Elden Ring
About
The Golden Order has been broken.
Rise, Tarnished, and be guided by grace to brandish the power of the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between.
In the Lands Between ruled by Queen Marika the Eternal, the Elden Ring, the source of the Erdtree, has been shattered.
Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring known as the Great Runes, and the mad taint of their newfound strength triggered a war: The Shattering. A war that meant abandonment by the Greater Will.
And now the guidance of grace will be brought to the Tarnished who were spurned by the grace of gold and exiled from the Lands Between. Ye dead who yet live, your grace long lost, follow the path to the Lands Between beyond the foggy sea to stand before the Elden Ring.
System requirements for PlayStation 4
System requirements for Xbox One
System requirements for Xbox Series S/X
System requirements for PlayStation 5
System requirements for PC
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: INTEL CORE I5-8400 or AMD RYZEN 3 3300X
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 3 GB or AMD RADEON RX 580 4 GB
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 60 GB available space
- Sound Card: Windows Compatible Audio Device
- Additional Notes:
- OS: Windows 10/11
- Processor: INTEL CORE I7-8700K or AMD RYZEN 5 3600X
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 8 GB or AMD RADEON RX VEGA 56 8 GB
- DirectX: Version 12
- Storage: 60 GB available space
- Sound Card: Windows Compatible Audio Device
- Additional Notes:
Where to buy
Elden Ring reviews and comments
Exploring Limgrave was really fun, but then you realize open world is quantity over quality. Not that bad maybe, but the feeling is definitely there, and it really gets tiresome by the end with all the samey dungeons and copy-pasted bosses. Also reused ideas because it's a Souls game, we ain't gotta create nothing new.
Might be GOTY. Waiting for the DLC.
My singular gripe with this game - and I struggle to call it a flaw, it may just be my preference - is just how overwhelmingly open it is. Souls games have always had mysterious and hands-off stories, true; but Elden Ring's openness conflicts a bit with this structure for me. I think I want more direction. Yes, the light of the sites of Grace does point the player in the direction they should go, but there are many sites pointing in many directions, and this can be overwhelming the more you explore. Personally, I would have liked a more straightforward, guided main story that encouraged exploration without potentially losing the player.
Side note: I'm not sure how I feel about overworld bosses. I ran from mid-Limgrave all the way to the northern point of the northernmost castle and ran past like four bosses - including an ancient dragon - and I had no clue where I was or what the lore significance of it was. I think this adds to my point that a bit more careful guidance of the player at the cost of free exploration would have made everything a bit more digestible/approachable without making a joke of it.
4/10/22 - After really taking my time and finishing this game, I think my gripe of there being too little direction only really applies to the early/mid game. Once you reach the capital, it becomes incredibly obvious where you need to go. This game is incredibly large, and the amount of content is insane. One of the best games of all time. That being said, the amount of boss reskins, repeats, duos, etc. does dull the shine a bit. It's to be expected with how fucking huge this game is, but it still sucks to see the 11th Ulcerated Tree Spirit come out of the ground after fighting the third Godskin Apostle and the eighth dragon reskin. When the bosses slap, they fucking slap. When they don't, they really don't.
Game's a 10/10
With regard to combat, it’s Dark Souls turned up to 11: the player character is consistently outreached, outsped, outdamaged, outmaneuvered and outnumbered by enemies, which gets incredibly frustrating. Also, because enemies are so difficult, it’s unclear if you’re losing to them because you haven’t learned their behaviour properly yet or because you’re still underleveled. This led me to explore more in previous areas, which in turn caused me to be overleveld for the boss fights, which were then disappointingly easy, while they should have been a highlight.
There are some very cool moments, the game looks amazing (do keep in mind that it’s primarily a last-gen game, though), the music can be incredibly good and, like I said, the open world is among the best out there. However, for me, the negatives outweigh the positives and I’m not necessarily looking forward to a future From Software game, even though Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro are among my favourite games.
Edit: I’ve doubled my play time and this is the best game I’ve played since the first time I played TES IV: Oblivion and I don’t see this being topped any time soon. I dare FromSoft to top this.
tl;dr Long May the Sun Shine. 9.8/10 One of the best games I've ever played and would be a 10/10 if PC version had less FPS drops.