On what needed to be our tenth try at Elden Ring’s first main boss, Godrick the Grafted, the massive man froze. A pal and I have been utilizing the Seamless Co-op mod (opens in new tab) and Godrick, regardless of having a literal fire-breathing dragon-head for an arm, determined to give up. My fellow Tarnished bought roasted a second earlier so it was simply me and Godrick the Frozen. Cautiously I swung at him, prepared for his mind to show again on. It by no means did. I slashed away the final half of his well being bar and despatched him again into the ether. LEGEND FELLED. The mod might have damaged him, however we have been additionally a number of makes an attempt in and simply wished to maneuver on. A win is a win.
The Seamless Co-op mod solves all the issues with Elden Ring’s terrible multiplayer summoning system, but it surely additionally introduces a slew of recent ones when you’re enjoying with it. Generally they’re humorous: my pal bought to see my character trip an invisible horse plenty of the time. Generally they’re helpful: when certainly one of you dies, the enemies do not reset, so you’ll be able to cheese tougher dungeons. And generally they’re legitimately game-breaking: your potential to lock-on vanishes within the Radahn struggle, which primarily prevents anybody who performs a spellcaster from doing injury in any respect.
The mod sits proper in the course of being unplayable and superb. As Ted Litchfield wrote in his early impressions (opens in new tab) of it, it is merely one of the best ways to play Elden Ring with a pal. Nothing could possibly be worse than the conventional technique the place you must set a multiplayer password, drop a summon signal, wait to your pal to seek out it, after which be summoned in lengthy sufficient to defeat the realm’s principal boss. Within the Seamless Co-op mod, you set a password, have your pal open their world, after which you’ll be able to be a part of them for so long as you need. You might play your complete recreation with out ever getting kicked out.
On high of that, the Seamless Co-op mod helps you to each trip Torrent (regular co-op prevents any horsing round) and, as a part of a latest patch, you each can summon spirit ash allies anyplace you need. In some methods, enjoying with the mod is like enjoying in New Recreation+. There are some challenges right here and there, however you might have sufficient instruments to barrel by means of nevertheless you need. As a result of my pal was new, I let her paved the way by means of catacombs and castles. She skilled all of the little tips FromSoftware performs on you with ambushes and puzzle-like fight eventualities. And, if issues bought bushy, I might help utilizing what I’ve realized from my very own playthroughs.
New guidelines
The perfect moments with the Seamless Co-op mod are when issues go very improper. When the problem is at its highest, the mod modifications the way you method the sport. Regular enemies are extraordinarily vulnerable to getting staggered when two of you might be beating them up. We discovered this out reasonably rapidly within the early elements of the sport, so to maintain issues fascinating we took on the hardest enemies. The patrolling Tree Sentinel within the opening space is a bit more manageable when you might have two individuals taking swipes at him on horseback, however he can nonetheless pulverize you in a single hit. For that struggle, I outfitted the talisman that saved his consideration on me whereas I tanked him on the bottom. My pal performed the position of DPS and wore him down whereas he was distracted. It took us a couple of tries, however as soon as she landed that remaining blow it felt like beating a raid boss in an MMO: stepping into with a plan and adapting on the fly based mostly on the enemy’s conduct.
We additionally determined to skip many of the optionally available catacombs and dungeons till we completely wanted an improve or merchandise they supplied. This technique saved us rune-starved sufficient to make among the fights a real impediment. For Citadel Morne, we needed to take turns urgent ahead as certainly one of us bought killed, using the truth that enemies do not respawn except somebody rests at a grace. The participant that ate it may well run again with a small penalty to their stamina regeneration. There have been instances the place I deliberately bolted into a gaggle of enemies and dispatched probably the most highly effective one. I would doubtless die within the course of and go away my pal with the job of staying alive as I made my run again.
Below these new self-imposed guidelines, you are compelled to give you methods that differ from the singleplayer recreation. On my own, I crept by means of dungeons and realized the place enemies would seem. I would wait till they have been separated from the pack virtually like a stealth recreation, or I would pull them again to a protected spot. Flawed strikes could be the top and I would should attempt once more. In co-op, the objective is to cycle between one another lengthy sufficient to make it to the subsequent grace. To my shock, Elden Ring works nicely as a gauntlet in case you have somebody who finds it equally thrilling to assume on the fly.
Highway journey
Whereas not essentially distinctive to the co-op mod, re-experiencing Elden Ring’s open world with a pal who hasn’t seen any of it earlier than is a delight. It is like watching somebody play your favourite recreation for the primary time, however you get to be proper there with them.
I fully forgot till the door locked behind us that Gatekeeper Gostoc traps you in a darkish room with a brutal knight at the start of Stormveil Citadel. Nothing is extra scary for my pal than when one thing like that occurs and we’re each panicking. The identical factor occurred when she led the best way towards a gaggle of enemies in the course of a swamp in Limgrave and the big dragon flew down and barbecued her and everybody else. I’ve all the time stated that Elden Ring’s open world is mainly made to emulate the favored Darkish Souls memes (opens in new tab) the place some individual or animal positive aspects a well being bar and dramatic choir music begins. With persistent co-op, you’ll be able to stumble into all types of issues, which is basically what Elden Ring is all about.
The Lands Between additionally stay completely beautiful to take a look at. I believed a few of that may be misplaced whereas enjoying with a pal, however there have been a number of instances the place we have each crested a hill or got here out of a cave and stood there looking over the panorama. With two individuals, you might have the time to understand the day/night time cycle and the way it can create the form of imagery you’d normally see in staged screenshots. I desperately wished a photograph mode when all I might see on my display screen was our silhouettes as we galloped throughout the grassy hills of Limgrave, or once we stood in the course of the Radahn’s battlefield, soaked within the crimson rain.
The Seamless Co-op mod’s largest weaknesses are in probably the most scripted sequences, which find yourself being the principle Shardbearer boss fights, like Radahn and Rennala. You may’t respawn at a Stake of Marika close to them, so on high of AI and mechanics not working, you must do the total run again. I think about as we get deeper into the sport there might be fights which may verge on being legitimately maddening. However we’re midway by means of and the worst we have needed to cope with was the lock-on problem and certainly one of us not appropriately receiving runes as a reward for downing a boss—fortunately minor bosses are straightforward sufficient to farm souls from to alleviate that.
In any other case, the mod is like enjoying on a brand new issue mode. It is nonetheless Elden Ring, however with pockets of recent problem that in-turn create new surprises. The mod’s creator continues to replace it as FromSoftware rolls out new patches. It is doable that in some unspecified time in the future many of the bugs we encountered might be fastened. When that occurs, I will have zero caveats when recommending individuals to present the sport a shot with a co-op companion. I would not go as far as to say Elden Ring is solely higher with mates, but it surely’s simply one of the best ways to re-experience it if you understand somebody that’s prepared to affix you on the journey.
You may obtain Seamless Co-op from Nexus Mods (opens in new tab).