Stepping into the world of Elden Ring is like leaving the prison in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion for the first time – one minute you’re lost in the dark and when you emerge, the promise of an adventure stretches out before you. Other FromSoftware games capture a thrill of exploration in their own ways, but this time we’re delving deep and roaming wide. Come across an enemy you can’t defeat and you can simply travel in a new direction by accessing the world map and teleporting to a fresh Grace site.
Elden Ring’s landscape – filled with mountains, ruins and rickety old keeps – has a dreamlike quality. It’s almost like an oil painting – angular and striking, with a spirit tree dominating the skyline and all of it changing in mood based on the rain, the fog and the time of day. Head down to its barren beaches and look out to see ship-wreck-laden, storm-battered seas – bow at its desolate beauty. It’s gorgeous and haunting at the same time, like an abandoned shack in a field of flowers.
Because it’s set in an open world, FromSoftware has been forced to shift gears slightly. It’s still unmistakably a Soulslike – from the bonfire checkpoints (now called Grace sites) to the door opening animations and the combat – but there are some tweaks to the formula that stop this more open environment from feeling like a chore.
The most obvious change – and one I already mentioned – is the addition of a map. As well as being able to fast travel to any discovered Grace spot, you can place down custom markers as you explore, and you can also find map fragments to fill the map in with detail (it starts blank and you have to color it in). When you do delve deep into a dungeon, a fast travel spot appears to ferry you back to the start after you’ve defeated the boss.
Elsewhere, there are the Stakes of Marika, which are essentially checkpoints gates. You can’t level up and tweak your equipment at these like you can at Grace points, but you’ll have the option of starting back here when you’re inevitably killed. Purists might scoff at the idea of more checkpoints in a Soulslike, but it eliminates much of the frustration from repeatedly running through areas you’ve already conquered dozens of times. After all, that’s what we do, right? If you just want another shot at the boss in a Souls game, you just beeline straight for them, ignoring the enemies along the way. Why not just cut out that unnecessary step?
Traveling by foot is also much faster here since stamina management only comes into play when you’re under threat. You’re free to sprint and roll for as long as you like outside of combat. Then there’s Torrent, a haunted horse you can summon and ride at any time outside of dungeons. Not only does Torrent allow you to get around the world faster, but it also adds something new to the genre: mounted combat.
Mounted combat takes the same principles as your usual Dark Souls combat – precision hits, careful defense and a wide range of weapon options – and transplants them into horseback battles. When you come up against enemies who are mounted, it’s almost like a jousting tournament, with both of you winding up, charging in and doing damage before resetting for more. Aim for the enemy’s horse and you can kill that first, unmounting them and giving you a seated advantage. If you’re hoping to become a master, stick points into Dexterity and it’ll be harder to knock you from your spectral saddle.
Another cool new mechanic is the Flask of Wondrous Physick, which allows you to mix crystal tears to create your own concoctions. I made a creation that, when drunk, replenished my stamina before causing me to explode. It’s pretty painful, but you should see the other guys (they’re dead, by the way). If exploding isn’t your thing, there are probably some safer bets.
Elsewhere, Ashes of War allow you to change the special technique on equipped weapons, as well as transform their stats. I collected one called the Piercing Fang and it morphed my Twinblade into a Keen Twinblade, its statistics scaling better with my Dexterity stat. This should allow players to effectively wield weapons they usually wouldn’t be able to touch due to their character build, and it adds another layer of player expression to an already deep combat system.
Elden Ring feels like FromSoftware looking back at all the games it has released in recent years, taking what works, and building upon them. One dungeon’s boss is a Bloodborne-esque beast-man, sorcery is back to Demon’s Souls’ levels of effectiveness, and you’re free to sneak and avoid combat like in Sekiro. It’s like a Greatest Hits album.
It’s still a challenging game, but FromSoftware has sanded down the rough edges. There are so many ways to make life easier for yourself. Fast travel is an obvious one, stealth is another. As always, you can also summon other players to help you out with a difficult boss, and this time you can do that even after you’ve lost a life – and no, you don’t lose a portion of your max health when you die. Then there are spectral summons – packs of wolves and other animals you can call to your aid – and all the other items you can craft or wield. If all else fails, perhaps you can summon your horse and simply double jump over the enemy’s head before running away. There’s a dizzying amount of possibility – the arsenal and mechanics feel as wide as Elden Ring’s world.
After spending three hours in the network test, I forced myself to stop playing. I can already tell it’s going to be special, and I want to save as many surprises as possible for when Elden Ring launches in February 2022. I want to experience that magic of stepping out into its world again.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
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