Tarnishing the recent launch of Elden Ring, many Xbox players are reporting issues with the action role-playing game’s online services. FromSoftware’s newest title takes players to the open world of The Lands Between, which is teeming with hidden secrets and brutal foes. Elden Ring features online multiplayer, like past FromSoftware titles, though many gamers are currently unable to access the popular feature.
The online multiplayer features present in Elden Ring follow closely in the footsteps of predecessors like Dark Souls and Bloodborne. All of these games can be extremely challenging, but players can use special in-game items to call out for help from other players. A successful summon will bring another player into the summoner’s world, allowing a whole team of online gamers to fight through The Lands Between. However, Elden Ring also sees the return of online invasions, which allow a hostile player to enter another online player’s world in an attempt to kill them for a reward. Elden Ring reached 600,000 concurrent Steam players shortly after launch, so there is unlikely to be any shortage of allies to summon or invaders to face.
Unfortunately for fans of jolly cooperation, Kotaku reports that Elden Ring’s online services are broken for many Xbox gamers. These players report that they receive a network error message whenever they try going online, even when their own internet connection seems perfectly stable. Kotaku suggests that the issue may stem from a calibration update, 1.02.1, since it seems that Xbox users without this update are the ones having network trouble. Publisher Bandai Namco has confirmed that the Xbox’s online issues are being investigated, though no official fix has yet been released.
Alongside the ongoing Xbox network issues, other notable bugs have unfortunately plagued the otherwise exciting launch of Elden Ring. Fixes and performance patches for Elden Ring have been confirmed by FromSoftware, though a specific timetable has not been given. Frame rate issues, in particular, have plagued the PC version of the game regardless of a player’s specific hardware setup. The PlayStation 5 version of the game, meanwhile, is suffering from a save game data bug that has caused some players to lose significant progress on their unforgiving journey through The Lands Between.
The release of Elden Ring was highly anticipated by many FromSoftware fans, and since launch the game has come to be regarded as a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the open-world soulslike adventure has a number of frustrating issues that require immediate attention from its developer. Online play is an important component of any soulslike title, and many Xbox players are currently forced to experience the fantasy epic on their own.
Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
