The various Souls and Souls-adjacent games that FromSoftware has developed ever since Demon’s Souls have all introduced or iterated on new features that few if any other games ever attempted. We’re talking about more than just difficulty, too. Things like how the games handle death, leveling up, currency, and story were all fresh takes in the industry when most gamers first saw how they were done. Perhaps the most ambitious — and at times clunky — innovation came in how the games handled multiplayer as a component. With Elden Ring being the latest in its catalog, many wonder how FromSoftware will change these systems, if it does at all.
Elden Ring is a Souls game at heart, only now viewed through the lens of an open-world experience. Fans of the studio’s previous works will immediately recognize various multiplayer aspects, such as messages written by players, ghosts, and bloodstains showing the last moments of someone else’s life. Summoning help, invading, or being invaded, however, is the real meat of what people expect from a multiplayer standing, and these all are back in Elden Ring. But with the game coming to every major platform, including past generation systems, will you be able to play with friends on different systems? Here’s all the info you need on whether or not Elden Ring is cross-platform.
Further reading
- Want to play Elden Ring? Time to upgrade your CPU
- Elden Ring review: Even the haters will be impressed
- I loved Elden Ring once I stopped playing it like a Dark Souls game
Is Elden Ring cross-platform?
Elden Ring is launching on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC simultaneously, but will not have any cross-platform support. What it will have is cross-gen support. This means that if you’re playing on either of the PlayStation systems –the 4 or 5 — then you can all play together in co-op or competitively. The same goes for both Xbox systems, with PC being left isolated as well. No console player can match up with anyone on PC. Whatever system you get the game on, those are the only people you will be able to play with.
At the very least, Elden Ring does offer free past-to-current gen upgrades, such as for PS4 to PS5, for anyone who might not have their hands on the new systems yet but still want to pick up the game.
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