Alex Birlo on December 10, 2022
I had several attempts to make a review on this game, ever since it was released, and they kept failing. But here we are, because I consider this game to be a crucial point in the evolution of a studio that is to be respected for their commitment to hardcore, skill-based gameplay.
As usual, the housekeeping comes first.
Elden Ring is the latest of the games made by FromSoftware. The, now legendary, studio that made “Dark Souls”, “Demon’s Souls”, “Bloodborne” and “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice”. In the minds of many, they are basically the ones that created a genre of games that are “designed to be hard but fair”. Dark Fantasy setting, slow, methodical combat and unforgiving enemies that will make you suffer for every mistake you make.
This is important to remember, because you without a doubt have already heard the following sentence about Elden Ring – “Aaam… Well, this is a Dark Souls game, but in an open world”. My thesis is that it is not quite so, and it is actually not a bad thing.
It is not an open-world Dark Souls, it’s an awesome open-world RPG from those who made Dark Souls. There is a difference and I will try to explain.
In short, the story continues the style of Dark Souls in that it is about another breaking point for another dying world. The idea of some sort of cycle of rebirth is threaded into all of FromSoftware games.
Someone unleashed an apocalypse, by killing the husband of the head goddess of the realm. She, presumably in a feat of anger, broke the Elden Ring that controlled the balance into shards. In the wake of the rings’ destruction, her angry demigod children fought each other to collect them, becoming deranged powerful beings in the process.
You are a tarnished, a warrior that perished during a great battle and now brought back to life by the Grace of the Erd Tree, that is basically like Yggdrasil from Norse mythology. You are led by said grace to defeat enough of the Shard Bearers to remake the Elden Ring and conclude the cycle in one of several endings.
The game plays basically like any other “Souls-Borne” game, but only if you compare them side by side, you will actually see more of the undeniable influence of Sekiro and Bloodborne on the game’s flow, rather than an attempt to simply port Dark Souls onto an open world map.
Gameplay facilitates more complex boss behavior, more diverse build options and both agile or slow combat styles. And most of all – it is no longer as narrow. What I mean, is that the very fact that you can go wherever you want right away, changes so much that it is even hard to put into words.
The story now is less obscure. Most of the fine details are still hidden in bits of lore scattered on items and other stuff – as usual. But you have much more dialogue, more cutscenes, more interaction with NPCs to guide you through certain quest lines – albeit some of them are still quite cryptic.
Multiplayer is more balanced… in terms of accessibility. Matchmaking happens closer to your own level, and invasions are only possible when you already have a cooperator playing with you. So invaders face a 1v2 situation, unless called specifically for a duel.
Items for cooperative summoning can be easily crafted, unlike “Insight” in Bloodborne for example, where it was pretty rare in early walkthroughs.
There are also no markers to hold your hand, but there is still more guidance than you would expect. For example, the “Sites of Grace”, Elden Ring’s “Bonfires”, shine a golden line in the general direction of your next major story encounter.
I enjoyed the hell out of the game, it has all the things you would expect from a usual RPG, only with a FromSoftware twist.
You have soldier camps, with lookouts that can sound the alarm. You have traveling convoys, that you can rob. You have hidden dungeons with loot, and you can even literally farm certain enemies to get their gear as a loot drop.
So after well over 100 hours, I still have not discovered all there is. But for many players, all these and many other details will come as a loss and “casualization” of what the core community was about – and I can’t really blame them.
Dark Souls was this niche experience, with a secluded “cult following”. It was dark, gloomy, difficult, required a lot of thinking and skill. But over the years, many studios – small and big – became inspired by the example of FromSoftware, and expanded the genre by making similar games. These were in many ways more “inclusive” and attracted more casual players that were otherwise intimidated by the genre.
“Elden Ring” is FromSoftware’s answer to this changing environment.
While comparing Elden Ring and Dark Souls side by side, you see that Elden Ring has all of what its predecessor had and even in an evolved state. But longtime fans, will still not be able to shake off the feeling that some concessions had to be made for this game to reach and include a bigger audience.
But many, I think, will agree with me, that by now “Souls-Borne” is a very well established genre, and we must keep things in perspective – no one likes a stagnating genre.
