The next epic in the punishing, yet rewarding Soul series arrives in Elden Ring. With a world and story built by the new dynamic duo of George R. R. Martin & From Software, Elden Ring may very well be the franchise’s magnum opus. Though the new title makes an approach at a newcomer friendly environment it never forgets that the art of the series is its incredible & rewarding challenge.

Elden Ring is a 2022 action RPG, it is developed by From Software and published by Bandai Namco. It is available on PC, Playstation, and Xbox consoles on February 25, 2022.

Editor’s Note: A Playstation review code for Elden Ring was provided by Bandai Namco in support of this review. Slight spoilers for Elden Ring’s story may be present within this review.

The Ashened One is no more, rise Tarnished.

The last epic we got from From Software was Sekiro which followed an immortal warrior looking to protect a young heir. In Elden Ring you play as the Tarnished an exiled warrior from the Lands Between. Following the destruction of the Elden Ring shards of it remain known as Great Runes which are possessed by Demigods who have become corrupt with their power. The player must defeat the Demigods, complete the Elden Ring and become the new Elden Lord to save the Lands Between from the Demigods’ rule.

With a new open-world to play with horseback is added for the first time.

THE GOOD: Elden Ring has been the game everyone has been talking about for years and with good reason. When it was announced as the next tale by fantasy writer George R. R. Martin after Game of Thrones/A Song of Fire & Ice in collaboration with Hayao Miyazaki & From Software the hype was real. Though the game suffered from delays it met it’s final release date late last month and it’s a special experience. From Software has a good habit of putting everything they’ve learned from one game into the next and Elden Ring is no different. Featuring tweaked mechanics from Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and yes even Sekiro, Elden Ring never gets lost to the background of what made the other titles successful at the expense of it’s own originality.

While the previous titles have always had a pseudo-open world there were instances when the world was gimmicked a bit. For example, sometimes you’d have to do certain tasks to get to a required story area like getting kidnapped by a monster or some other wacky thing. Elden Ring has a near 100% truly open world. While yes there are some gimmicks here and there like the travel gates that sometimes require keys more often than not if you see something in the game’s open space then there’s an almost certain chance you can just go there. Open-world games have been a bit common place in the gaming industry and in an industry that rarely innovates and always imitates Elden Ring’s open world really opens the eyes to how bleak a lot of those open worlds really are. As someone who adores these style of games I hate to say it but they just feel really lifeless and empty. To quote Stephanie Sterling “being open-world is simply not enough”. It’s honestly gonna be rather polarizing now looking at the future for this genre of games. Elden Ring has made it a bit impossible to do the bare minimum with that style now.

And if you ask me (and I know no one did) the “open, but empty” thing was already running it’s course a bit with a few standouts. What makes Elden Ring’s open world work is the introduction of Torrent your new trusted stead. On the surface it doesn’t sound like horseback would really add that much it couldn’t be further from the contrary. Horseback is actually a tad deep to the game world so much so that it can often save your life in boss fights. It’s actually even recommended to do horseback in certain combat scenarios. In addition to combat, Torrent can aid in traverse as well with his double jump ability which can help with reaching higher & lower places when an attempt on foot would otherwise get you killed. However, as expected even with the advantages Torrent brings it’s never as easy as it seems as Torrent also has a health bar and it’s death can also play a pivotal role in your own if you don’t revive him in time. The good news is that if you do nail a revival it grants you an invincibility frame to escape damage from an attack like a perfectly timed dodge or parry.

Elden Ring tries ease the pain for newer players.

I’m gonna be as spoiler free as possible with the story and just say that I like it. The addition of George R. R. Martin’s talents doesn’t keep it from feeling like a From Software Souls’ game and his writing gives the impression that he’s been apart of the team all along. I really found an affinity for the world building. The effortless ability to switch between light and dark & beauty & horror between map areas feels seamless. Seldom are there loading screens between areas and again this is often due to the more gimmicky methods of travel. The medieval like aesthetic of Dark Souls is the main art style used for Elden Ring, but it expresses it with it’s own sense of flavor while also feeling oh so familiar.

I have to commend Elden Ring for being so approachable to new players without sacrificing the art of it’s challenging yet rewarding difficulty. While bigger mechanics like Torrent helps players feel a bit more at home for it’s open world there’s also the Spirits mechanic that allows players to summon allies like regular summons. The main difference between the new summons and the old method which also returns in limited form is that Spirits can be used in nearly any battle scenario. They can also be upgraded some to the point of being overpowered as hell. And there’s a lot of them and I mean A LOT. Sometimes you have to defeat bosses to acquire them, but a good portion of them can be found by exploring the world through caves & catacombs and such. Spirits also range from solo entities & animals and even small armies which are great for distraction or extra damage. You can set up to four summons on your pouch menu for ease of access.

