More often than not, you can tell at a glance that Wild Hearts is similar to Capcom's Monster Hunter series of games. Both games are about players working together or individually to find and defeat monsters in a large open field. Players can obtain different accessories by defeating different monsters to craft better weapons and armor.

Omega Force studied the genre closely in Toukiden series before developing this game. These two games also happen to represent Capcom's best sellers in addition to, however, the poster child for the monster hunting genre.

Wild Hearts is not just a simple copy of Omega Force. The many familiar elements contained in the game, as well as the unique game identity created by Karakuri system, allow Wild Hearts to be quickly distinguished from its games of the same series by players.

In the Wild Hearts novels, Karakuri is just an ancient technique conjured up out of thin air by hunters. With this technology in action, it can be used as a fast-paced production system. Whether the player is in combat or not, it quickly opens up your available options and listens to a variety of different functions.

When you start with Basic Karakuri, you start by crafting a wooden box that will bounce you into the air when you climb up to the appropriate height. You can only stack up to three of these crates at a time. This is a technique that will come in handy as you explore space.

But it's another feature that really comes into play when players battle the various monsters in Wild Hearts, like the Kemono. When you're using these crates to jump and transition through blows, or use the height you get from bouncing to avoid area-of-effect attacks that spew pools of lava or poisonous clouds.

Whether it's as a springboard to dodge when the player is attacked, quickly jumping towards Kemono, or as a Springboard that allows the player to pass through gaps in large obstacles and kill monsters right on top of them. Most Karakuri have both functions.

Stacking these Karakuri is quick and easy, so you can quickly put as many pieces of equipment as you need into each battle.

Building wooden boxes and jumping to avoid danger in thrilling battles will become second nature to players. Doing this is as important as knowing how to choose the best weapon for you in each battle.

After that, you can also unlock various Fusion Karakuri, which can be used to form different combinations of Basic Karakuri to create more sophisticated devices.

For example, players can stack nine wooden boxes in three rows to form a solid barrier to block sudden incoming ejections or Kemono's tracks. You can also kill monsters in the air by summoning Gigantic Bouncing Hammers, Powerful Bombs, and Blinding Firework Cannons.

Obtaining a huge monster through a device created out of thin air is undoubtedly a huge advantage for players. However, the existence of various tools did not weaken the tense atmosphere in the game.

Every player needs to use Celestial Thread to build the device. If you run out, you can also get it by other means, such as cutting down trees or finding rocks, and extracting it by killing Kemono. These conditions also require you to think carefully and have a sense of strategic thinking when using Karakuri.

However, it also encourages you to work with others, pooling everyone's resources and building a larger wall to protect your teammates. Anyone can use this fence to carry out airstrikes, or to help others continue their activities when they run out of Celestial Thread.

Co-op play can be used in many ways, whether you're just throwing in a few friends at a party and it's possible to keep going. You also have the chance to revive each other, which makes Wild Hearts'multiplayer more accessible than Monster Hunters.

You can join fellow hunters by searching for active hunting sessions, or create a hunting session of your own, which makes it easier to cross-group with others.

If you're playing the entirety of Wild Hearts alone, the game's difficulty will climb dramatically. The first is Kemono known as Deathstalker. It is difficult for players to harm it.

Only by carefully observing its strengths and weaknesses, finding and killing other monsters, and upgrading and making its own weapons and equipment can it defeat this monster.

Of course, if you want to quickly upgrade to obtain these weapons and equipment, you can also choose to obtain Wild Hearts Gold to quickly upgrade and improve the game experience.

But if you can get the help of other players, it will be completely different, and it may be easy to kill monsters. If you don't like to play games with other people, you will probably be put off by the sudden difficulty.

Therefore, it is difficult to recommend Wild Hearts to players who like to play the game alone. However, this is also one of the charms of cooperative games. It's more cooperative than other monster hunting games.

When you're not building Magical Gizmos to help you hunt, you can also randomly choose one of eight weapons to help you deal damage to monsters.

These weapons range from the Katana to Hefty Maul to the hand cannon, each with its own stats, including different weapon specs that allow you to deal damage to monsters when certain requirements are met.

