How does co-op work?

[kenzo]

I am deciding if my friend and I should get Dark Souls III. It looks like a great game, but I'm confused on how the co-op/multiplayer works.

[Merilirem]

In game you put down a sign with an item and can summon or be summoned to the others games to help them beat their stuff.

If you want to be together you can also go into the options and both put a password in to make things easier and ignore level range limits. Either way its summon and fight your way to the boss. Or gank people.

[Lydia Scott]

So a quick rundown. First you need an item to coop. It's not hard to gt. You can find it as soon as you beat the Tutorial at the first merchant it's called the white sign soapstone. Second you and your friend should decide on a password in the options menu. Then you or your friends uses the item at a bonfire and the other person summons them to their world meaning you'll have to do each area twice.

[Ta'veren]

Let me explain from a different angle.

Co-op can only be done in the ONLINE mode.

1. You still have to play in your own world to advance your own story. So, it's not a traditional co-op or 2-player game. If you therefor want to play with someone, you'll have to do everything twice, once in your world and once in theirs.

2. When you play as the host, you get all the items. And interact with the NPCs. When you are the phantom (summoned player) you don't even see the dropped items (so you can't point them out to your partner unless you know about them already), and you can't interact with the NPCs (this is a bit of a pain sometimes, like at one point where an NPC attacks the host, but you can't assist)

3. When you are the host you have the most to lose, as when you die, the play gets stopped, you lose your souls (you can retrieve it by getting back to where you died and reclaiming them), and your current embered state, (so you will have spend another ember before you can summon another phantom). During any encounter (pve or pvp) if the host dies, that's it. Play stops

4. As the summoned phantom, you have less health (your embered enhancement does not carry over) and you have 1/2 of your normal estus and ashen estus flasks to use. You also get kicked out once a significant milestone is reached (normally the defeat of the area boss).

5. Once the area boss has been defeated you can no longer play co-op in the area. You also can no longer be invaded, but it does mean if you missed items or want to play the area again, you must do so alone.

6. There are some areas that are not open to co-op play, and you must play solo. Some involve pretty tough enemies for a new player

So, in short, it's a limited co-op experience involving at least 2 playthroughs (one each world) to progress together.

7. Oh, and lest I forget, playing co-op also opens you to the inevitability of invasions from other online players, and co-op players are prioritised for invasions. So if you co-op, you'll gert invaded, and have to cope with some pvp.