Like the other games before it Elden Ring wants you to play the game your way regardless of how and fuck anyone who has a problem with it. If you want to cheese a boss or enemy that’s been pissing you off go for it. Pro tip: range weapons can be OP as hell use and buy them often. Magic is also pretty powerful, sometimes I think it’s too powerful. It’s why I like to play a warrior/mage mix. You can have damn near any build you want and while some weapon scaling doesn’t work (more on that below) the game lends the player to virtually anything they expect. You can make a lightning magic based build, a fire magic based build, elemental weaponry, bleeding weaponry whichever you want as long as YOU want it and the game allows it. Whips, swords, claws, a near impossible amount of weaponry is at your beckon call.

There’s a lot of bosses in this game compared to others over 80 at current reported count. About twelve are story based and even some of those are optional, however if you want the best ending in the game it’s apparently required to beat those twelve bosses. Good luck and well wishes to your sanity as a handful of those bosses are hard as hell even by the expected standard. Some bosses are direct repeats of others, but this has been limited as much as humanly possible and nearly every boss has a fresh, original design. I mentioned earlier that you have to beat all the story bosses for the “best” ending, but you should know that there are multiple endings present in the game including a so called “chaos ending” which sounds terrifying. In order to get the different endings you have to do certain things; complete certain questlines, kill certain bosses, acquire certain items, etc.

Elden Ring finds beauty in horror.

THE BAD: The obvious negative for Elden Ring? Like every Soulsverse title be it developed by From Software or otherwise it’s not for everyone. Though in this instance that’s pretty ironic considering this has been the most widely accepted game in the genre. I’ve heard so many stories about not only people who’ve never touched these titles before loving but even people who either rarely, barely, or never really played video games at all absolutely loving it and that’s insane as hell to think about. There’s no map markers or quest logs & diaries to aide the player so if you liked being nodded even remotely then it definitely isn’t a game for you. I noted above that my review copy was for Playstation and I want to clarify that I’ve been playing on a base Playstation 4 before I move forward here. That being said this game has some bugs like a lot.

The easy stuff is there’s rare instances of frame drops. While I haven’t experienced it much at all one time I fought Goddrick and there was a moment where he rolled and I was running towards him and the frames dropped to this weird slow motion deal. I actually thought my game crashed and rage was about to ensue. And for the harder bugs? Some of the weapon scaling is broken and not in the fun way. It’ll likely be fixed, but certain weapons won’t scale without going into too much detail I know there’s a sword with a blood loss effect that definitely stops scaling and for some players it doesn’t scale at all. A personal pet peeve of mine is that you can’t upgrade armor in Elden Ring which was pretty standard in Dark Souls. It’s an attempted work around to find more advanced armor throughout the world to encourage exploration which is also a staple of the Soulsverse, but having the option to upgrade your defense at any given time would be more preferable. And just a heads up, while I don’t really use it myself there’s been reports of co-op being broken for some players. It’s been suggested that this may be due to the players being at different levels but hasn’t been confirmed as of this writing.

Elden Ring is an absolute masterpiece of gaming art.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Look, no game is perfect I don’t think there ever truly will be a perfect game. Elden Ring is one that’s as close as it can get. And I mean as damn close as it can possibly get with it’s choice of story, world, and gameplay design. There’s always going to be some divide over these games, there’s always going to be people who want to kill the spirit of Hayao Miyazaki’s art by presenting an easy mode. I really don’t mind these games doing things to make things easier for players and in a lot of ways Elden Ring is extremely successful in that in ways I never imagined possible for a Soulsverse title. But a toggled difficult while it probably wouldn’t do that much to effect the game ultimately feels like an attempted censorship of the art Miyazaki and the team at From Software creates. These games are meant to kick your ass and make you beg for more because the reward of conquering that challenge is so fantastic that it’s a dopamine hit something so horrid like a loot box would never ever be able to replicate. That’s the beauty of it all finally getting that big win regardless of how long it takes. It took me six weeks to beat the final good ending boss in Sekiro and I had to do some cheesing to do it, but when I did that feeling of genuine pride never once felt cheated or fake. So regardless of how hard these games are never give up, keeping trying, try new builds and methods.

Eventually, you’ll find one that works for that challenge and the next and then the next. That’s how these games are designed. And don’t be afraid to live a little man, to hell with map markers and hand holding quest logs. If you end up in a high level area, you get your ass kicked and learn you aren’t supposed to be there yet. Or you get your courage up and try your damnedest to conquer it both of which are equally ok. There’s no wrong way to play Elden Ring not citing bugs it’s all up to the imagination, patience, and wherewithal of the player. This is ultimately the charm of this series of games and many developers understand this and it’s why we have this style of play so often for a reason. Play the game the way YOU chose to play which is the way the game was intended out of box. Now go  kick some ass and restore the Elden Ring.