Elden Ring's founding world concept is the brainchild of a collaborative effort between Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin. While I am not too familiar with Martin's work on Bet on Thrones, it's clear to me where he's had an effect on the way our planet continues to be built as well as on the guidelines it abides by. This is still a FromSoftware experience through and through though, you'll meet a varied cast of superbly written characters, each cemented firmly into the world by their backstories and motivations. May it be the joyous and jolly Alexander, a sentient warrior pot, or even the ever enigmatic Patches, there's a little something here for everyone to gravitate towards. Likewise, the environmental storytelling on display here's as good as it certainly is been, and every landscape effortlessly paints an image of the items we was previously. No where is this sense of world and put more apparent than when exploring one of the many regions of The Lands Between.
Where Elden Ring separates itself the most from its predecessors, is in its structure and exactly how you progress through its world. Following a short tutorial area, you're dropped into Limgrave, a vertically varied landscape of lush greenery, and ruins, everything interspersed with the mighty Stormveil Castle towering overhead. From here, you're free to explore for your heart's content, with simply the websites of Grace – the brand new Bonfires – to nudge you in the right direction via an indicator on the map. While it's easy to get lost exploring and sidetracked by all the optional content you can engage with, Elden Ring's open world reaches its best when you're stumbling across things, spotting structures in the distance and thinking “What's that?”, simply to be rewarded with something upon further investigation.
These optional objectives can range from small-scale dungeons and enemy patrols, to overworld boss fights and new Sites of Grace to expand your fast travel options. Each region is densely packed with things to do, and not one of them seem like bloat or wasted space, not once did I ever feel like I needed to build relationships them to progress the primary quest. What's more telling, perhaps, is always that I had to rip myself away from Limgrave to move onto the next area – a testament to the quality of these optional activities.
While you can fast visit the different Sites of Grace you've unlocked over the Lands Between, your main way of exploration is by your spectral horse, Torrent. After progressing with the early areas of Limgrave, you will be given something that enables you to summon Torrent in the press of the mouse. While mounted, you are able to double jump and make use of geysers to propel yourself up in to the sky, making traversal that tiny bit more seamless. You can also engage in horseback combat, which more often than not feels clunky and lacks the outcome of standard combat. Fortunately, the situations that require you to use Torrent to achieve an advantage are far outweighed by those that don't, but it's still an uncomfortable blemish on an otherwise polished combat system.
As you're exploring a region the very first time, you're almost always slowly moving towards that area's Legacy Dungeon, an intricately designed exploration area that retains From's expert level design that intertwines its very own pathways and loops back on itself in unexpected ways. A special mention should go to The Academy of Raya Lucaria, within the second area, Liurnia of the Lakes. Without spoiling an excessive amount of, it is a school ravaged by its knowledge-maddened alumni, having a thick fog that envelopes every aspect of its outside environments. It's a dungeon that screams Bloodborne in its concept and style, and it's a true wonder to understand more about as you ascend it's gilded halls. All of these Legacy Dungeons are bolstered by a few of From's best boss fights yet, that will test your skills, and try to appear to in the ante as you move ahead, providing a challenging yet satisfying difficulty curve. Some are previous concepts taken further, classic one on ones, or wholly new ideas, along with a majority of them – particularly the end game ones – are thrilling to surmount.
Now for that elephant within the room – difficulty. While I wouldn't say Elden Ring may be the hardest of FromSoftware's world renowned challenges, it definitely isn't the easiest either. It is however, probably the most accessible. It's clear that there's a concerted effort here to explain systems and mechanics to newer players who mightn't cash knowledge about other titles of this Ilk. Similarly, the non-linear design implies that when you get truly stuck on a particular boss, you can leave, level up your character, upgrade your weapons, improve your Flask charges, and come back more powerful than ever before. Additionally, there are the inclusion of Stakes of Marika, which will typically spawn you closer to your death location, making the inevitable trips back to the boss room relatively painless. Still though, this may not trivialize encounters, so if you weren't one for smashing your head against a brick wall until the cracks start showing, Elden Ring will not be the FromSoftware game to change that.
