I’m not a Soulslike guy, which is a great way to start an article if you want to be mocked relentlessly in the comments. If you read my recent Wukong preview, you know I’m not the game’s target audience. While I appreciate that tough fights are more rewarding to overcome, I just don’t have the patience to git gud (I could beat them, I just don’t want to). I’m not saying Elden Ring isn’t great, I’m just saying it’s not for me. I’m not interested in suffering alone in my living room while Malenia cuts my head off 50 times in a row because I can’t perfectly dodge five consecutive attacks.
That said, it’d be a whole different story if Elden Ring had full co-op support. My tolerance for suffering is significantly higher when a friend has to suffer with me. As a veteran Destiny 2 player, I’m no stranger to boss fights that take hours to learn (and years off your life), and I know what it feels like to win a fight that feels impossible. If you’ve never raided in Destiny, done Mythic Dungeons in World of Warcraft, or hunted a tempered Elder Dragon in Monster Hunter, trust me: beating a boss with friends is so much better than beating them alone.
Being able to share the experience of a hard-fought win adds a whole new layer to video game achievements. Anyone who has played Bloodborne can relate to the experience of finally felling Orphan of Kos, but it's a whole different thing to beat a boss with someone else. Some of the hardest co-op experiences I’ve had with other people have become foundational moments in our friendship. When you learn a fight with someone else, make slow progress together, share those heartbreak moments when you just barely had it, and finally win the fight, there’s just nothing like it. I would trade every big gaming achievement I’ve had in my life for a chance to beat my first raid with my friends again. No one cares if you beat Shadow of the Erdtree, but there are five people that care very deeply about the time we beat Destiny 2’s Leviathan raid together.
I bring this up because FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki said in a recent interview with PC Gamer that the studio may consider “total co-op” for future games. This feels like a natural evolution for the studio. While there’s no doubt FromSoftware’s next Soulslike will be just as popular and high-quality as all its games, it's difficult to imagine the studio going back to a more linear format after Elden Ring without a major shakeup to the formula. Many would be happy with just having more Elden Ring, of course, but it's clear Miyazaki’s interest is in pushing things forward and continuing to experiment. Designing a Soulslike around pure co-op gameplay is the perfect next step.
Miyazaki’s comments were in response to the popular Seamless Co-op mod for Elden Ring. I’d love to play a co-op Soulslike, but only if the game is designed for co-op from the ground up.
The best co-op Soulslike out there right now is Remnant 2, a three-player third-person shooter that borrows all of the Soulslike genre’s key features, including grueling boss fights. Unsurprisingly, I’ve put over a hundred hours into both Remnant games with my friends, so I can say confidently that co-op is a great fit for the genre.
Adding more people to the fight opens so many doors for boss design and build crafting. Fights can have mechanics that require the entire party to do something simultaneously, or support help each other by trading off who the boss is focusing on. There are lots of new strategies to explore when you add more bodies to boss fights, and co-op would give FromSoftware new creative avenues to explore.
Playing on a team allows each person to take on different roles in the fight. Not only would this allow players to be more expressive with their builds instead of slavishly sticking to the most consistently high-damage builds possible, but it would also give less-skilled players a way to participate and feel like they’re contributing. Someone who doesn’t have the reaction time to succeed in a traditional Soulslike could play a support role and help their team from the backline.
I’m down to suffer, I’m just not down to suffer alone. FromSoftware could make the hardest game ever, and I’d struggle through it happily if the homies could be by my side, struggling with me. The older I get, the more I value the social experiences I share with my friends online. We’re all busy with life, careers, and kids, but gaming keeps us connected. I know a lot of people who exclusively play single-player games resent when studios make the jump to multiplayer, but in this case, it's the best path forward for a studio that wants to keep pushing for new kinds of experiences.
