// PC GAMER — GAMING
How to throw a LAN party in 2026
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Welcome to FOV 90, an FPS column from staff writer Morgan Park. Every other week, I cover topics relevant to first-person shooter enjoyers, spanning everything from multiplayer and singleplayer to the old and the new.
Welcome back, FPS enjoyers, for a locally-networked edition of FOV 90.
I turned 30 this past weekend, and when my fiancé asked me how I'd like to celebrate, I had exactly one idea: Use the occasion to convince my friends to haul their heavy PCs across town and have an actual, honest-to-god LAN party in 2026.
See, I missed the boat on LAN parties when they were a thing that still regularly happened, save one cherished memory of my uncle including 7-year-old me in a Halo: CE party with eight system-linked Xboxes. What little I know about the joys of local PC play I've absorbed from pictures and stories from my PC gaming elders.
We lightly themed our party around the 2000s, but the only plan was to play whatever sounded fun as a group. We ended up playing tons of Halo, a lot of Battlefront 2 (Classic), and a few rounds of Left 4 Dead 2 Versus, among other favorites. Drinks were drunk, pizza inhaled, grass smoked, and Mountain Dew Code Red respectfully included in mixed beverages.
The best way to play shooters is with friends, and the best way to be with friends is in the same room. Bring back the LAN party.
It was comfortably the best birthday party I've had as an adult. I was worried at first that going to all this trouble to play stuff that we could more easily set up over Discord would end up feeling pointless, but that was quickly disproven: Everything about playing shooters with your buds is more fun when they're actually in the room emoting, reacting, and trash-talking to your face. I want to make this a more regular thing, but honestly, it wasn't a smooth ride. We had issues both technical and logistical—some self-inflicted, some harder to predict. We really could've used a LAN veteran on the scene.
So while I wholeheartedly recommend you also get off of Discord and throw a LAN party with the people you care about, here are some tips to make sure it goes well:
My original non-plan was to have everyone set up their PCs wherever they would fit in our apartment. This would've been a disaster, as our tiny dining table and coffee table could accommodate three monitor/tower setups at the most. We ended up renting two six-foot tables and setting them side-to-side for one long battle station. We let everyone claim a spot as they arrived, and it worked out perfect for our mix of towers, laptops, and various Steam Decks.