Then we obtain towards the RPG elements present in Elden Ring, and they mostly behave the way they have in past games. You'll begin by creating your character with From's most extensive customizer yet, and you will be prompted to choose experience for your base stats. Although this doesn't necessarily reflect what your build may be like by the end of the game, it sets a trajectory for what to focus on in early game. Whether it be a complete strength build with concentrate on wielding colossal great-swords and hammers, or a combined dexterity magic build that allows you to weave sorceries into your combat flow, there is lots to choose and choose from in Elden Ring.
The Weapon Arts system from Dark Souls III has also been reworked into Ashes of War. Each weapon includes its very own intrinsic Ashes of War, which behaves just like Weapon Arts – powerful attacks or buffs at the expense of FP. The main improvement in this system, though, is that Ashes of War can be allotted to different weapons, as long as the archetype matches. Certain Ashes of War will even allow you to assign elemental affinities for your weapons, further deepening customization and make crafting. It's a brilliantly free-flowing system that allows for deeper player choice, and helps to create a far more meaningful bond with your weapons.
As in the event that wasn't enough to start with, Elden Ring also introduces Rune Arcs and Spirit Summoning. The latter enables you to summon AI spirits to fight with you during boss fights at the cost of FP, and these spirits may also be upgraded to boost their HP and damage output. There's all kinds of spirits with different strengths, so you'll often have a suite you pick and select from depending on the occasion. Rune Arcs are most comparable to Embers or Human Effigies from past games, but they are much more rare, and introduce a fascinating risk/reward system in the way they're implemented. Every time you defeat the demigod associated with a given region, you'll receive their Great Rune, which may be activated at a Divine Tower within their area.
You are only able to have one Great Rune equipped at any given time, and their bonuses are only active when a Rune Arc is used. These aren't small bonuses. The very first Great Rune, for example, boosts all of your attributes, effectively upping your character's level by 40 until your next death. Because of how rare Rune Arcs are, there's lots of deliberation to be had in regards to if you use these so you don't waste them. The boost they offer may be all you need to bring that boss down, but make one mistake, and it is gone. This system is a lesser necessity and much more of the bonus buff to use sparingly, nevertheless its inclusion is welcome nonetheless.
Lastly, there's the return of player summoning, and invasions. PVP diehards is going to be glad to here the inclusion of anti-cheat software on the PC version should hopefully result in less compromises. Around the co-operative side, things are a bit mixed. While it all works good, players can only be summoned from Summoning Pools, pre-determined spots on the map that comprise the explorable area whenever a co-op session is active. All of the dungeons are fully playable in co-op, but if you were hoping to explore the overworld with friends in limitless fashion, you might find the implementation here is restrictive. As i can understand trying to retain the somber and isolating experience of going through the Lands Between on your own, I can't help but wonder exactly what a more freeing and open co-op experience would've brought to the table.
I played Elden Ring on PC, and across the almost 60 hours I spent with it, I'm pleased to report that it's a mostly polished experience. It's goes without saying that this game is absolutely gorgeous, not to the same capacity as the second big triple A title to be released this month, but still had my jaw on the floor with some sweeping vistas and landscapes to take at every turn. I've already spoken about how excellent I believe Liurnia of the Lakes is, but that shouldn't removed from the crimson covered lands of Caelid or even the golden sky perpetually hanging over the top of Altus Plateau. Used to do notice a few hiccups on PC, though, namely some stuttering along with a couple crashes because of the anti-cheat software. I'm sure this will be ironed out by launch, though, and also at no more your day they were minor stumbles inside a broadly polished experience, that is impressive considering what size the game world is.
THE PS5 EXPERIENCE
Whilst the majority of our time with Elden Ring was spent on PC, we ended up getting to also take part in the game on PS5. There’s two modes, one that prioritizes framerate and something that prioritizes quality. As you’d expect, the framerate mode is closer to 60FPS whilst quality mode maxes out at 30FPS. Both see drops in frames, but you’ll absolutely wish to opt for the framerate mode to supply probably the most stable performance as you possibly can. There was an obvious amount of pop-in using the world loading in as you browse around occasionally, but overall it's a stable experience and doesn't detract from the fantastic experience that Elden Ring is.
