A leaked coliseum area in Elden Ring reached Steam’s sixth-highest player count of all time, garnering a 24-hour player count peak of nearly a million gamers.
It has been said that one of Elden Ring’s best features is its multiplayer system, which enables cooperation against challenging enemies. The experience is tied to summoning, in which players use a Tarnished’s Furled Finger or Furled Finger Remedy to bring allies with them into the Lands Between. The system allows players to progress through sections of Elden Ring as a team, though it has been suggested that FromSoftware should add shared co-op saves to let players make equal progress during gameplay. It was also pointed out that co-op experiences are often too brief, meaning players have to continually summon allies after defeating certain bosses. There are a number of ways Elden Ring could make its multiplayer better, though FromSoftware could already be working on additional online features.
According to known Dark Souls modder Lance McDonald (via DualShockers), Elden Ring contains an out-of-bound coliseum area that could mean a multiplayer DLC in the future. McDonald captured footage of the inaccessible arena before posting it to his YouTube channel. In the video, the camera moves through a wall into darkness for a few seconds before emerging through the gates of the coliseum, eventually revealing the massive arena and stadium-like seating. On Twitter McDonald speculated that “Elden Ring will probably get a multiplayer arena DLC some time in the future,” though it should be made clear that this is only speculation and FromSoftware has not yet commented on the leaked out-of-bounds coliseum.
Elden Ring already has multiplayer modes that connect players together in a single game world. Elden Ring’s invasion system works by allowing players to invade another player’s online game world using the Bloody Finger. This only works if a player opened their game to invaders, meaning they have to opt-in to the PvP elements. Invaders can either be summoned for a sportful 1v1 or can forcefully interrupt a game in which a player has already summoned a co-op partner. Elden Ring also enables players to forces to face difficult bosses together through Martyr Effigies, or Y-shaped statues that can be interacted with to summon allies. Both Elden Ring’s PvP and cooperative modes offer in-depth multiplayer experiences, but an arena-style game mode could introduce more streamlined PvP combat.
It could be possible that Elden Ring’s PvP could introduce a ranked feature that pins characters of equal power together in 1v1 battles. The arena, like that found in other medieval-era games, could also incorporate team-based combat, pinning groups of allies against one another. The future of Elden Ring is still anyone’s guess, but given the rapid success of FromSoftware’s latest release, it’s more than likely development on the action RPG is far from over.
Source: Lance McDonald/YouTube (via DualShockers)