For example, when you use a samurai sword to attack a monster, a meter will appear, and only when it is filled can the Unbound mode be triggered to quickly damage the enemy.

At the same time, Karakuri Staff can also change into five different forms, including a staff, polearm, shuriken, double blades, and the building-sized juggernaut blade. And Bladed Wagasa is an umbrella that can be used for air strikes.

No matter which weapon you use, the character action in Wild Hearts will always thrill you. The weight of each weapon swing, the quick counterattack and escape from danger, all make the player feel like they are there.

Killing monsters certainly feels exciting, but the accompanying orchestral music adds a spooky vibe that also helps keep players in awe of each battle.

Plus, there's a lock-on system that's handy for targeting enemy bodies, but the system has a bit of a lag and often lets monsters flee because obstacles block the line of sight, which is more annoying than anything.

Wild Hearts is set in the fictional region of Azuma, an idea that comes from thinking about feudal times. Each location has its own unique style. Some of the beauty was worth seeing, but most were let down by low resolution and blur early on. Even though Wild Hearts looks great, performance-wise, it's pretty average.

Unfortunately, if PC settings do not meet or exceed the system recommendations, the player's game screen will often freeze during the entire game.

This situation is difficult to ease even by lowering the graphics settings, because it has almost the same picture performance at the highest and lowest settings.

Omega Force said that these problems have begun to improve and fix, so they hope these problems will become a thing of the past as soon as possible.

The core of Wild Hearts game doesn't stray too far from the theme of Monster Hunter series, but it's still surprising that the central mechanics around which the entire game revolves are still original.

Karakuri system enhances every part of Wild Hearts, including combat, co-op, airstrikes, and more. Some technical shortcomings hinder his development, but Wild Hearts is still a popular game and continues to enrich the genre.

Elden Ring is an open world with a vast territory. It covers a variety of amazing landscapes, such as the snowy mountains of Giants, the rugged terrain of Caelid, and the beautiful and dangerous landscapes of the lakeside region of Liunia. Elden Ring's open world is primarily about rewarding players who dare to explore the unknown. This part of Elden Ring players will start their exploration journey in Limgrave.

During this journey, although they will also encounter those disgusting monsters, but for the warriors That said, killing them and picking up the loot they drop (just like elden ring runes, Alberich's Pointed Hat, Crucible Hornshield and more) is also a nice experience.

It is a land of rich terrain and scenic beauty, with valleys, river courses and the dense forest of Mistwood. Don't let accidents on the road affect your good mood.

When players in Elden Ring enter Mistwood, they will see a structure called Siofra River Well in the center of Mistwood. This building is the access to the new underground area of Siofra River. While it's not mandatory for players to visit this area to complete the event, Siofra River is important for completing side quests for famous Elden Ring NPCs like Ranni The Witch and Blaidd. Players need to go deep into the underground area through the elevator in Siofra River Well and continue the player's exploration mission.

Under normal circumstances, players will not take damage from enemies during going deep into the underground area through Siofra River Well elevator at this time, but this situation was objected by an Elden Ring fan.

One Reddit user, crisppixel, noticed an unexpected surprise while passing the elevator at Siofra River Well in Elden Ring. And, they uploaded a video of the character appearing when they saw the accident in the elevator on Elden Ring subreddit. A few seconds after the elevator descends, Elden Ring player is suddenly hit by a falling bear, giving the player the effect of hopping in a panic like something out of a horror movie. The bear died from the fall damage and did not cause substantial damage to the player. However , the horrific screams of the bear after the fall also heightened the horror of the surrounding environment at one point.

Luckily enough, player crispixel said that, like the title of the video he posted, although he was not harmed in this adventure, he was still terrified. Meanwhile, Elden Ring community on Reddit expressed sympathy for the original poster. However, some expressed interest in wondering what else they would find if the bear hadn't died after the fall.

Some players joked that if something like what happened in the previous video, Elden Ring players should sue FromSoftware. Importantly, as players can see via Crispixel's video, Elden Ring gamers will have to stay on their toes throughout their adventures in The Lands Between.

