While Elden Ring is technically can be played in co-op, the intricate way developers FromSoftware has implemented the mode means that hardly anyone ever bothers. That’s changing, thanks to this incredible courage by LukeYui.
It does … basically what you would have hoped the official co-op would do, by letting you and some friends jump into the game together and just play, with no strange rules or restrictions in the way. Here is the official description:
In short, the mod allows you to play with friends throughout the game without restrictions. With this, it is theoretically possible to play the game from tutorial up to the final boss completely in a collaborative session.
– If a player dies, they will revive in the same world at the last bonfire they rested at. The session will not end.
– Defeating enemy bosses and clearing areas no longer sends collaborators home.
– All fog walls / barriers that normally restrict the multiplayer zone (along with their respective teleports) are gone.
– All players can use the torrent (provided they have the whistle) in a session together.
– All mapway points are synchronized, so you can more easily navigate around the world in a group.
– When a player rests on a Site of Grace, the world state is reset for all players. This is necessary to prevent the enemy from synchronizing.
– Game progression events conducted in online games will also advance the game in your own world.
Players can freely explore the entire playing card (upper world, underground, ancient dungeons, etc.) together and can be split if they wish.
Anyone can use Torrent? Are waypoints synchronized? Your progression continues? Isfantastic! To make it all work, of course, a few changes had to be made to the basic experience. Most importantly, being able to wander around indefinitely with friends makes the game much easier, so a number of balance adjustments have been made, including adding a third level of enemy scaling, locking anyone who dies in a boss fight in a spectator mode and to inflict advice on anyone who dies in a co-op session.
Invasions are away because they do not work with the way the co-op mode had been built, and Stakes of Marika have also been removed because they cause “connection problems”. And it all basically comes with a warning that even though it works, it’s still a work in progress and that players will encounter errors throughout.
If you want to install the mod and try it yourself, you can find it here.