Elden Ring Neightreign won’t let you play with just one friend for one very weird reason

As a co-op adventure, Elden Ring Neightreign offers a brand-new way of experiencing FromSoftware’s awesome Soulelike content with friends. Announced during The Game Awards 2024,

However, if you only have a single friend who plays games with you, you’re crap out of luck, as Neightreign requires two additional players at all times for multiplayer. Why? For the “sense of accomplishment”, of course.

Elden Ring Neightreign’s weird co-op restriction

While the game does include a single-player option, the new Elden Ring Neightreign roguelike game will only allow you to experience multiplayer with a full crew of three. Yourself and two friends—or untrustworthy randos—must be present to experience the game in a multiplayer setting.

In an interview with IGN, director Junya Ishizaki confirmed that multiplayer is restricted to a team of three. This is despite the fact that FromSoftware has developed a power scaling system that makes enemies less powerful in single-player and more powerful in multiplayer.

“It’s either one-player or three-player,” the director succinctly replied before explaining that three-player multiplayer offers a more complete “sense of accomplishment” apparently.

“The reason that we went with a three-player focus was that we wanted to retain that sense of accomplishment you get from battling a boss together or from conquering a map together and that sense of enjoyment, but we wanted to recreate that in a fresh way,” he explained. “And we felt like focusing on a three-player co-op experience would provide a brand-new sense of accomplishment with it.”

Personally, I don’t see how that changes between two or three players, but I’m not a game developer. Nevertheless, we imagine it’ll only take a week or so for modders to remove the weird co-op restriction on PC, although console players will be stuck begging their third, jobless friend who’s always late to get on the damn game.

For more Neightreign coverage, read about the return of classic Dark Souls enemies in the new game. Of course, we’ve all seen the return of the Night King, but even more baddies are sliding their way into the title.