Playing in Discord

ANKOU is played in Discord, as a voice channel Activity: everyone talks in voice and plays in the same squad. The Activity runs noticeably smoother than a browser tab, and your friends in the voice channel join you in one click. Your Discord account is your ANKOU account: you get your progress back on any computer.

Launching the Activity#

1. Join a voice channel on a Discord server, on a computer: in the Discord app (Windows, macOS, Linux) or on discord.com in a browser.
2. Click the voice channel’s 🚀 Activities button and pick ANKOU. On the ANKOU website, the Play on Discord button also opens the Activity in Discord.
3. The first time, Discord asks you to authorize ANKOU: the game needs to read your Discord name and avatar (and show your match in your status). Click Authorize ANKOU.
4. The game loads your profile and you land on the main menu. Its entries open one by one, just like outside Discord: the Hideout after a game of at least 3 rounds, the rest with your level (see Levels, ranks and prestige).

If you refuse or close the authorization window, the Activity shows “Permission needed” and the Authorize ANKOU button to try again.

Settings (graphics, audio, controls) are saved on the device: the Discord app and discord.com in a browser each keep their own. See Settings.

Voice channel lobbies#

In the Activity, members of the same voice channel automatically end up in the same game lobby: the first one to open the Activity creates the lobby, the next ones join it.

• Each game lobby holds 4 players. Beyond that, a second lobby opens for the same voice channel.
• If the first one in has already started a match (even the guided match), the next ones join it as reinforcements at the start of the next round (unless the host turned off join in progress), instead of ending up alone in another lobby.
• In the lobby, Join a match shows the Voice channel lobbies at the top: the list of your channel’s lobbies, Join the voice lobby, and New lobby for the voice channel to open another one.
• If you are not in the voice channel’s lobby (because you started a solo match, for example), the main menu shows Discord voice channel · Play with the channel’s members › Join.
• Leaderboards have a This Discord server view, limited to players from your server (Leaderboards, Barracks and Archives).

Otherwise, it is a game lobby like any other: host, ready, match settings, chat. See Lobby and match settings.

Inviting people#

From the game lobby:

• Invite to Activity opens Discord’s invite window, to invite server members;
• Friends (or F in menus) invites your ANKOU friends, even if they are in another voice channel or on another server (Friends and invites);
• the lobby code still works: a friend who launched ANKOU in their own voice channel can type it in Play › Join a match › Join by code.

An invite link to a lobby opens the ANKOU website, which shows “A friend is waiting for you in lobby …” with the code to copy: launch ANKOU in your Discord voice channel, then enter that code under Play › Join a match.

Invites shared from the game also count for the “Ferryman of Souls” referral program: see Bring your friends.

During the match#

• Your Discord status shows what you are doing (“Ker-Ys — Round 14 · 2/4”, “Private lobby — Ker-Ys”, “In the menus”…), visible to your contacts.
• Minimized Activity: if you shrink the Activity to a thumbnail or switch to grid view, you no longer control your character (your keys are released), but the match goes on. In multiplayer, your teammates are not paused: come back quickly.
• Close the Activity (main menu) takes you out of this voice channel’s game lobby; your progress is saved.

Mouse capture#

To aim, the game has to capture the mouse. Discord allows it: click in the window (“Click to enter the game”) and the mouse is captured; Esc releases it and opens the menu.

If capture is refused, the game shows Mouse capture denied and offers:

• Retry (often, another click in the window is enough);
• Play with free mouse: the cursor is hidden over the game and the view follows its movements. Keep it inside the window: if it leaves, the pause menu opens as if you had pressed Esc. If capture becomes possible again later, the game takes it back on its own.

See also FAQ and troubleshooting.

The website and your profile#

At the bottom of the Activity’s main menu, the Your full profile on the website ↗ link opens your public profile on the ANKOU website: rank, level, prestige, emblem and title, career and per-map stats, Hideout (modules, works, Keller’s Laboratory research, trophies, contracts), weapons and mastery, Battle Pass and challenges, achievements and archives, your last 20 matches with your teammates, and your leaderboard positions.

The website also shows the public leaderboards and lets you search for a player by Discord username (Ctrl + K or / opens search). Anyone can view profiles, without logging in, and they can show up in search engine results (Google…). Guest accounts and banned players have no public profile.

With Log in (through Discord), your profile also shows “Private” panels that only you can see: Ankou Coins, Moon Nectar, Hideout francs, Stash contents, consumables, Megas in stock, Double XP tokens, the Still and today’s daily order.

Direct messages from the bot#

After your first match, the game offers to enable direct messages from the ANKOU bot (“Enable” or “No thanks”), with an activation gift (one Mega and 30 minutes of Double XP). The bot sends you a welcome message right away: if it arrives, you get the gift. If not, Discord offers to add the app to your account: accept, come back to the game and click “Done”. If Discord still refuses, join the ANKOU Discord server (Discord server) and try again. You can also enable messages later in Settings › Account (Settings). If you said no, the offer comes back once, when you return to the menu while a Hideout job is running (“Generator: ready at 9:40 PM. Want a private message when it’s done?”). The bot’s messages include a link that launches the Activity.

Server recap#

After a match of at least 3 rounds started on a Discord server without the ANKOU bot, the host sees Your server · Add to server under the end screen title (once per server; you need to be able to manage the server). Once the bot is added, it posts a recap every Monday in the late afternoon (17:00 UTC) in the voice channel where you play (otherwise in the server’s system channel): last week’s matches and best match, the server record, this week’s challenges and a link that launches the Activity. It is written in the language most of your players chose. It stops after four weeks without a match; to turn it off, remove ANKOU in Server Settings › Integrations.

The bot tells you when a project or research in your Hideout is done, and pings you if you’re away: three messages at most (after 2, 6 and 14 days), never two messages from the bot within 48 hours, and a welcome-back gift waits for you in the game (The Hideout). If you leave early after your first matches, it also asks you once what went wrong: just reply, the developer reads everything. You can turn everything off in Settings › Account.

Known issues#

For anything else, see the FAQ and troubleshooting.

Checked against the game on November 10, 2026