Words & Games: “Elden Ring”

Elden Ring by developer FromSoftware, published by Bandai-Namco

The much anticipated spiritual successor to the acclaimed Dark Souls has finally arrived, and it’s not without precedence. Series director and creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, who sparked a neo-renaissance for Japan developer FromSoftware – beginning with the release of 2009’s cult-classic, Demon’s Souls - has commandeered attention of the gaming world ever since arriving in the spotlight. Utilizing a unique blend of third-person, action-RPG elements, traditional “Metroidvania” (a term designating semi-open world exploration, aka sandboxing) design, esoteric if-asynchronous storytelling/lore-building and a penchant for grueling difficulty, Dark Souls itself has become an adjective to describe other games attempting to follow in its wake (i.e., “Souls-like,” or, “the Dark Souls of [insert any genre]”). To simply put it: Dark Souls feels as if a natural distillation of several series, like a greatest hits of The Legend of Zelda, Dungeons & Dragons, The Elder Scrolls and more. If you’re into action and RPG’s, Dark Souls is in essence, the gold-standard when grading other games of its caliber (and deservedly so). 

George R. R. Martin, creator and writer of the highly-successful Game of Thrones, added further anticipation for Elden Ring by being involved in creating the game’s lore. If you’ve ever played any of Miyazaki’s previous games (King’s Field, Shadow Tower, Dark Souls), it’s not understated how his aesthetics borrow from Medieval fantasy and Euro-centric, Dark-Age influence. Dragons, mages, knights, English accents, swords, chainmail, horses and such are common-parlance within Dark Souls, and Elden Ring makes no distinction. The resulting influence of Martin’s work is felt through near-poetic verse of certain non-playable characters, a complex and political world told in piece-meal exposition, item descriptions and much more. There exists arguments as to the extent of which Martin was directly involved in the project, but nevertheless, the stroke of his pen remains emanant in the game’s ambiance and tone. Dark Souls, an esoteric flash of genius, in-line to its name in terms of a palpable tone/energy, feels like it’s now a football field behind Elden Ring in the same direction. 

At its core, Elden Ring is more or less a Dark Souls game, from the DNA of its combat engine and character creation, etc., but it differentiates itself by introducing one major innovation to the series’ evolution: a complete open-world. In FromSoftware’s previous titles, exploration was throttled, limited in a carefully-curated manner to balance out item discovery and progression, but with Elden Ring, the player is immediately thrust into an open map, much akin to Skyrim. It’s overwhelming at-first, when, without much introduction or explanation, you’re suddenly staring at Limgrave (the game’s first “starting area”) atop a scenic overview and left to fend for yourself. Other open-world games like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild (decidedly influent wherever you look in Elden Ring) often litter the map and U.I. with location markers, but Elden Ring respects the player’s agency by giving complete freedom to freely venture without nagging quest icons or reminders. All that remains are Sites of Grace (Elden Ring’s equivalent to the rest-points/respawn spots, ala’ Dark Souls) which offer a gentle visual cue that point in the general direction of where you might want to go. The way Elden Ring utilizes freedom as a key-mechanic to the tried-and-true-just-add-water Souls formula, I feel reinvigorates FromSoftware’s design, elevating it beyond the milieu of the (pun-intended) soulless, open-world genre.

As a fan From’s previous entries, I eagerly pre-ordered Elden Ring in-advance and awaited its release with fervor. My expectations were admittedly low, given that, my favorite title - 2015’s Bloodborne - had exceeded anything they’ve ever done, and with it, how nothing came close. Booting up Elden Ring for the first time, it came to my surprise how intuitive the gameplay and open-world symmetrized, and alongside a gorgeous if-ominous score, I became instantly enthralled, compelled to continue. Exploration is highly rewarded, and there’s an atlas’s worth of geography to wander. It seems like every nook and cranny is packed with items, dungeons, caves, crafting materials, secrets, invoking the childlike wonder within me. Not since Breath of the Wild has a game done so much to keep my attention, and Elden Ring feels like a natural progression of similar ethos. Runes, Elden Ring’s equivalent to souls or echoes (i.e. “currency” for leveling up, buying items) aren’t abundant at-first, where the game takes it to instill a philosophy for rewarding patience, perseverance, as opposed to light-speed progression of other open-world games. Meet an enemy you just quite can’t beat? The game, by implicit design, lays bare for you to explore, perhaps to find an item or weapon you need to progress, maybe level-up before returning, though overall, the choice is yours…and I love it. 

Elden Ring’s The Lands Between and its massive map zoomed out.

