The Elden Ring Closed Network Test has begun, and with it comes multiplayer in both cooperative and PvP competitive forms. Summoning and invasions has been a significant part of previous FromSoftware games, and that remains true for Elden Ring. If you’re familiar with the systems used in Dark Souls and Bloodborne then you’ll quickly get to grips with Elden Ring’s methods, but for those who aren’t, allow us to break down how multiplayer works in Elden Ring.

After selecting your character and taking your first steps into Elden Ring’s open world, the game will alert you to the ability to play in multiplayer. Getting together with friends, randomers, or enemies all starts In the options menu, where you can select a bespoke multiplayer menu from which you choose exactly how you will play.

For many people, co-operative play will be how they want to experience Elden Ring. This is done using a summoning system; one player is able to draw a sign on the ground, and another is able to use this sign to summon the drawer into their world. While not immediately clear, this does assign each player a rough role; the person offering help, and the person seeking it.

If you want to offer your aid to another player, you must use an item called the Tarnished’s Furled Finger. This will draw a gold summoning sign on the ground, which can be seen by other players in their own world. When another player activates your sign, you will be summoned to them.

If you want to summon an ally into your game, you must first use an item called the Furlcalling Finger Remedy to grant yourself the ability to see gold summoning signs. Unlike the infinitely usable Tarnished Furled Finger, Finger Remedies are a consumable item. The Closed Network Test provides 99 of them from the start, but you will need to ensure you have stock of them before you can play in co-op. Basically, you can offer your help at no cost of all, but those seeking help must have Furlcalling Finger Remedies in their inventory.

Both the Furled Finger and Finger Remedy items are accessible from the multiplayer menu. From here you can also set up a password system to limit who uses your signs, which ensures you only pair up with friends.

It should be noted that co-op doesn’t provide the ‘full’ experience for the person who has been summoned into another player’s world. For example, summons cannot activate a Site of Grace, Elden Ring’s version of Dark Souls’ bonfires. You also have a fewer number of restoratives than the hosting player, cannot open treasure chests, and death will send you back to your own world. These are all restrictions Dark Souls players will find familiar, but those new to FromSoftware should know in advance that co-operative does have quirks that other co-op games don’t have.

If, as a hosting player, you wish to end your co-op session, the Finger Severer will remove a summoned player from your world. Useful for forcibly ending sessions with friends who keep insisting on one more battle when it’s hours past bedtime, or kicking useless summons.

Elden Ring isn’t just for people being nice and helping each other out, though. There’s also competitive multiplayer, which can be activated in a couple of different ways. The first is to use the Duelist’s Furled Finger, which – like the Tarnished’s Furled Finger – will draw a summoning sign on the floor. This one is red, and signals to players in other worlds that you’re looking for a fight. Those who accept your challenge can summon you to their world for an honorable duel.

More aggressive players can opt to invade other players’ worlds and hunt them down. To do this, you’ll want to use the Bloody Finger from the multiplayer menu. This will then search for other players who can be invaded and send you to their world.

Playing in co-op automatically opens you up to invasions, but in single player you can volunteer to be invaded by using the Taunter’s Tongue. This acts as a beacon to those using the Bloody Finger and will summon up to two invaders into your game.

Should you find yourself in a bit of a pickle during an invasion, you can send out a cry of help using the White Cipher Ring. With this activated, you will automatically request help from other worlds when invaded. Those who instead wish to be on call to answer the pleas of such players should activate the Blue Cipher Ring, which will whisk you away to play knight in shining armour to those in distress.

As you can see, Elden Ring multiplayer is a complex little beast, with distinct mechanics for each method of play. The multiplayer menu does make it a reasonably easy system to understand; where in previous FromSoft games these items would be in your regular inventory, sorting them into their own bespoke menu does keep everything in an easily accessible place. But it’s still a slightly fiddly experience, and one that may take some getting used to if you’re only accustomed to joining a PlayStation or Xbox party and then jumping into a game.

For more about FromSoftware’s latest, be sure to check out our Elden Ring hands-on preview from the Closed Network Test, as well as watch a full boss battle in 4K. You can also check out the first 19 minutes of the Network Test if you’ve not been able to get in yourself, as well as read up on the game’s five classes.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

Ubisoft has announced that its Executive Director of Far Cry, Dan Hay, will be leaving the studio this week. Hay is reported to have been working on a live-service Far Cry game before his departure.

Ubisoft has announced that Hay will be ending his tenure at the studio this week – having worked there for over a decade. As shared by GamesBeat, a statement from the company confirmed his departure. "After more than 10 years at Ubisoft, Dan Hay has announced that he will be pursuing a new chapter in his professional life and he will be leaving on November 12," reads the statement's opening line.

