‘Elden Ring’ Is About To Get True Co-Op This Week

Games ‘Elden Ring’ Is About To Get True Co-Op This Week Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. May 25, 2022, 10:18am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Elden Ring FromSoftware This post was republished on 5/25.

Elden Ring is largely a solo experience, but like past FromSoftware games, does integrate multiplayer where you’re able to call in assistance in certain areas for tough battles, and it has PvP where you can battle other players through invasions. However, that’s about to change through a new, incredibly impressive-looking mod. It’s from LukeYui , a well-known FromSoft modder, and he’s been working on a true co-op mode for Elden Ring which will be out on Nexus Mods this Friday, May 27, for the PC version of the game.

Among the functionality the co-op mod has: Teaming up in combat anywhere in the game. It persists through player death. You can both ride your own horses.

Progression and item gain is shared. You can turn on friendly fire for extra chaos. You can spectate your co-op partner when you’re dead during a boss fight.

You can vote for fast travel. You can have a max of four players in your party. Enemies will scale to be harder with more players.

The public beta starts this Friday, and the mod says it will not get you banned because it is not using FromSoftware’s multiplayer servers, and does not use the anti-cheat because it runs off a separate launcher. Obviously this could create some problems in practice, but if it manages to work as intended, this seems like a pretty transformative experience that should make for a lot of fun. It’s unclear why despite having co-op elements, FromSoftware has never done full co-op in any of their games.

Maybe it’s a balancing issue, maybe it’s the aging game architecture, but I really am looking forward to giving this a try once the beta is live. It reminds me of dying for co-op Skyrim back in the day, considering I’ve never enjoyed exploring an open world as much as I have Elden Ring’s, since Skyrim. The evolution Bethesda came up with was The Elder Scrolls Online, which is not the same thing.

Too many games see a wish for open world co-op and think that means players want an MMO, when really, all they want to do is play with a friend or two. We’ll see how this goes during the beta on Friday, and this seems like it could be a really fun thing for streamers in particular. Update (5/25): It occurs to me that if you’re going to take the step to use mods for the multiplayer component, you might want to take a look at some others that players have been liking for a while now.

Among the options on NexusMods, where the multiplayer mod will be housed. Grand Merchant – This creates one central merchant that has most items you’re going to need instead of having to hop all around the map to a dozen different merchants trying to find stuff. Starter Saves For All Classes – If you want to play around with different classes but don’t want to start from ground zero every time, here are some starter saves for each of them.

Pause the Game – A mod that lets you actually pause the game instead of doing so through a convoluted series of menus. Item Randomizer – Randomizes all items in the game to mix things up a little bit as you explore. FP and HP Regen – It’s not a ton, but enough so that you don’t always have to be frustrated when you run dry from potions.

Frame Rate Unlock – This one is pretty self-explanatory for those who don’t want the frame rate to stay locked to its current max. Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram . Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls .

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy . Paul Tassi Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.