We Were Here: Complete Co-op Guide

This guide covers We Were Here, the free first game in Total Mayhem Games' co-op puzzle series: how the two roles work, a spoiler-light walkthrough of each room, communication tactics, and how to get every achievement across two playthroughs.

Researched September 2026, current as of patch 2.0.21 (October 2025) with cross-play across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• It's free on Steam, and both players need a working microphone. The walkie-talkie is the only way to communicate. Push-to-talk is built into the game.
• Don't use Discord or other voice chat. The game is designed around limited radio communication, so outside voice chat takes away the tension (and the fun).
• Two roles: the Explorer and the Librarian. The Explorer roams the castle. The Librarian is confined to a small section with the clues. You'll see completely different things.
• Describe, don't interpret. Say exactly what you see (colors, shapes, positions) and let your partner match it to their clues.
• Many puzzles are randomized. Solutions change between playthroughs, so what you read online may not match your game.
• Some rooms are timed. Stay calm and focused. Rushing makes you miscommunicate.
• You need two playthroughs for 100%. Some achievements are specific to each role and to each ending.
• Cross-play works across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch since the October 2025 update.

The Two Roles

Role | Where you are | What you have | Your job

Explorer | Moving through the castle's rooms | Puzzles, switches, dangers | Describe the room and carry out actions

Librarian | A secluded area centered on the library | Books, maps, clue boards, some controls | Find the matching clue, guide the Explorer, sometimes operate mechanisms

The Librarian sometimes has an active part too: operating valves, reading book-based maps and taking part in the finale.

Communication Rules That Work

• Use a shared vocabulary. Agree early on left/right, colors and names for symbols ("trident," "eye," "moon").
• One thing at a time. Don't both talk at once, since the walkie-talkie is one-way while held.
• Confirm actions. "Pulling the blue lever now." "Done." "Pulled."
• Read everything aloud when unsure. The Librarian can often spot a clue the Explorer skipped.
• Stay calm in timed rooms. Slow, clear communication beats fast, garbled communication.

Room-by-Room Walkthrough (Spoiler-Light)

Room names below come from the official achievement list: Storage Room, Painting Room, Submerged Hallway, The Dungeon, Dark Hallway, Frozen Courtyard (chess), Spike Hall and the Haunted Theater. Solutions are randomized, so this section explains how to solve each type of puzzle rather than giving fixed answers.

Opening: getting the walkie-talkies

Both players start by picking up their walkie-talkie. Talk immediately and describe your surroundings so you both understand where you are.

Storage Room: symbols and eyes

The Explorer sees symbols on the wall, and the clue involves colored eyes. The Explorer describes the symbols. Together you work out which to press, and in what order, by matching colors to symbols. The achievement hint is "the answer lies between the eyes."

Painting Room

A painting is chosen at random. The Librarian identifies which painting is on display and what it corresponds to. The Explorer then places the correct symbols underneath it. Describe the painting's subject clearly: people, objects, colors.

Submerged Hallway: color mixing under pressure

The Explorer reports the color shown on the door sign, which is random each time. The Librarian works three colored valves in the basement to mix the right color, using basic color mixing (blue and yellow make green, for example). This room is timed, so confirm each valve before turning it. "This is fine" (Explorer) and "Antarctic Odyssey" (Librarian) are the escape pair, and "What 'r you doing?" is the perfect-play one.

The Dungeon: the labyrinth

The Explorer is in a maze of colored levers; the Librarian has the map. Settle on a reference frame before you start. Cardinal directions or landmarks are more reliable than left/right, since left/right flips whenever the Explorer turns around. The top-rated Steam community guide lists a fixed lever sequence for the version it covers, but trust your Librarian's map over any online answer. The Dungeon's pair is "Dungeons and.." for the Explorer and "Guiding Light" for the Librarian, and "Dungeon Master" is the perfect-play one. The dungeon is also where the hidden "Happy Ending" achievement lives (see below).

The Dark Hallway

The next stretch again depends on the Librarian's information to get the Explorer through safely. Use the same habits as the Dungeon: agree on directions, move one step at a time, and confirm before each move. "Is that another.." (Explorer) and "South Pole" (Librarian) are the achievements.

Frozen Courtyard: chess

The Explorer has to act quickly before freezing: power up the generator, then move chess pieces into the correct arrangement. Talk the moves through before touching anything, and knowing basic chess movement helps. "Ice Physics" and "Grandmaster" are the Explorer and Librarian achievements here, and "Fools' Mate" is the perfect-play one (clear it without dying).

Spike Hall: platforming with books

The Explorer crosses dangerous platforms. The Librarian has books whose cover symbols map to safe paths. The Explorer describes the symbols they can see, and the Librarian finds the matching book and calls out the steps. There are several possible books of varying difficulty, and a wrong step resets the book, so go slowly. The perfect-play achievement is "Vlad The Impaler." Spike Hall has no separate escape/assist pair.

Haunted Theater: the finale puzzle

The Librarian goes on stage and plays a gramophone recording, starting a timed puzzle while a marionette moves toward them. The Explorer uses levers to bring the right characters and set pieces onto the stage for each act of the story. Listen to the recording closely: each act's narration tells you what should be on stage. Press the scene button after setting up each act.

In the original version, the stage pieces included the Castle, the People, the Queen, the King, the Mad King and a blood-red light, and later acts stack more pieces on stage than early ones. The Steam community has separate guides for the original and "updated version" of this puzzle, so an older guide may not match your game. "Killer Performance" (the perfect-play theater achievement) is one of the rarest in the game, earned by about 13% of Steam players, so the Explorer should map out which lever raises which piece before the recording starts.