Ubisoft went on to confirm in its statement that Hay had not yet announced where he would be working next before thanking the Far Cry Exec for his many contributions over the years. The studio then concluded by revealing that the brand team would be led by Ubisoft Montreal Producer Sandra Warren on an interim basis, who will work alongside a highly capable team of producers and directors.

Per VentureBeat, Hay was reportedly working on the studio's next Far Cry game, which is rumoured to take shape as a live-service game similar to the reports surrounding the studio's next Assassin's Creed game. Earlier this year, reports surfaced suggesting that Ubisoft were working on a project codenamed Assassin's Creed Infinity that would take shape as an online platform including multiple historic settings that evolve over time.

Following the reports, Ubisoft formally announced that it was working on Assassin's Creed Infinity. The game is being developed by a "cross studio, collaborative structure" made up of the development teams at Ubisoft Quebec and Montreal. While little is currently known about the project in terms of its gameplay, a statement from the company in July gave some insight into what fans can expect.

"Rather than continuing to pass the baton from game to game," reads the statement, "we profoundly believe this is an opportunity for one of Ubisoft’s most beloved franchises to evolve in a more integrated and collaborative manner that’s less centered on studios and more focused on talent and leadership, no matter where they are within Ubisoft."

For more on the Assassin's Creed series, make sure to check out this piece where we broke down our top ten Assassin's Creed games of all time.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago — The Ultimate Director's Cut will be available on digital and On-Demand Nov. 12.

Thirty-six years ago this month, Rocky IV hit theaters and sent the iconic Italian Stallion (Sylvester Stallone) to Russia to avenge the in-ring death of his pal Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) at the hands of Soviet pugilist Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Arriving in the midst of “peak Stallone” (the star’s Rambo: First Blood, Part II was a smash hit that same year), Rocky IV always sat uncomfortably with the rest of series, both thanks to its MTV-inspired editing style and the intrusion of rah-rah jingoism into what had been a fairly apolitical series up to that point.

Even as it was derided critically, Rocky IV took in a very healthy $300 million at the global box office and earned a permanent place in the annals of “so bad it’s good” 1980s kitsch. One would think this “glass half full” reception would have been enough for Rocky’s creator, but clearly it never sat well for Stallone. And more than three decades later, the writer-director-star hit the edit bay again to see if he couldn’t fine tune his most commercially successful Rocky movie –– and shock of shocks, he’s done it!

Armed with the unwieldy title Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago – Ultimate Director’s Cut, this new version adds a total of two minutes to the original 91 minute runtime, but it also boasts 40+ minutes of new footage woven throughout. As someone who’s watched Rocky IV so many times I know practically every shot and scene transition, I can say some of the changes are so subtle they’ll likely pass without notice for many. However, others are so substantial as to alter the entire trajectory and emotional weight of certain scenes.

There’s always a risk in filmmakers revisiting works decades after the fact. Sometimes, as with 2006’s Richard Donner edit of Superman II, the lack of finishing materials makes the recut feel lesser than it should be. Other times, as with Francis Coppola’s re-edit of The Godfather III last year, there’s no amount of re-editing that can paper over casting or story mistakes. But Rocky IV largely dodges these pitfalls thanks to the combination of a wide array of alternate scenes to choose from, and wise decisions on what to keep and what to change.

Don’t worry, the various music video montages –– including the “No Easy Way Out” montage comprised of other montages and Apollo Creed’s dance number with James Brown –– are all still here (albeit all with subtle changes throughout), and most of Vince DiCola’s extremely ‘80s synth score remains in place (though some orchestral Bill Conti tracks from the other films have been added as well). And while the arc of the story remains largely the same, it moves at a more deliberate pace rooted in the character interactions as opposed to a full-speed hurtle towards the third act brawl.

As far as deletions, the most talked-about will likely be the dreaded robot. Yes, Rocky IV has a side plot with a seemingly self-aware robot living in and keeping house in the Balboa mansion, and everyone in the movie acts like it’s the most normal thing in the world. What was likely the result of a fleeting fancy at the time of production ended up becoming a running joke for three decades. Stallone has wisely chopped every instance of the robot, and wouldn’t you know, we don’t miss it even a little bit.

