Title: Elden Ring
Developer: FromSoftware Inc.
Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.
Genre: Action RPG
Price: $59.99
From Software's Dark Souls series is both frustrating and fun in equal measure. With intimidating enemies, mazelike designs, and an emphasis on slow but decisive combat, titles from the franchise have invariably provided an experience that can leave gamers pulling their hair out in one moment, and then marveling at their triumph over a hard section in the next. It’s a tightrope of curated levels, equal parts annoying and workable, and always pushes gamers to learn, understand, and adapt to the situation so they won't be caught off guard in the next. This kind of design however, only really works in games with tight corridors and linear paths. The more paths there are, the harder it is to account for how players will enter or exit each area, and the easier it is for an encounter to break, or for sequences to get ruined by unintended exploration.
This is what most gamers expected as they partook of Elden Ring. No small measure of skepticism greeted the prospect of combing through a hybrid Soulslike-open-world design. It had the potential to be full of bloat, and to make the same mistakes that other open-world games tend to do: to be bogged down by grinding and repetition.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for Elden Ring to allay the fears of doubting Thomases. From the outset, it manages to nail the difficulty of its earlier titles while still giving off the feel of an expansive world ready to be explored. In many ways, it feels like a natural extension to what the earlier Souls games sought to do. Exploration remains a primordial concern, albeit on a much more expanded level. That said, it retains the near-Sisyphean characteristic of its predecessors in requiring players to approach each encounter carefully, and with caution – and still be prepared for death. Over and over.
In Elden Ring, gamers still start off with the standard Souls character creator. They can still customize their chosen character's looks and starting class and equipment. The rest is a question mark, a blank page they can fill as they desire. New equipment, new abilities, and newfound powers are all waiting to be discovered, but most of them lie in dangerous places, or tucked away in hidden caches that require exploration to discover. It's all standard open-world design, but what makes it flourish is how neatly this type of exploration feels at home in the genre.
Previous Soulslike experiences did have exploration built in, but the open world in Elden Ring is a veritable standout. Gamers are allowed more freedom to explore their environments and to approach each area as they please. With the Lands Between rife with secrets waiting to be discovered, each area they uncover feels mystical and alien. The rewards they find not only widen their character’s arsenal; they also provide opportunities for testing against any new foes along the way. This may seem trivial in any other game, but not in Elden Ring, where every enemy can be a life-ending threat if approached with caution thrown to the wind. Even basic enemies can be hard to overcome if taken lightly, making these optional side areas all the more engaging when they're tense and effectively life-and-death struggles for new equipment. This treasure on tap and the experience gained can be vital to progress, but they always feel earned when tough enemies lurk around every corner.
The monster design and level layout in Elden Ring is much more complex than in previous entries in the Souls series. Bosses are grander in their characteristics, and are much tougher because of the open world. While it's still possible to take them on with subpar equipment, Elden Ring expects gamers to veer off into other pathways first, and makes sure that enemies are still sufficiently challenging regardless of upgrades.
Make no mistake. Elden Ring is difficult through and through, even during its open, sandbox-like parts. Where other games would be content to let the player engage in more relaxed side activities, it does the opposite. Each area to be traversed is laden with danger, and because of this, at no point does the content ever feel like filler. The opponents lying in wait and the bosses en route ensure that no matter the area, there will always be meaningful challenges, there will always be new enemy types, and there will always be monsters that cannot be overpowered with brute force, but with cunning and caution.
Elden Ring fully embraces its identity from start to finish. The level of detail put into every encounter always feels like it has a purpose, and the options gamers have provide them with better control over their environment. Elden Ring features the ability to play with summons, to be able to powerstance and use weapon arts, to even use a horse to get around. All of these add to making the game feel deeper, especially when combined with the game's difficulty.
Elden Ring does have a handful of hitches. The open world expands the options that players can have, but it’s unrelenting in its challenges. It's very easy to miss things if gamers aren’t careful and tend to breeze through the dialogue and the surroundings. And the game doesn't just reward exploration; it expects its players to engage in some experimentation as well. Without the latter, it's easy to get stuck in certain boss fights, or to get lost and miss certain areas that might hold goodies that could help players progress. In a lot of ways, the best parts of Elden Ring's open world can also be its worst for the unwary, especially those who come into it thinking that it's a game designed for everyone. For the unprepared, frustration is inevitable.
THE GOOD
- Excellent game design, striking a good balance between optional side content and difficult, story-integral missions
- Lots of options on how to play and progress through the game, all valuable and equally viable
- Rewards patience and careful exploration, with player skill and ingenuity being the most important factors
THE BAD
- Closer to the original Dark Souls games rather than its faster-paced cousins like Sekiro or Bloodborne
- Can be frustrating until the new open-world design "clicks"
- Tends to not let up on the difficulty, with bosses proving to be much tougher than can be initially expected
RATING: 9/10
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