Namco Bandai Explains Dark Souls’ Summoning Mechanics

And they still manage to make it a little more complicated in the process.

With everyone asking questions regarding the summon feature in Dark Souls, Namco decided to step in and educate all of us on how it works exactly.

Here’s your Dark Souls lesson of the day, courtesy of Namco:

“The host (person who’s game world will be used) must be human. The client (person joining the game) can either be human or undead.

The client’s level must fall within 10% (above or below) of the host’s level. Generally, this example formula should give you a good idea on whether you will be able to join: (LC x 1.1) ≥ LH ≥ (LC x 0.9), where is LC the level of the client and LH is the level of the host. For example, if the level of the host is 20, then they will only be able to summon players who are levels 18 to 22.

The area boss (Taurus Demon, Bell Gargoyles, Moonlight Butterfly, etc…) in the host’s world must still be alive. A client can still be summoned even if the client has already defeated their own area boss.

The host must not have placed down a summoning sign. Summoning signs from other players will not appear in a host’s world if the host also has placed a summoning sign down. This is to prevent a network conflict of the host joining someone else’s game world while the clients are trying to join the host’s game world.

After successfully summoning, the client will return to their world if the area boss is defeated, the client is killed or the host is killed.”

When values must be entered into a mathematical formula to find out whether or not one person can play online with another, you may have made things a little overly complicated. However, this is Dark Souls and, as we all know, the game isn’t about making anything easy for you.

Hopefully, this has cleared up any issues you’ve had and has put you on the right path to being able to join your friends for some unforgettable boss fights.