Bigger picture, there are other, more meaningful changes throughout. For instance, the original opening montage, which quickly recaps the finale of Rocky III, with Rocky regaining his title from Clubber Lang (Mister T), has been swapped out for a deeper dive highlighting the key role played by Apollo Creed in getting Rocky back on his feet. While I do miss the earlier take cut to the strains of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” (which is now heard during the closing credits), the new take shifts the focus to the Balboa-Creed friendship, making Apollo’s arc feel more tragic as a result (helped by some more discussion between the two friends leading up to Creed’s fateful fight).

In fact, it’s rather remarkable to see just how many varied takes Stallone got during the mid-’80s shoot, with Creed’s funeral allowing for a moving speech from his trainer Duke Evers (Tony Burton) but also a much more emotional farewell from Stallone’s Balboa. Despite the runtime remaining basically the same, the shift in focus and story progression allows more breathing room and build-up. We also get some meaningful interplay between Rocky and his wife Adrian (Talia Shire), highlighting just how underserved Shire was previously.

Heck, even Dolph Lundgren’s bad guy boxer Ivan Drago gets a few extra moments here, which one imagines came at least partly from Stallone having revisited the character in his script for 2018’s Creed II and seen an opportunity, separate from Cold War fervor, to make him a bit more than a monosyllabic man-mountain. Not to say Drago is suddenly delivering Eugene O’Neill monologues, but he’s given just a hint more texture now than we got before. In fact, the only character who doesn’t get to do more in this re-edit is Burt Young’s Paulie, whose arc went away along with his robot love interest (don’t ask).

As the PlayStation 5 celebrates the first year since its launch today, Sony has told fans that there are currently more than 25 different exclusive games in development across the publisher's first-party studios.

As part of a celebratory update post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony spoke about the jam-packed year it's experienced since launching its latest flagship console. "A busy year indeed, and we are just getting started with PS5," said Sony Interactive Entertainment president Jim Ryan in the post.

"The imaginative game creators and publishing partners we work with have launched more than 360 games on PS5. Additionally, there are currently more than 25 games in development for PS5 at PlayStation Studios."

While some of those games won't be available to play for some while yet – we're looking at you Spider-Man 2 – there are still plenty for PlayStation fans to get excited about. Next year alone the publisher will see the launch of a number of exclusive blockbuster titles, including the likes of Guerilla Games' Horizon Forbidden West, Polyphony's Gran Turismo 7, and Santa Monica Studio's God of War Ragnarok. However, that leaves a huge number of exclusives still to be announced.

Sony's lengthy list of exclusive games comes in part due to its activity in the wider development market. Having assembled a number of prestigious developers for its PlayStation Studios family, this year the publisher showed no sign of stopping. Following the purchase of Returnal developer Housemarque in June, Sony then added further studios into the fold through the acquisitions of PC porting specialist Nixxes, UK developer Firesprite, and remake specialist Bluepoint Games.

Elsewhere in its celebratory blog post, Sony spoke about the passion it's seen from its fanbase over the last year. The publisher noted that PlayStation 5 users have collectively amassed over 4.6 billion hours of gameplay on their consoles since its release. While that time has been spent across a large collection of games, Sony also revealed which of those had made it into the PS5's top ten most played.

Top ten most played PS5 Games:

• Fortnite
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
• FIFA 21
• NBA 2K21
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Destiny 2
• MLB The Show 21
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
• Demon’s Souls
• NBA 2K22

Ryan also thanks fans for their patience, after a year in which PS5 has remained extremely hard to find due to global production shortages. "We continue to see historic demand for PS5 and we understand the inventory constraints remain a source of frustration for many of our customers," he wrote. "Rest assured that we are laser-focused on doing everything in our power to ship as many units as possible, it’s something we work on every day across the company and remains my top priority. Again, we appreciate your patience as we navigate through these unprecedented global challenges."

Sadly, it's not a problem that looks to be slowing down, with Sony reportedly making huge cuts to its production plans following a global chip shortage that is currently affecting all areas of gaming.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

There's an excellent sale going on at eBay right now, with PS5, Xbox, and Switch games, accessories, and more, all with code BLACKFRIDAYUK. That means you can get new games like Call of Duty Vanguard for £52, or Guardians of the Galaxy for £35.

We expect this is round 2/3 of the eBay festive codes, with the FESTIVE15 sale only finishing on November 4. The BLACKFRIDAYUK code will expire on November 18, but we're also expecting another code during the Black Friday sales on November 26. For now, here are all the best games with 20% off at eBay Trusted Sellers.

PS5 Games on Sale, Call of Duty Vanguard Down to £52 (was £69.99)

PS4 Games (BLACKFRIDAYUK)

Xbox Games on Sale + Xbox Series S just £224

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.