Eight Tips for Causing Maximum Chaos in Friends vs Friends From Day One

Each game of Friends vs Friends is played in rounds. At the start of each round, you’re dealt cards that can modify your abilities or sabotage your opponent’s. Once the round begins, you can use these cards without any restrictions until one player is defeated: either through card effects or with good old-fashioned guns (it’s still a first-person shooter, after all).

When a round ends, new cards are dealt and added to any unused ones you still have. Rounds continue until one player wins three times.

The cards you draw depend on your personal deck, which you can edit in the in-game menu located in Buddy’s Boulevard. All cards are accessible without spending real money – in fact, you can’t spend money on gameplay-related content at all. We’ve done this to keep the game as fair as possible.

The starter deck is as balanced as we could make it and gives you a good taste of the variety of strategies the game offers. Once you start earning booster packs with new cards, just experiment! Think about how two cards could work together, look for counters to cards you often face, and most importantly have fun. Don’t stress too much about “optimal” play.

However, the “Big Head” card in particular is a great choice for beginners. Use this one and you’ll be firing off some headshots straight from the get-go!

Most of the starting characters are distinct enough to feel unique. The rest unlock naturally as you play (again, there’s no payment system for this, every character is available to everyone, simply by playing).

That said, Spike Remington hits the hardest (literally Spike deals more damage than the others.)

As mentioned earlier, there are no truly overpowered cards, but certain synergies can put even the most experienced player on the ropes. We’re not going to list those combos here—that’s part of the fun to discover – but here’s our main tip: think of your deck as a whole rather than just a collection of individual, unrelated cards.

Cards also improve when you get duplicates of the same one. The more you play, the better their stats become. This progression is subtle and absolutely not game-breaking, we’re talking about percentage boosts only noticeable to very experienced players.

Maps in Friends vs Friends cover a range of styles, both visually and in terms of layout. Some are more open, others are tighter, but all are relatively small and quick to traverse. As with any shooter, mastering the maps is part of improving your game.

While they aren’t overly complex, there are certain tendencies like the importance of holding high ground. Still, you can adapt to the map dynamically thanks to your cards. For example, playing a wall-generating card in a hallway can effectively block an access point.

Play. Have fun. And if you lose, hit “rematch” and learn from opponents who seem more skilled. The penalties for losing are very low in this game, so it’s always worth observing when and how experienced players use their cards.

As developers, we’ve learned a lot just from watching people play our game.

(This advice might actually help you level up your IQ as much as your profile level.)

Just open card packs (never by paying real money) and hope for the best. There’s also a machine in the basement of the HUB designed to help complete your collection in the late game—so it’s not all RNG.

Complete missions—and yes, buying DLC helps too. We have several paid add-on packs that purely add cosmetic items, including new weapon skins and some awesome character outfits. So please, Buy Buy Buy… just kidding.