills the third slot with a random. That's the closest thing to a duo mode that exists today. You keep your partner and absorb one stranger, and the etiquette below applies to that one player.
Option 1: Fill on — play with randoms
You get matched into a full trio. It works, and it's how most solo players see Brandrgarde. Set expectations first: random teammates loot whatever they reach first, wander off alone, and extract on their own clock. "Loot ninjas" are the subreddit's most upvoted complaint category. So stay near the team. Ping before you commit to a fight. Treat anything a teammate loots as gone. If a quest step needs a specific objective, say so in chat at the start — task progression is shared while you're grouped, and some randoms will cooperate.
Option 2: Fill off — enter alone
Turning fill slots off puts you in Brandrgarde alone against full squads. It sounds suicidal, but a well-received community report calls it the most reliable way to grind trio-map quests without a coordinated squad, and several replies corroborate. Run it like this:
- Avoid full teams entirely. This is a stealth run, not a war. Use the third-person camera and the mist to move around high-traffic areas, and carry the prop-disguise tactical item.
- Take 1v1s only against stragglers who've split from their trio, and win fast, before teammates rotate in.
- Farm elites and high-loot areas the trios haven't reached, then get out. You don't need to win the map, only the extraction.
- Hit task objectives. They're tuned for three players and a solo who completes them keeps all of it — "you can't go wrong getting 3 task nodes or 3 chests," as one reply puts it.
- Play a stealth-leaning kit. That thread's author runs Seer and recommends Shadowstrix for the same style (player suggestion, not a tier list).
Expect to be hunted anyway: some players in the same thread report being chased by trios every run. Bring gear you can afford to lose, load your safe pocket (what survives death), and read the PvP Class Counters guide for the fights you can't avoid.
Duo Status: Officially "Not in the Short Term"
From the developers' pre-launch community AMA:
- No dedicated duo matchmaking in the short term. Their stated reasons are matchmaking balance and not splitting the player pool, which would lengthen queue times across all modes.
- Season Tasks open in the week of August 10. The developers confirmed on August 7 that the next client update launches Soul Harvest and opens Season Tasks — the first seasonal progression track solo players can work without a trio map run.
- A Brandrgarde Solo Mode is now confirmed. On August 5 the developers committed to Solo Mode for both Normal and Cataclysm difficulty of Brandrgarde, arriving "in the middle of Season 1 in September" (Wave 3 roadmap). They flagged one caveat: two new modes will split the matchmaking queue and change solo class balance, which they'll keep evaluating. This supersedes the earlier "may open for a limited time" wording.
Demand is loud — the top request threads sit at 230+ and 113+ upvotes, and new solo/duo threads appear daily on Steam and Reddit (one August thread claims some resources drop only on the trio map and can't be bought; single report, unverified). Until the September Solo Mode lands, the workarounds still apply: build progression on Chaos Hallowgrove and fill-off runs.
If You're Struggling Solo
Three pressure valves from the subreddit's most practical tips thread:
- Buy combat bags from Twig at camp. They're cheap preset loadouts that make deaths sting less while you learn. Pair them with your safe pocket.
- Farm your losing streak. Players consistently report that repeated deaths put you into bot-heavy matches (community-tested; the developers confirm bots pad lobbies, but not the streak rule). Use those matches to drill combos and stock your safe pocket.
- Wear your good gear. "It's not your gear, it was just your turn to use it" is the mindset the genre demands, and gear you're afraid to wear is gear doing nothing.