How to find someone you used to play games with online

Before searching anywhere, write down everything you remember, even the fragments. The username or character name is the anchor, but the supporting details are what make a match certain rather than likely: the game, the server, realm or region, the guild, clan or team, the rough years you played together, and any memory that is specific to the two of you.

A distinctive nickname plus a server and an era is often enough on its own. Common nicknames need more — that is where the guild name, a shared event, or an approximate date does the heavy lifting.

People reuse handles. Search the exact username in quotes on a general search engine, then on the platforms where gamers of that era congregated: old forum archives, Steam, Discord, YouTube and Twitch. If the game had an official forum or a fan community, search there too — old threads are indexed for years.

If you have a screenshot with the name visible, an image search can occasionally surface other places the same image or avatar was posted.

The methods above all rely on you finding them. The problem is symmetrical, though — they may be looking for you too, or someone who knows them might be the one who recognises the clues. A public, searchable wanted post flips the search around: instead of only looking, you also become findable.

On XCORE.GG you publish a wanted post with the nickname, game, server and a memory. It gets its own public page that search engines index, so when the person (or a mutual friend) searches that old username, your post can be what they land on. You attach a small Cores bounty that rewards whoever makes the connection.

Lead with the exact nickname and game in plain text. Add the server or region, the clan or guild, and the years. Then add one human detail only the right person would know — the raid you wiped on, the map you always played, the running joke. That detail is what turns "might be me" into "that is definitely us".

Keep it public and shareable. The more places the post can be seen, the more likely the one person who remembers will see it.

Do not post other people’s private information — a real full name, address, workplace or phone number. It is unnecessary for recognition and it is unfair to the person you are looking for. Stick to in-game identifiers and shared memories.

Be patient. Reconnections often happen weeks or months later when the right person finally searches. A durable, indexed post keeps working in the background long after a one-off forum message has scrolled away.