Elden Ring’s Popular Seamless Co-Op Mod Playable Once More After Creator Re-Writes It to Work With Shadow of the Erdtree [IGN]

Elden Ring’s immensely popular Seamless Co-op mod is back in a usable state for both the base game and the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, having been significantly re-written to account for changes made to the 2022 hit RPG by the new content.

“While not perfect, it has reached a state where it can be used to play Elden Ring and the DLC in co-op,” said Dalvik, a moderator for the unofficial addon’s dedicated Discord server, while speaking on behalf of the mod’s creator Luke Yui earlier this week, as spotted by PC Gamer.

As its name suggests, the Seamless Co-op mod dramatically overhauls Elden Ring’s objective-based co-op experience, allowing players to experience the base game — and now the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC — from beginning to end in one unbroken session with up to five other players. While using the PC mod, players are no longer booted back to their own game world upon death or the defeat of an area boss, and the restrictions to party movement imposed during vanilla co-op sessions are removed altogether allowing for easy exploration of the open world.

The addition of unfettered co-op makes Elden Ring’s ordinarily uncompromising difficulty a whole lot more manageable, and so the announcement that the mod is functional once more will come as welcome news to those struggling with the challenge posed by Shadow of the Erdtree.

Prior to Shadow of the Erdtree’s release, FromSoftware president Hidetake Miyazaki revealed he had no issues with players using the seamless co-op mod to make the studios’ games more approachable. Going one step further, he said that the developer may even consider implementing “beginning to end, total co-op” officially in future FromSoftware titles.

As of the time of writing the Seamless Co-op mod is sitting on a staggering 1.8 million unique downloads and counting, making it the most popular unofficial Elden Ring addon by far. The mod also now allows other players to join the host player’s game as an “evil spirit” using a special item, in lieu of the invasion system used in the vanilla game. Players will be unable to rest at sites of grace, or fast travel to them until they have killed the spirit. However, the mod’s author has warned that his creation is in an extended beta state, and will require testing following Shadow of the Erdtree’s release, with players “very likely” to experience bugs while using the mod.

Those looking to explore Elden Ring’s new content should check out IGN’s extensive guides and interactive maps to ensure that their tarnished is equipped with the weapons and knowledge needed to overcome Shadow of the Erdtree’s fearsome cast of bosses.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer