Ever since Elden Ring released on PC modders have been tinkering with FromSoftware's brilliant RPG, and by far the most popular out there is the Seamless Co-op mod, which has been downloaded 3.8 million times. FromSoftware's games have gravitated towards making co-op easier, but Elden Ring still imposes considerable restrictions on the length of time you can spend together. Seamless Co-op simply says "sod that", and lets you play through the entire game with a buddy.
The release of Elden Ring's major new expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, can be expected to cause some problems for mods, and Seamless Co-op is among them. Indeed, as soon as Erdtree was released, players noted that Seamless Co-op had stopped working. But the mod's creator, Luke Yui, is on the case and reckons he's already successfully rewritten it but has to do some testing before releasing it.
"The DLC has been out for half an hour," writes Yui in the mod's Discord. "The Seamless Coop rewrite has been patched to support it—however, it still needs to be tested. Also, some features and bugfixes from older versions are still missing from the rewrite, and they're big enough to hold off the release until they're implemented [...] I'm putting all the efforts I can manage to release the mod as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience."
Elsewhere Yui says the rewritten version is "in good working order", and adds that when the update is released "you will not lose your save files." Finally there's a reminder, one perhaps a few players could use, that this is an individual modder doing this in their spare time and releasing it for free: "Please understand that I work long hours."
It's not like Elden Ring players don't have enough to get their teeth into. Shadow of the Erdtree is by all accounts tremendous, as well as tremendously big to an extent no-one was expecting, even if a bit of seamless co-op probably wouldn't go amiss in the later areas. PCG's Wes Fenlon recently had the chance to interview FromSoftware CEO and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki, and funnily enough the Seamless Co-op mode was addressed.
"It's definitely not something we actively oppose or want to downplay, wanting to go through the whole game together," said Miyazaki. "In terms of where we were with Elden Ring, it was simply a case of wanting that more loose, casual style—drop in, defeat a boss, drop out. It doesn't put any technical restrictions on the player, it just sort of lets them complete this focus and then move on, so to speak.
"That's not to say we won't consider other ways like you and your friend played, from beginning to end, total co-op—that's not to say we won't consider ideas like that with our future games."
Politeness, or a possible hint as to where FromSoftware's going in the future? For the moment, players will merely have to make do with the best expansion of recent years and, if you want to play the whole thing seamlessly with a buddy, give one hero modder a few days' grace to make it happen.
