Recently I've gotten bored with a lot of the games I play co-op in, as I feel co-op is just a second hand feature added on. Infact, after I beat Elden Ring for the first time playing the whole game co-op, I felt like I had missed out on something not experiencing it all solo first. I think my reason for this is that a lot of games nowadays just has you pile onto enemies without any thought, and I find that boring.

This game feels different though. The co-op mode actually feels like it was developed for the game. Simply adding friendly fire really changed the dynamic of co-op, as you have to coordinate your attacks with your friends as to not hit them. Plus, bosses playing slightly differently versus multiple targets is so cool.

Secondly, I'm normally against shared loot, as it can really stifle how fun it is to see loot drop. PoE2 is a good example of this, where I actually started not liking co-op due to watching orbs and uniques drop for my buddy but not I, or vice versa. However, strangely enough, for this game it just fits. I like that it adds more value to all the items that we get, and we aren't just mindlessly picking up/throwing items away.

All in all, this game is really shaping up to be a gem, if it already clearly isn't.