Play Tonight

Take a seat and play with whoever else is in the room. Play Tonight is a lobby, not a tournament. It does not spend a host plan, and it does not charge an entry fee.

Open it at gamerhosts.com/play. Signed-out visitors can read the board. Taking a seat needs a free account.

Open seats

The homepage, the games catalog, and each game hub list open seats.

• One open room links straight into that room.
• More than one links to the game hub so you can pick.
• None says so, and every card still has Start a party.

A party is 2–8 players for a catalog game. The size defaults to that game's team size when it fits, and to 4 when it does not. A full lobby launches once everyone is ready (see "Ready up" below). The same Discord server, game, and size reuse one open room.

Sit

A signed-in player sits by choosing a seat. Opening the page does not sit anyone. Starting a party sends the host to the room with a sit, so the host is in a seat on that click. A second sit in the same room is the same seat.

While the room is open, the seat can bump a puck on the table. The best rally shows on the room. It is a warm-up. It does not add XP.

The nightly session

Every night at 9:00 PM US Eastern the homepage calls a Rocket League session. The call stays up for two hours. It is a cross-platform lobby: pick the system you are on, take a seat, and ready up. When the lobby is full and everyone is ready, everyone gets the same code. You do not need Steam unless Steam is where you play.

Cross-platform lobbies

Play Tonight opens on five lobbies: NBA 2K27 Rec (5), Call of Duty Warzone quads (4), Rainbow Six Siege 5-stack (5), Rocket League Standard (3), and Fortnite squads (4). Pick the system you are on before you sit. The seat shows it so the host knows who to invite.

Any system, or your system only

The player who opens a lobby chooses who can sit:

• Any system is the default. Everyone the game lets play together can take a seat.
• Only my system keeps the lobby to players on the same system as the host. Steam, Epic, Battle.net, and Ubisoft Connect all count as PC.

The lobby says which it is: "Any system", "Xbox only", "PC only". If a lobby is not for your system, the page says so and sends you back to Play Tonight, where taking a seat finds a lobby you fit or opens one.

Ready up

Your seat shows your system. Press Ready on Xbox (or whatever you are on) when you are in the game and set. Everyone in the lobby sees who is ready, and on what, without reloading. If you change system, ready clears and you ready up again.

A lobby opened on the website launches when it is full and everyone is ready. If the lobby is full and someone has not readied up after 90 seconds, anyone seated can launch it, so one idle player cannot hold everyone up. The player who opened the lobby can still launch early with two or more seated.

A lobby opened from Discord's /play launches as soon as it is full.

Here or away

Each seat shows here while that player has the lobby page open, and away when they do not. It is a hint for the others. It does not stop anyone from playing.

Lobby chat

Players in a lobby can type to each other. Only the players in that lobby can read it. Messages are checked before they are posted, each one has a Report link, and you do not see messages from anyone you have blocked. The chat closes when the lobby is over.

Steam loads with steam://run. Fortnite on Epic loads with Epic's launch link. Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, mobile, Battle.net, and Ubisoft Connect have no launch link. The room tells you how to open the game on that platform. You can load it while the other seats are still open.

A console player does not need a linked Steam account. A Steam seat still does, and a recorded Steam ban still leaves that seat empty. The platform on the seat is not a verified Xbox, PlayStation, or Ubisoft account.

Siege stacks that include a PC player queue in the PC pool. A console player sets Crossplay to PC & Consoles before joining that stack.

The lobby shows what you have equipped in your locker: a character, and if you wear them an aura, a frame, and a title. Rook is free. Everything else is earned by playing. Three characters unlock from achievements, and the battle pass grants season originals, which are earned in that season only and never issued again. Nothing is for sale with coins or points, and nothing you wear changes the match or a prize.

When the lobby launches

The lobby page shows one panel with three things:

1. A button that opens the game, if your seat is on Steam, or on Epic for Fortnite. Other systems have no link, so the panel says to open the game there.
2. One step, written for you. One player leads the lobby: the player who opened it, or the lowest seat if they left. The leader reads what to create or who to invite. Everyone else reads what to accept or join, with the leader's gamertag in it.
3. The lobby code, with a copy button. Where a game uses it, the step says how: in Rocket League it is the private match name and its password.

"All the steps" under the panel has the longer version.

GamerHosts opens the game. It does not join a match or a queue for you, in any game. Someone in the lobby invites, and the others accept or join.

• League, TFT, Valorant, and Runeterra have no launch link. Open the Riot Client yourself.
• Smash is played on a Switch. The lobby code is a name you agree on, not a Nintendo arena ID.

Teams and results

If your lobby is playing a private match against itself, the result can count toward everyone's GamerHosts rating.

1. After the lobby launches, any player in it can press Make even teams. The lobby splits into Blue and Red using each player's rating in that game, and shows the chance it gives each side.
2. Until a result is reported, you can switch your own team, or reshuffle to the even split again.
3. When the game ends, someone reports which team won.
4. A player on the other team confirms. One team cannot confirm its own report. If the two teams report different winners, nothing is recorded.

Once it is confirmed, every player's rating in that game moves. No XP is paid for it.

If you are a squad playing strangers together, there is no result to report. Nobody in the lobby played against anyone else in it.

League custom

/play with no game, and Discord /play with no game, open a separate 10-player League custom. You pick a role. A rank floor and ceiling can be set. The score sticks when the other side confirms. A dodge after lock lowers reliability.

That room asks you to paste a custom code. It issues a Riot tournament code only when a production tournament id is configured. Naming a catalog game does not open this custom. League of Legends as a named game is the 5-stack party.

Discord

In a server where the bot is installed, /play with a game opens that party. /play alone stays the League custom. Event night is still the events schedule, not this lobby.