![]() There are hard walls, but you sometimes get the precious ability to pivot if you’re really stuck. Previous Soulsborne games have been curated experiences with some illusion of player choice. Little animations and effects shine, like the sparks shooting out of your sword as you drag it along a stone bridge and swipe up to take down a mounted soldier.Īs you might surmise, the big question here is balance. The world is drop-dead gorgeous too, with a framerate that is mostly fluid with a few dips on PS5. ![]() The story is some intriguing finger maiden foolery, and the NPCs who deliver it are all dodgy gits who talk with all the clarity of a befuddled politician, so not much change there. This all suggests that PVP is going to be bonkers, and I can’t wait to see videos of players finessing enemies as they come to master the combat. There are also non-magical weapon arts that make your character take special stances, opening up unique attacks. So far the mana pool has felt strangely forgiving, and you can replenish it by whacking dung beetles and clearing out nests of enemies in the open world, which is nice. Yes, you can just yeet out some wolves to attack your enemies, if you please. The blend is mostly successful and propped up by some cheesy new additions like the weapon arts (swords that can lightning strike enemies from a distance? yes please!) and literal summoning. Shields are back in a big way so there’s plenty of blocking and circling to score a critical (cheers, years of muscle memory) but you’ll also be expected to jump, dodge and counter with the pace of Sekiro. It’s here where you can spot the small ways in which Elden Ring pulls away carefully from Dark Souls with its hybrid combat. On the other hand, you’ve got the more Soulsian Tree Sentinel with its fluid mounted attacks that slip so carefully in between your guard. And it’s not even the most unsettling fucker in the game – there’s this gurgling octopus monster with the beak of a bird that I’m probably going to talk to my therapist about. ![]() You might think it’s easy to beat because of its appropriately rigid animations, but the bed-wetting terror this thing instilled in me meant it took a while. There’s one called the Burial Tree Watchdog, except it’s a big fire-breathing stone cat with a cape and collar that lives in a hall of bones. Seriously, the monsters in this game are cooked. I’m pleased to say that’s not the case – there are plenty of little caves and dilapidated buildings to explore where you’ll fight freaky, awkward beasts that came from a place between dreams and nightmares. My first worry about this shift in approach was that it would mean we’d say goodbye to the claustrophobic dungeons of yore, and interiors in general. As a mysterious exile, you collect fruit from trees and bones from animals to craft items and upgrade your skills, working your way through the challenging environment and resting at spots of grace, which you can fast-travel between to get around. You ride around on horseback in a gigantic open world, which you can approach in any way you like. ![]() If I wanted to really sell this to someone like I was working the front desk at GAME, I would say that Elden Ring plays like Dark Souls but feels more like Breath of the Wild. I’m not yet convinced that Elden Ring is good enough to surpass the above, but it’s ambitious, challenging and weird in all of the ways that I wanted it to be. Instead, they just hone in on weaknesses in their own design school and take bold steps away from the source material.īloodborne said “fuck your shields”, and Sekirosaid “fuck everything you know about Dark Souls” and they were both still utterly incredible games. If they were under the cosh of some money-grubbing publisher, I’m sure we’d be onto Dark Souls 8 right now, and they’d have squeezed every last drop out of Lordran. ![]() What really startles me about FromSoftware is how mechanically brave they are as a studio. READ MORE: I’d play more DLC if game devs reminded me of the controls.In a game like Elden Ring, you engage directly with every swing of your sword. From Dark Souls to Bloodborne, the worlds crafted by this illustrious studio are some of the hottest properties in modern fantasy, but you don’t have to settle for simply observing them. It’s bonkers to think that, from humble beginnings, we’re getting a FromSoftware game next year that has had mythological consultation from George “ Game Of Thrones” R.R. ![]()
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