The appearance of the bears in the video may have followed the player out of their original habitat in Mistwood and fell down the elevator, resulting in this terrible surprise. Aside from Mistwood in Limgrave, bears can be found in several places in Elden Ring, including Weeping Peninsula, Moonlight Altar, Altus Plateau and Capital Outskirts. These bears are actually not as dangerous as Runebears, but their appearance is also very dangerous for low-level players with low HP.

Also, if you are very eager to level up fast at this time, then you can make this goal by getting enough Elden Ring Runes & Items with code "CSCCA"(5% off) at IGGM.com. If you are interested in it, check out now!

We're going to talk about Erika, the newest character in Torchlight Infinite and of course I will show you the amazing budget Builder I'm using for her.

Erika's Intro

In the current season, Torchlight Infinite presented a new character. It is a cat lady called Erika. Her main strength is speed for those who like to zoom through maps and farm much currency in a short amount of time. But don't think that this means that Erica is weak. She is also capable of a huge attack speed and immense DPS. 

Erika is still in early access only for those who buy the Premium Season Pass. ShortLy, she will be available at the Pack Store and soon after that every player will be able to unlock her for free.

Erika's passive is called Cat's Agility. It gives you 20% more movement speed and grants 200% of your movement speed as damage to your attacks. This is awesome because investing in speed also grants a big deal of damage.

Hero Trait

Exploring Erika's Hero Trait, we find that she's perfect for a Multiskrike Build already on level 13. We get 200% increased Multiskrike chance and the Stalker stacks that grant more Multiskrike damage.

The following nodes grant many bonuses to your Cat's Agility, Stalker stacks and Multiskrikes. These are the nodes I chose from my build. Here, on level 32, some players pick the node Have Fun but I think Interest is more interesting because it caused your Cat's Agility buff to be active almost a 100% of the time and also grants that amazing movement speed buff that we know that also grants a lot of extra damage. 

Hero Relic

For the Hero Relic, I chose Soul Finale that comes with a huge critical chance and chance to do double damage. But don't forget that your relic must have at least two engrams unlocked and you must only engrave two memories on them. 

The build I decided to make for her is the Thunder Slash one because this skill already comes with Multistrike chance and deals more damage on Multistrike hits.

Another reason why this skill is great for Erika is that it's the first skill she gets since level one, so you have a long time to get used it to its gameplay.

Talents

For the talents, it's important to pick nodes that grant movement speed, melee damage, area damage, lighting damage, critical chance and so on.

For that matter, let's start picking the Goddess of Hunting here. Beside many great nodes, we get the Keystone Paralyzed that reduce enemies Lightning Resistance in up to 32%. 

We also find Rush that not only grants you 20% more movement speed but also 35% more damage if you were recently moving.

For the second talent tree, let's go with Blade Runner for the Keystone Transition that grants a chance for your critical strikes to do a lot more damage. 

After that we pick Quick Advancement for the extra Multistrike damage.

Finally, for the last tree, let's pick Ranger. This one comes with many useful nodes for extra attack speed, area of effect and critical strike chance.

For the first keynode, let's pick Gravity for 20% more melee damage the next one is Impending that cause nearby enemies to take up to 30% more damage. This is a very powerful node.

Equipments

There are three equipments that are very important for this build to work.

The first and most important is the Farewell Desire. This sword is perfect for this build. It creates a good amount of DPS, 200% increased chance of Multistrike, +1 Multistrike and chance to obtain Steep Strikes on Multistrikes.

Although this sword is very powerful and not expensive, it comes with a downside. It consumes 1% of your life in Mana whenever you kill an enemy. That's why it's very important to look for Life Regeneration in the rest of your gear.

Following, we have the Mark of Thrill. These gloves grant Fervor for more attack speed and critical strike chance. They also causes your attack should not consume any Mana while you have Fervor. This is super important for you to activate all of your Auras. 

Finally, we have the Illusory Ocean Silk - Thunder. This amulet has many awesome mods. It granted lightning damage to attacks, +1 to Agility Blessing stacks and most important it curses enemies with Electrocute for more lighting damage taken.

Main Skill

For the main skill, I've chosen the Turning Slash. As mentioned before, I supported it with Mark, Raging Slash, Critical Strike Damage, High Voltage and Elemental Impact.