The ending

The two players finally meet. Only one can escape. The player who escapes earns "Worst Friend Forever," and the one who stays behind earns "Why me?". Decide together, and take turns across playthroughs if you're both going for 100%.

Achievements (26)

Type | Achievements | How

Room escapes (Explorer side) | The Answer Lies.., Is that a.., This is fine, Dungeons and.., Is that another.., Ice Physics, Don't Turn Around | Clear each room

Room assists (Librarian side) | ..Between The Eyes, A face on its.., Antarctic Odyssey, Guiding Light, South Pole, Grandmaster, Lights, camera.. | Help your partner clear each room

Perfect plays | Myth Busters (Painting Room), What 'r you doing? (Submerged Hallway), Eye See You (Between the eyes), Dungeon Master (The Dungeon), Fools' Mate (Chess), Vlad The Impaler (Spike Hall), Killer Performance (Haunted Theater) | Clear the room without mistakes

Ending | Worst Friend Forever, Why me? | Escape, or be the one left behind

Other | Everything is Better with Friends (invite a friend), Die Hard (finish without dying once), Happy Ending (hidden) | See tips below

Achievement tips

• Two playthroughs: swap roles on the second run to get the other side's escape/assist achievements, and swap who escapes at the end.
• Die Hard: finish the whole game without dying once. Take timed rooms slowly and methodically.
• Perfect plays: no mistakes in the room. Talk through every step before acting.
• Happy Ending (hidden): according to a top-rated Steam community guide, it's earned by interacting with a pink switch in the dungeon puzzle several times until confetti appears.
• Everything is Better with Friends: invite a friend through the game.

A two-run plan for 100%

The rarest achievements on Steam are Happy Ending (about 4% of players), Die Hard (about 7%) and Killer Performance (about 13%). Most of the rest are earned by roughly a third to two thirds of players simply by finishing rooms. That shapes the plan:

Run | Player A | Player B | Aim for

1 | Explorer | Librarian | All rooms, all perfect plays you can manage, Happy Ending in the dungeon, A escapes

2 | Librarian | Explorer | Swapped escape/assist pairs, any missed perfect plays, Die Hard, B escapes

• Save Die Hard for the second run. Solutions are still randomized, but by then you both know every room's method, so you aren't learning mechanics under time pressure.
• Perfect plays are per room. If you slip in one room, you can still get the perfect play for the next. Don't restart the whole game over one mistake unless you're on a Die Hard attempt.
• Happy Ending is easy to forget. Whoever is the Explorer in the dungeon should try the pink switch before finishing the room.
• Everything is Better with Friends only needs one invite through the game's own invite flow, so have the host invite the partner rather than joining some other way.
• Achievements are tracked per player, so the partner needs to be present for their side of each pair; there's no solo way to collect them.

Setting and Series Lore

The castle is inspired by Castle Rock, Antarctica: two explorers get separated inside an abandoned fortress in a frozen wasteland, with only walkie-talkies to connect them. Across the series, the story behind Castle Rock involves King Bartholomeus, his descent into madness, and the Court Jester, who tricks the King and steals immortality for himself. In this first game, the theater's gramophone narration, with its King, Queen and Mad King, is where most of the story comes through, so listen to it even when you're racing the marionette. We Were Here Too and Together tell more of it.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Using external voice chat. It removes the core challenge.
• Interpreting instead of describing. "It's the second symbol" is less useful than "a moon with three dots."
• Talking over each other. The walkie-talkie makes this messy. Take turns.
• Following a fixed-answer guide. Randomized puzzles make those wrong. Learn the method instead.
• Panicking in timed rooms. Slower and clearer is faster in the end.
• Forgetting the ending decision. Agree on who escapes before you get there, especially for achievement hunting.

Advanced Tips

• Assign a speaker per puzzle. One person leads each puzzle, and the other confirms.
• Use structured descriptions: position, then color, then shape.
• Take notes for longer puzzles like the theater and chess.
• Play with a stranger for a real challenge. The developers suggest it on the store page.
• Replay as the other role even if you don't care about achievements. It's practically a different game.

The We Were Here Series

Game | PC release

We Were Here | 3 February 2017 (free)

We Were Here Too | 2 February 2018

We Were Here Together | 10 October 2019

We Were Here Forever | 10 May 2022

We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip | 14 September 2023

We Were Here Tomorrow | 20 October 2026 (announced; $19.99 / €19.99 / £16.99 with a 10% launch discount)

We Were Here Tomorrow is set in the retro-futuristic Norček Industries facility and is described as the biggest entry yet, at around 15 hours. It supports cross-play across PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

FAQ

Is We Were Here free? Yes. It's the free pilot episode of the series on Steam.

Do both players need a microphone? Yes. The game requires both players to have a working PC-compatible microphone.

Can I play solo? No. It's strictly two-player online co-op.

Is there cross-play? Yes. Since October 2025, We Were Here, We Were Here Too and We Were Here Together support cross-play across PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.

How long is it? It's a short experience, a single evening for most pairs. Plan for a second run to swap roles.

Are the puzzles the same every time? No. Several puzzles are randomized, so solutions vary between playthroughs.

What did the latest patch change? Patch 2.0.21 (7 October 2025) improved pop-up buttons, the Friends and Social panel's handling of blocked players, and auto-save selection (it now picks your last played save). It also fixed invites received in-game while disconnecting to the title screen, and a gamepad issue on lower-end machines that lost controls when loading the main menu. If invites misbehave, make sure both players are on this version.

Sources

• Steam store page: We Were Here
• Steam global achievements: We Were Here
• Steam community guide: We Were Here 100% Achievement Walkthrough
• Wikipedia: We Were Here (video game series)
• Steam news: Cross-play update
• Steam news: Patch notes 2.0.21
• Steam news: We Were Here Tomorrow launches October 20th