Remote Multiplayer Won't Work In Editor

I am running in to an issue where multiplayer works locally for me, but I would like to be able to have my friend connect via the editor and also play. I cannot seem to get this to work, I have port forwarded UDP 7777 and have 7777 open on my firewall, we also have the exact same editor(he syncs with my github project) and if I package the game, and send that to him, multiplayer works just fine; however, that process can take 30min-an hour to package, compress, upload, and have him download it. It would be great if I could get mutiplayer working in the UE4 editor.

As far as I know, PIE doesn’t support networking.

You can make workaround for this scenario. You don’t have to perform packaging, you’ve said that you have your project in sync by github - that’s ok. Now, let’s find executable file of your editor, it should be in: Engine/Binaries/Win64/UE4Editor.exe. Your friend should also have the editor application. Then:

On server side execute: UE4Editor.exe GameName \Game\Maps\MyMap.umap?listen -game -log
This will create standalone server- a server that has also rendering thread and allows you to play. Remember to write path to your map - it’s relative path from content directory. Example: GameName\Content\Maps\MyMap.umap.

On client side execute: UE4Editor.exe GameName xxx.yyy.zzz.qqq -game -log

Where GameName is a name of your project, xxx.yyy.zzz.qqq is an IP address of a server.
More on this here: Command-Line Arguments in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation

Second thought, game could try to establish TCP connection, so maybe you could try connecting your friend via some VPN like tunnel - Hamachi or Tunngle. This will save your time, you will not have to redirect TCP ports.

Aha!! Thanks so much! I think this should solve the problem!