For the regeneration skill, I got Life Source.

For movement, I kept blink and for buffs Bull's Rage and Fearless War Cry.

As for auras, I got the Thunder Spirits for the amazing attack speed buff. It provides and also got Fearless for the critical damage buff.

Now for the last one, I made a Cast on Crit setup. Here, I linked Fixate and Thunderlight Field to be triggered on Critical Strikes. Fixate will Mark nearby enemies, giving you more chance to do double damage. Thunderlight Field on the other hand will create an area that causes your attacks to be lucky. This setup grants a lot more damage.

This Thunders Slash Build is a great alternative to the Meta Dex stacking Berserking Blade Build. It builds because it goes for about 5% of the cost and it still deals a lot of damage.

As you can see in the Training Dummy, this build is more than enough for you to clear all endgame content and have a smooth ride while doing it. 

Path of Exile has recently fixed some bugs in the latest patch, including bug fixes and improvements in 3.20 Sanctum League.

This patch mainly fixes those bugs. After the holidays, many teams have returned to their posts, so we will often see this kind of housekeeping patches. In this case, this patch has fixed everything from three client crashes, one instance crash, to one display error. For example, when you use Path of Exile Currency to get some items from a merchant, and the last remaining items are still on the list. You can also safely dismiss NPCs in your hideout after the team fixes this bug where you couldn't pack them up.

The adjustment to Death Toll Major Affliction is also one of Sanctum changes, reducing 250 Resolve in place of Aureus Coins. Today, as more and more people know about Lycia, Unholy Heretic battle has greatly increased its popularity. Scourge's lightning wave also no longer produces large and small lightning bolts, but instead produces many and small lightning bolts. When a monster dies, the visual effect of its explosion also disappears to avoid affecting the vision. In addition to these, the changes include text corrections and clearer descriptions.

This time, the team also adds a new game to the patch, Voidborn Reliquary Key. The reliquary itself has 1231 options to thwart possible Unique items and will continue to work so that the items are all in place.

There are also some penalties Ruthless mode has also been a series of corrections. Previously, The Imagined Pursuits Atlas Passive, when encountering Delirium, increased Cluster Jewels by 800%. Today, 800% has been corrected to 10%, making Cluster Jewels even rarer when you encounter Delirium. At the same time, a bug with Vaal Venom Gyre has also been fixed so that you can no longer get Vaal Venom Gyre by mistake in Ruthless in the future. Ruthless is built on scarce foundations, and the two are clearly mutually exclusive.

If you want to read the full patch notes, you can head over to official Path of Exile website.

In a match against Malenia, an Elden Ring player was successfully defeated, but Waterfowl Dance did not appear at the match this time. Blade of Miquella made a name for herself in Elden Ring with one specific attack of her own, making it the most challenging boss.

Some FromSoftware veterans will have the sense of achievement by their victories in some difficult games. A player discover a certain Spirit Ash that can successfully stun and kill Malenia and win. Now Malenia can be called the most tough boss in the history of FromSoftware since its release.

On the one hand, players enjoy the feeling of challenging various competitions and achieving the ultimate victory. On the other hand, as the difficulty of the game continues to increase, players also need to keep pace with the times, learn more useful knowledge and prepare more Elden Ring Runes or items before starting new challenges to ensure their smooth passing. However, on the road to success, occasional failure is also very normal.

1.When Reddit user superepic13579 played the game earlier, he was in an excellent position to obliterate "Nihil" Malenia's health with Bloodboon Ritual skill of Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear. Afterwards, Goddess of Rot gradually entered its second phase and pay attention to the player's Mimic Tear. The Tarnished, with full health, seems to have seen his victory. It was such a harrowing experience that led the player to post this video to Reddit.

2.After switching to Rivers of Blood Katana, the player calmly and quickly uses Corpse Piler to stagger Malenia. Later, FromSoftware thought this skill was too powerful, so it was changed to cause damage and Hemorrhage build-up. As soon as a couple escaped from a defeat, the rotting female swordsman immediately jumped up and kicked the player, so that the couple couldn't dodge this attack in time. Since they couldn't restore their health, they devised another method, which was to use another Corpse Piler to kill Malenia. But, at this very moment, they knew they were doomed.