Although it’s still early to fully-formulate a well-rounded review per se – given that I’m relatively “fresh” in the game at a whopping 20 hours– my impressions are already strong. Without any hyperbole, I can deduce that Elden Ring is one of, if-not, the greatest video game I’ve ever played. The world map is gargantuan, and just the starting area alone could be an entire game’s worth to explore. After a contested battle with the story’s first big boss, the world exponentializes in size, doubling-no, quadrupling in scale. Everywhere you look is a new castle to explore, dungeon to plunge, a wealth of items to amass, enemy hordes to engage, and it all just makes sense. Elden Ring’s greatest strength is its tenacity, weighing out difficulty spikes with freedom of discovery; there’s a natural dynamism between exploration and combat that works so well in Elden Ring, near-insulting in terms of its simplicity and brevity. The enemy scaling seems to be balanced upon general progression, though I wouldn’t be surprised if its tied to the player’s (it’s too early to tell and besides, I’m thoroughly enjoying my playthrough without knowing a thing). Even death, something that had more severe consequence in Dark Souls, is a minor inconvenience with Elden Ring. Bite off more than you can chew? Fine, respawn at the last rest-point and try again. There’s no more “hollowing” (a Dark Souls gameplay mechanic in which the player must “regain humanity” after each death to engage in multi-player) if you die, and the item required to summon players is abundant in case you ever need/want help traversing The Lands Between.

Elden Ring is not without its detractors. As read online, some players feel alienated or even dispirited to not have a curated path to venture. Popular dissenting sentiments range the gamut, criticisms from “overwhelming” to “just open-world Dark Souls” popping up on the web, and it’s perfectly understandable. FromSoftware’s legacy is defined by meticulous world design, semi-open world/sandbox exploration, a “long at-first, short on-repeat” assembly that’s gone from Elden Ring (so far). The graphics, which are very good (for the current PS5 version), are nowhere near the polish of Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls remake, but that goes without saying, due to open-world games themselves requiring quite a bit of memory to load assets. There’s pop-in when moving from one area to the next, loads of minor graphical glitches and/or hiccups in certain areas, and the framerate seems to slow when encountering multiple enemies (doubly with multiplayer enabled). Why 60 frames-per-second couldn’t be achieved on the Playstation 5 or Xbox Series X continues to elude me, given that Elden Ring was (allegedly) designed ground-up on last-generation hardware, though perhaps a future patch may address this. Storytelling-wise, Elden Ring isn’t much different from a narrative standpoint compared to From Software’s other titles, so the tradition of esoteric ramblings galore, purposefully diminutive descriptions, a vague plot and characterization remain steadfast here, leaving you to either love or hate it, dependent on your taste.

A player character riding Elden Ring’s summonable “Torrent” through The Lands Between

I made it a point to not demo the network trial prior to release, nor did I read up whatsoever about the game in order to ensure I was going-in clueless. My character’s starting class was “Wretch” (for roleplay reasons), and I elected to forgo a starting gift in-furtherance for head-canon. The resulting first hours of my initial decisions were pure bliss. Every battle felt tense and every piece of armor, equipment was a sight to behold. It felt like starting from the ground-up to build a character from the level 1 class origin, and I would highly recommend it to any FromSoft veteran. When the moment arrived for me to continue on with the main story, I’d already lost interest, but in the best possible way. From a design standpoint, other open-world games feel eager to push me to quest, however, the way Elden Ring dropped me in the morass of a hugely-complex world without the need to push, was intoxicating. Instead of rushing to find bigger or better weapons, spells, I found myself taking my sweet time, enjoying the sights and sounds of The Lands Between. There’s very few instances where I felt I was playing something groundbreaking, but Elden Ring invokes this feeling in me like it’s 1998, playing Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64, Grand Theft Auto III on Playstation 2, Halo on the original Xbox, Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, etc. I believe Elden Ring is action-RPG perfection, the apex, a new frontier for the genre, and furthermore, I don’t believe there’s reason to go back to Dark Souls.

With only about 20-hours in so far, Elden Ring’s greater themes remain to be witnessed. Motifs through imagery, thematic symbolism, allegorical representations are Miyazaki’s staple and the bread-and-butter of which he tells stories without telling them. You’re left to make up your own conclusions about the plot and decide your character’s actions in Elden Ring, something uniquely on-brand for FromSoftware (how they incorporate RPG elements into their stories). I’ve never been a “lore-hound,” though I find myself gleefully engaging in the game’s minimalistic narrative and story, enjoying Martin’s almost incomprehensibly-dense world-assemblage, witnessing Elden Ring’s plot-before-the-plot-shtick in-awe. There’s so much to do, scratch beneath the surface, and I for one, will be more-than-likely playing Elden Ring for many years to come (I hope). In short: this is a must-play for any fan of roleplaying games, a truly unique experience that’s been well worth the many years of waiting. The Lands Between await, oh Tarnished, and it’s time to rise for the Elden Ring indeed!