Is Elden Ring a multiplayer game? How to play with friends

pocket-lint.com:

(Pocket-lint) — Elden Ring is a brilliant game, and it lets you play in a huge range of ways, including the option to play together with friends or strangers online, but the system to do so isn't totally straightforward.

Where other games would have simple invites and menus, Elden Ring is more than a little different. Here are all the details on how you can play with other people online.

In Elden Ring multiplayer works through summon signs — marks you can leave on the ground in-game or find left for you. You can only see these, however, if you use an item called a Furlcalling Finger Remedy.

These signs let you be summoned by other players, or summon them yourselves. You can summon up to two allies into your game, but doing so also opens you up to invasion by hostile players, as a quid pro quo.

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The players you summon will accompany you until either you or they die, or until you beat a boss together — they're intended as help to get you through tough moments, rather than constant companions.

In practise, getting into all of this means you need a few in-game items to access various bits of multiplayer in Elden Ring. We'll run through these below.

Furlcalling Finger Remedy: This item, which you can buy a recipe to craft from Merchant Kale near the start of the game, lets you see other players' summon signs on the ground in gold, and interact with them to summon the players in question. The item is consumed when you successfully summon someone.

Tarnished's Furled Finger: This item lets you leave your own summon sign on the ground, to be summoned by players who encounter it if they choose. It can be used infinitely without being consumed.

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