3.Immediately, Malenia stretches out one of her hands, rushes at the Tarnished while still in the attack animation, throws them into the air, and impales her soul on her weapon. The Shardbearer's most damaging single attack is this one. It kills the player instantly, and it's a one-line attack that many players are all too familiar with.

Later, Reddit user said in the video that they had never thrown the controller before this loss, but after this loss, they almost did. Fortunately, they tried again later, and it worked. So, in the Elden Ring community, it's better to enjoy playing the game than to be frustrated with the outcome of the game.

Shortly after performing a full analysis of The Witcher 3 Next-Gen on Xbox Series X and PS5, those folks over at Digital Foundry are back to do a full once over of the Xbox Series S version of CD Projekt RED's RPG.

Much like the Series X and PS5 analysis showed us, The Witcher 3 on Xbox Series S is a bit of a mixed bag overall. DF notes that those input latency problems present in the quality mode on Xbox Series X are still here, even if the overall performance at 30FPS is better thanks to a lack of ray tracing on Xbox Series S.

"Looking at performance, Series S impresses initially, hitting a rock-solid 30fps, no matter what I threw at the console and no matter which of the classic stress points I used. Even in the Heirarch Square, which is a real CPU stress-test for PS5 and Series X, there are zero issues.

Series S has the same high NPC count as those much more powerful consoles, although without the ray-tracing features, and it's absolutely holding 30fps, unlike the two more expensive machines."

That lack of RT is a bit of a bummer, but at least the frame rate holds up nicely. However, over in the performance mode, the Xbox Series S version doesn't fare quite as well. There are some major frame rate drops in the machine's 60FPS performance mode, dropping down to the low 40s in that aforementioned stress point; the Heirarch Square.

"Unfortunately, it's not a solid 60fps lock by any means. For most horseback riding in the wilds, Series S hits the mark mostly, but there are significant dips anywhere around Novigrad's centre, with lurches down to the low 40s as we go through Heirarch Square.

This is much worse than PS5 and Series X are in their own performance modes, and truly is the very worst performing section of the game we've found."

The performance mode does improve in more open, less NPC-dense areas, but it's still a very varied experience overall on Xbox Series S. It seems the 30FPS quality mode option is the more stable way to play right now, although with that mode's input delay issues, DF finds it hard to fully recommend either mode right now.

"It's a strange situation but the verdict is similar to the one we had on the two premium machines. The Series S Complete Edition needs a bit more time and some more work to iron out its rough points.

Fundamentally there's a great release of The Witcher 3 for Series S owners here, and it's perhaps just a patch or two away from where we need it to be."

Ultimately, it looks like the Witcher 3 is still a whale of a time on Xbox Series S despite some lingering performance issues, which sounds very similar to our own Xbox Series X experience at launch. We're hoping CDPR cleans this one up in the new year, so we can all enjoy a more consistent current-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

No professional career is eternal, especially in League of Legends.

With every offseason being quite unpredictable and every organization in the scene looking to secure a roster capable of winning trophies, it’s no surprise that some pro players are left behind and aren’t picked to compete professionally.

In League, this usually means that such individuals turn over to streaming full-time. That way, they can still polish their abilities, stay sharp, and wait for a potential offer from an organization to join its ranks.

As of now, there are a bunch of pros who have done exactly that: focused on streaming. Some of them are looking for potential offers in the future, while others remain undecided or gave up on coming back to the professional scene.

Here are six League of Legends pros who will enter 2023 as full-time streamers.

Broxah

Broxah is one of the few Western players to have reached the World Championship final when he became a Worlds 2018 semifinalist with Fnatic. Since then, he’s also played under Liquid and CLG’s banners. By the end of last year, he decided to become a full-time streamer, while also leaving the door open for potential opportunities. He rejoined Liquid as a content creator in January 2022, and not much will change in the nearby future. On Dec. 21, Broxah announced that in the first half of 2023, he will continue doing what has worked for him for the past year: streaming, appearing on LEC broadcasts, and more. At the same time, he’s uncertain about his plans for the second half of the year.

