Multiplayer - READ THIS BEFORE BUYING FOR CO-OP gameplay and more so, search Reddit posts about multiplayer, I really wish we had! Probably too late to return now for us.
I don't generally review a lot of games unless they are really exceptional in one way or another. This one is so exceptionally bad for so called multiplayer that I literally signed up just to review it.
If you search for Elden Ring and multiplayer - you will read the overwhelmingly bad reviews about broken game mechanics in places like Reddit about their so called multiplayer.
It is so crippled as to be almost unplayable. If you are interested in a single player game, then Elden Ring *might* actually be worth playing - a lot of things seem otherwise well done and we've occasionally had fun for 5-10 minutes out of hours of gameplay.
My friend and I purchased this game just to play together and hang out because it is specifically listed as a co-op game and has overall good ratings. We only play socially, don't have time to waste on single player. It is epically terrible.
You have to, in game, summon your friend in to play, they also have to cast a spell to join you which works half or better of the time ... it is novel the first time, tedious and frustrating to get it to work, but novel. If that was it, cool, whatever, enjoy the rest of the evening.
But, once your friend is in the game, you can't roam anywhere without hitting a wall that you can only pass as a single player - you have to kick them out, transit, re-invite them waste 5+ minutes if it works right for absolutely no reason.
Some areas you can't invite them at all, or you're being attacked by a boss. Then lets say you get them in to play and you don't hit a wall blocking multiplayer passage, someone dies, you defeat a boss, someone's network glitches, they get dropped from your game and spawn halfway back across the map. You have to waste 10-15 minutes to virtually try and figure out a common place to spawn them back in, over and over again. It is like they just don't want people to actually enjoy their game and have fun playing with friends. Really, why even have a multiplayer if you can't do it halfway decently.
Co-op progress is also only for the host, so if you also want to get a new item, sword, spell, save point, or otherwise move forward, after playing the exact same thing as your friend - you have to play back through the exact same thing in your world all over again, and deal with getting kicked and disconnected over and over yet again too.
As if that isn't bad enough ...being a newer player right out of the gate who just wants to co-op and enjoy the game, you load into the world, you maybe get your friend in after 10 minutes of futzing around. About every 10 minutes a human player who is there to do nothing but go attack other human players randomly spawns in, they are probably 50+ levels above you!
Typically, you hit them 4-5 times, and do maybe 5 percent damage - they hit you once and you die instantly. Your friend gets kicked out and back across the map, you respawn and it completely disrupts the game while adding nothing but frustration - this isn't difficulty - this is unwanted PvP disruption. You can't turn invasions off, you can't play multiplayer off-line, you can't just play with your friend. Sure, we defeated the invaders a couple of times, but they are almost always higher level players, disruptive!
The game is already very hard from the start, you could be in the middle of fighting 3-4 tough enemies. Those enemies don't attack invaders, but the invaders will walk right up behind you while you are in an already difficult fight and one hit kill you from behind.
There is a counter invasion, where you can *eventually* summon in a hunter to help you fight the human invader - you're probably dead before they actually summon in after a few minutes, and it still doesn't fix the terrible mechanic. If you want PvP have a flipping arena or turn the feature on via opt in.
Some users argue that the only way to make the already challenging game challenging, is to keep the game disrupting invasions from human players - this is completely untrue and if I want a good co-op experience against the game, I shouldn't be forced to play with rando invaders disrupting the already terrible multiplayer mechanics. It seems like someone just likes harassing's other players and thinks they can somehow argue their desire to ruin other people's days as making good gameplay. (It should be an opt in ONLY feature if present at all, I'm sure the majority would opt out and those players who want to attack would be disappointed not having anyone to pick on.) A tough boss is one thing, a high level human player intent on PvP is an entirely different thing, and it isn't fun when unwanted.
We unfortunately bought this a bit ago, knowing what I know now, we would have returned it immediately or skipped it altogether. Which is sad, because the game has promise - if multiplayer wasn't completely crippled.
We still keep trying, hoping to have fun and just finding night after night of frustrating time wasting hoops and harassment preventing enjoyment of the actual gameplay.