Why You Should Play Elden Ring in Multiplayer
I could tell you that you should play Elden Ring as a co-op game simply because it’s fun or because it makes the game so much easier. Both are true! But here are a few more specific benefits of multiplayer, even if you usually enjoy solo adventures.
- Boss fights are based on aggro control. With multiple players, it’s much easier to manipulate the boss’s attention, giving each other time to heal or simply interrupting their attacks. It’s also easier to build up their stun meter, opening them up for a critical hit.
- Helping other players is a great way to level up. By placing your summon sign or using the summon pool, you can enter another player’s world and help them defeat a short dungeon or boss. You will earn runes for each kill, and if you die, you will not lose anything.
- You can study the bosses before you fight them in your game. Place your summon sign in front of the boss door and you can help other players get through the fight safely by learning to read the boss’s attacks before facing them yourself.
- Other players can deal more damage than Summon Ashes. If you’re really struggling with combat and your AI challenge isn’t helping, try this player instead. With any luck, you’ll find someone with a two-handed sword or high-level magic to save your bacon.
- PvP gives you a reason to rethink your build. There are so many weapons, spells, and items in Elden Ring, most of us will only experiment with a small portion of them as we progress through. Playing against other players is a good excuse to try out completely different weapons and stats that are more suited to duels than AI mobs.
Elden Ring Co-op: How to Enable or Disable Multiplayer
At the beginning of the game, you are given the option to play online or offline. You can change this at any time in the Network section of the Systems tab in the menu, although you will need to restart the game for the changes to take effect.
Even if you are not sure about multiplayer, I highly recommend playing online. This way you can see messages from other players as well as their blood splatter which gives you an idea of how they died. This can be really useful information and also just adds flavor to FromSoftware games.
Essential Items for Elden Ring Multiplayer
Multiplayer in Elden Ring is built around the concept of calling other players into your game world (or vice versa) with the help of various items. The names for them can be a bit confusing, but they’re all conveniently placed in one menu. Here is a summary of the main multiplayer items:
- Ringing Finger Remedy: Use this item to locate other players’ summon signs, which are often located around Boon Places, in front of summoning pools, or near boss doors. Consumable but easily craftable.
- Tarnished’s Curled Finger: Use this item to place a summon sign on the ground. Other players will be able to see this and invite you into their game. Endless use.
- Little golden scarecrow: Send your Summon Token to multiple Summon Pools so players can easily Summon you. Think of it like entering a dungeon queue in an MMO or tagging yourself as an LFG. Endless use.
- Finger Severer: Use this item to return to your game if you have been summoned, or to kick another player you have summoned from your online session. Endless use.
- Duelist’s Curled Finger: Same as Tarnished’s Curled Finger except in PvP. Places a red sign that allows you to challenge another player to a duel. Endless use.
- Purulent bloody finger: An attempt to break into another player’s game. (Please note that you will only invade the worlds of players who have already summoned comrades to play together). Endless use.
Apart from these, there are a few other multiplayer items, but these are the ones you will use the most, whether you want to cooperate with friendly players or participate in PvP scraps.
How to play Elden Ring co-op
If you’re playing Elden Ring online, you’re ready to jump into multiplayer at almost any time, either by summoning players to your game or by being summoned to someone else’s.
This is easy to do, but one thing to keep in mind: in the open world of Interearth, playing in multiplayer mode means forgoing access to your Ghost Horse. You will also not be able to enter dungeons and other separate areas. This is a bit inconvenient, so it’s often more practical to enter a dungeon before starting a multiplayer session. However, if you find a particularly strong enemy in the world, you can still try to call for help!
Here’s how to start a multiplayer session.
Use multiplayer passwords to play together with friends
In the multiplayer menu, you can set a multiplayer password that will only show challenge signs from other players using the same password. Set a unique password with your friends to make it easier to have a party.
Summon signs
In order to find the Signs of Summoning left by other players in the Interterrane, you will need to use the item Cure from the Stab Finger. This is a crafted item that uses Airdleaf flowers found in bushes throughout the game. Once used, you will be able to see any summon marks left by other players. In order to do this, you will need to buy a crafting kit from the Kale merchant in Elleh Church right after the Abandoned Cemetery. If you have already passed it, you can always quickly get there.
Pay attention to the color of the call sign: gold signs indicate cooperative players, and red signs mean that players want to challenge you.
If you want to create your own summon sign to join another player’s game to help, you need to use the “Tarnished’s Rolled Finger” item.
Summon Pools
They are located next to the images of martyrs – eerie statues with outstretched arms. They can be found in various places in the Intervening Lands and are usually near bosses and dungeon entrances. These images signal the presence of a Summon Pool that you interact with to activate. Once you activate it, you use the Little Golden Effigy item to send your own Summoning Mark to the pool. You can get this item from the first effigy of the martyr right at the entrance to the Lost Graveyard.
Summon Pools to have the advantage that you automatically send your Summon Token to multiple nearby pools at the same time, so you are likely to be summoned much faster than if you placed a single sign with Tarnished’s Curled Finger.
To see the signs around the summon pool and summon another player to your game, you will still need to use the Furlcalling Finger cure.