IWillDominate

IWillDominate is certainly one of the most renowned full-time streamers in the League community. He’s been creating content since 2016 for Liquid and Cloud9. He parted ways with the latter on Dec. 21, though the exact reasons behind that decision are unknown so far. Still, there are no reasons to believe that IWD will bid farewell to streaming. He has created a significant community and become one of the biggest personalities in the esports and gaming ecosystem.

Nemesis

After being unable to find a team in the 2020 offseason, Nemesis decided to also try his luck in streaming. And so far, that has been working tremendously, to say the least. The 23-year-old was picked up by Gen.G in January 2021, and since then, he’s created a bunch of content, often teaming up with other personas from the scene, like LS. With no updates from Nemesis regarding his future, it’s more than likely that he’ll continue broadcasting in 2023.

Bwipo

Bwipo joined Liquid by the end of 2021 in the hopes of claiming new successes with the North American squad, which at that time assembled a superteam, with the Belgian being one of the main stars. The following season turned out to be a fluke, though, and after a revamp of the roster, Bwipo has found himself teamless. As a result, he announced on Dec. 1 that he will be streaming in 2023. He also said he will be evaluating his future options as time goes by, so he might return to the pro scene eventually.

Pobelter

The North American LCS has many renowned mid laners and Pobelter is certainly one of them. With almost 10 years of professional gaming experience, Pobelter truly etched his name in the history books for his numerous appearances on the international stage and domestic trophies. He stopped playing professionally in February 2021 and has been focused on streaming ever since.

PowerOfEvil

In 2017, PowerOfEvil was just one game away from taking down Faker and SKT T1 in the Worlds quarterfinals. After that deep run on the international stage, the German has played for five different North American organizations, and it looks like now a small hiatus awaits him. The 25-year-old announced that he’s returned to Germany to focus on streaming after a lack of interesting offers this offseason. Still, he sees himself as one of the strongest mid laners in the game and would like to return to pro play in the future.

While not perfect, the co-op mod is the best way to re-experience this tremendous RPG.

On what had to be our 10th attempt at Elden Ring's first major boss, Godrick the Grafted, the big guy froze. A friend and I were using the Seamless Co-op mod (opens in new tab) and Godrick, despite having a literal fire-breathing dragon-head for an arm, decided to surrender. My fellow Tarnished got roasted a second earlier so it was just me and Godrick the Frozen. Cautiously I swung at him, ready for his brain to turn back on. It never did. I slashed away the last half of his health bar and sent him back into the ether. LEGEND FELLED. The mod may have broken him, but we were also several attempts in and just wanted to move on. A win is a win.

The Seamless Co-op mod solves all of the problems with Elden Ring's awful multiplayer summoning system, but it also introduces a slew of new ones once you're playing with it. Sometimes they're funny: my friend got to see my character ride an invisible horse a lot of the time. Sometimes they're useful: when one of you dies, the enemies don't reset, so you can cheese harder dungeons. And sometimes they're legitimately game-breaking: your ability to lock-on vanishes in the Radahn fight, which essentially prevents anyone who plays a spellcaster from doing damage at all.

The mod sits right in the middle of being unplayable and glorious. As Ted Litchfield wrote in his early impressions (opens in new tab) of it, it's simply the best way to play Elden Ring with a friend. Nothing could be worse than the normal method where you have to set a multiplayer password, drop a summon sign, wait for your friend to find it, and then be summoned in long enough to defeat the area's main boss. In the Seamless Co-op mod, you set a password, have your friend open their world, and then you can join them for as long as you want. You could play the entire game without ever getting kicked out.

On top of that, the Seamless Co-op mod lets you both ride Torrent (normal co-op prevents any horsing around) and, as part of a recent patch, you both can summon spirit ash allies anywhere you want. In some ways, playing with the mod is like playing in New Game+. There are some challenges here and there, but you have enough tools to barrel through however you want. Because my friend was new, I let her lead the way through catacombs and castles. She experienced all the little tricks FromSoftware plays on you with ambushes and puzzle-like combat scenarios. And, if things got hairy, I could assist using what I've learned from my own playthroughs.

New rules

The best moments with the Seamless Co-op mod are when things go very wrong. When the challenge is at its highest, the mod changes how you approach the game. Normal enemies are extremely susceptible to getting staggered when two of you are beating them up. We found this out rather quickly in the early parts of the game, so to keep things interesting we took on the toughest enemies. The patrolling Tree Sentinel in the opening area is a little more manageable when you have two people taking swipes at him on horseback, but he can still pulverize you in a single hit. For that fight, I equipped the talisman that kept his attention on me while I tanked him on the ground. My friend played the role of DPS and wore him down while he was distracted. It took us a few tries, but once she landed that final blow it felt like beating a raid boss in an MMO: going in with a plan and adapting on the fly based on the enemy's behavior.

We also decided to skip most of the optional catacombs and dungeons until we absolutely needed an upgrade or item they offered. This method kept us rune-starved enough to make some of the fights a genuine obstacle. For Castle Morne, we had to take turns pressing forward as one of us got killed, utilizing the fact that enemies don't respawn unless someone rests at a grace. The player that ate it can run back with a small penalty to their stamina regeneration. There were times where I intentionally bolted into a group of enemies and dispatched the most powerful one. I'd likely die in the process and leave my friend with the job of staying alive as I made my run back.

Under these new self-imposed rules, you're forced to come up with strategies that differ from the singleplayer game. By myself, I crept through dungeons and learned where enemies would appear. I'd wait until they were separated from the pack almost like a stealth game, or I'd pull them back to a safe spot. Wrong moves would be the end and I'd have to try again. In co-op, the goal is to cycle between each other long enough to make it to the next grace. To my surprise, Elden Ring works well as a gauntlet if you have someone who finds it equally thrilling to think on the fly.

Road trip

While not necessarily unique to the co-op mod, re-experiencing Elden Ring's open world with a friend who hasn't seen any of it before is a delight. It's like watching someone play your favorite game for the first time, but you get to be right there with them.

I completely forgot until the door locked behind us that Gatekeeper Gostoc traps you in a dark room with a brutal knight at the beginning of Stormveil Castle. Nothing is more scary for my friend than when something like that happens and we're both panicking. The same thing happened when she led the way toward a group of enemies in the middle of a swamp in Limgrave and the gigantic dragon flew down and barbecued her and everyone else. I've always said that Elden Ring's open world is basically made to emulate the popular Dark Souls memes (opens in new tab) where some person or animal gains a health bar and dramatic choir music starts. With persistent co-op, you can stumble into all sorts of problems, which is really what Elden Ring is all about.

The Lands Between also remain absolutely stunning to look at. I thought some of that would be lost while playing with a friend, but there have been several times where we've both crested a hill or came out of a cave and stood there looking out over the landscape. With two people, you have the time to appreciate the day/night cycle and how it can create the sort of imagery you'd usually see in staged screenshots. I desperately wanted a photo mode when all I could see on my screen was our silhouettes as we galloped across the grassy hills of Limgrave, or when we stood in the middle of the Radahn's battlefield, soaked in the crimson rain.

The Seamless Co-op mod's biggest weaknesses are in the most scripted sequences, which end up being the main Shardbearer boss fights, like Radahn and Rennala. You can't respawn at a Stake of Marika near them, so on top of AI and mechanics not working, you have to do the full run back. I imagine as we get deeper into the game there will be fights that might verge on being legitimately maddening. But we're halfway through and the worst we've had to deal with was the lock-on issue and one of us not correctly receiving runes as a reward for downing a boss—thankfully minor bosses are easy enough to farm souls from to alleviate that.

Otherwise, the mod is like playing on a new difficulty mode. It's still Elden Ring, but with pockets of new challenge that in-turn create new surprises. The mod's creator continues to update it as FromSoftware rolls out new patches. It's possible that at some point most of the bugs we encountered will be fixed. When that happens, I'll have zero caveats when recommending people to give the game a shot with a co-op partner. I wouldn't go so far as to say Elden Ring is purely better with friends, but it's easily the best way to re-experience it if you know someone that is willing to join you on the journey.

You can download Seamless Co-op from Nexus Mods (opens in new tab).