Elden Ring | PS5 Review

It’s safe to say FromSoftware has become a dominant studio in the medium. Every one of their releases stops the industry and commands everyone to take a look. Nothing could’ve prepared us for the explosive popularity of Elden Ring, however. The game has skyrocketed to the stratosphere and, even a full month after release, remains the main topic of conversation. But does it warrant all that hype?

Elden Ring is Dark Souls IV in all but name, that much is certain, but the main draw this time around is the transition into open-world. Gone is the labyrinthine interconnectedness of past entries’ worlds, replaced by the significantly more popular style of most modern games. This isn’t to say FromSoftware followed the path trodden by most major releases, though. There are no map markers or quest icons here, no mountains of side quests, and no useless skill trees.

Carve Your Own Path

This is a game about exploration at its core, and that’s woven into every moment of gameplay. There’s a hand-crafted nature to this world, the kind that allows you to memorize things despite the game’s ludicrous world size. Each area is also distinct in visual appearance, making it hard to ever feel bored while wandering. Dungeons and castles beckon you to investigate their treasures within, cave systems can lead to meaningful bosses or NPC encounters, and church ruins could provide you with a much-needed health upgrade.

There are even one-off Legacy Dungeons that provide a more traditional Dark Souls experience in microcosm. These are more linear affairs, and often have the smart backtracking and shortcuts of the best levels of the franchise. Often these are brief, maybe two or three hours, but they provide a much needed respite from the open-world. In fact, they often help connect one open-world area from another, so they provide a welcome checkup on how good your skills have gotten. I always looked forward to these areas, and they were all excellent.

A Beautiful Death

Content is tucked around every corner in the open-world of Elden Ring, and so much of it is unique. There’s a definite disappointment in seeing bosses so often reused in the side areas, but the rewards remain one of a kind. It might not be a useful reward for the kind of character you’re playing, but it will always be something different. I’ve entered seemingly mundane caves and left with a dagger that reshapes how I play the game. Just as often I’ve found a powerful staff completely useless to my character that is devoid of magic, but the thrill is ever present. Having these unique rewards makes exploration infinitely more rewarding that most open-world games’ rewards of boring skill points or randomized loot.

What made the open-world of Elden Ring appeal to me so much was the brutality of it all. Innocuous enemies can leave you dead in only a moment if you’re not paying attention. It’s the lock-on focused combat so many modern games use these days, but FromSoftware are the ones that popularized it for a reason. Every enemy has attacks that are unique from any other and require you to pay attention in different ways. Death at the hand of these foes only ever felt like my fault, which always resulted in me wanting to rise again and correct that error. It’s a thrilling system that hasn’t gotten old even seven games in.

Creatures Rarely Seen

Part of the thrill of these enemies are their varied designs. Elden Ring takes a joyful absurdity to its enemies that had me chuckle more than a few times. Everything is given life to murder you, whether it’s a giant lobster, a skull wheelchair, or a snail with summoning magic. It’s often funny how outrageous it all is until you’re skewered. Somehow, though, the art style and the world work together to make all these disparate creatures feel like they could reasonably coexist in the harsh world of The Lands Between.

 

The normal enemies are one thing, but if there’s something fans of this studio expect, it’s high quality boss fights. For the most part, that’s the case here. Elden Ring deploys a significant roadblock upfront with Margit, The Fell Omen. This first major boss is an exam before you’re let out into the full world, and it’s an exercise in masterful game design. He will destroy you upfront, educating you to get out into that world and explore some more. By the time you gather up weapons more your style and gain general skill, the feeling of eradicating the bastard feels exquisite.

Most of the boss fights thereafter provide that same euphoria, albeit with much fewer attempts. Many of the main bosses feel great to learn and defeat, and if you need some assistance there’s always the ability to summon another player for co-op or summon a spectral spirit to assist in the battle. In fact, Elden Ring seems to want you to summon far more than any Dark Souls title ever did. A lot of bosses are lightning quick, and use devastating combos and area-of-effect skills that almost require a friend (whether real or spectral) to help distract.

Nothing is Created Equal

This is especially true in the terribly designed combo bosses you will find all-too-often in the later game side content. These seem to not be remotely balanced at all (we’ll talk more about balancing in a bit), and seem like some mad hatter of a designer just threw two bosses, formerly fought on their own, together with no consideration for how well that operates together. It’s frankly a bit of a joke, and while they’re often doable, it never feels good. It’s a shame, as this is the rush most players want out of these titles. I suppose this is a natural side effect to having well over 100 bosses in a game, but it’s disappointing all the same.

Let’s address those balancing issues. Elden Ring presents an absolutely absurd amount of ways to play the game. Magic, incantations, bowmanship, quick daggers, tanky armor, swords, shields, usable items, the list is nearly endless when you consider these can all be mixed and matched. This provides a fun amount of freedom to the game, at least in the first two-thirds. The back third of the game is frustrating exercise into being shoehorned into putting level-ups into Vigor. Vigor increases your health, and most late-game bosses can wipe out an entire health bar in a single attack.

An Education By Combat

I can already hear the “git gud” crowd screaming about how you should’ve been leveling up your Vigor much earlier. My frustration comes from never having this experience in any FromSoftware game before. Never have I had so many bosses able to one-hit me so reliably. There’s even one boss the community discovered has a straight-up undodgeable attack. That’s not fun, and that’s not what we expect from the studio. I’m all for an attack that nearly wipes you out; hell I understand a grab attack killing you outright, but these bosses don’t give you the opportunity to learn during the fight and that sucks. Some of these final bosses are balanced so poorly they feel like afterthoughts.

When I died repeatedly, I didn’t feel like there was a lesson to be learned. It felt like there was no escape other than a handful of railroaded paths ahead. I don’t pretend to be phenomenal at the Soulsborne series, but I’ve Platinumed a number of them and have never hit this sort of wall. When the exploration of the world, and so many of the bosses therein, are so great, it’s disheartening to see the endgame come up so woefully short. I expect better from this studio.

If Only I Could Find Thee

Another frustration comes from NPC questlines. They are often my favorite part of FromSoftware’s games, and Elden Ring is no exception. The melancholic stories of your fellow adventurers are often painful, but usually profound. So many characters here are ones I’ll remember for a long time to come, and there’s one questline in particular that I hope everyone experiences. In true franchise fashion, a lot of these quests are vague and esoteric. Unlike previous games, however, finding these characters naturally is incredibly difficult.

This is one of the largest open-worlds I’ve ever been in, so the odds of running into a character are already slim. Running into them to continue their stories is even slimmer. This isn’t too dissimilar to games like Dark Souls, but those were far more linear and prone to sending you backtracking, making it somewhat likely to encounter characters again. Things in Elden Ring are simply too massive to have this kind of vagueness to questlines.

Even characters saying something as vague as “I’ll be heading west, I think.” would have been helpful, but they’re far more likely to say “I hope we meet again.” Where, Alexander, where will we meet again?! It’s also irksome, because progressing past killing certain main bosses will end these questlines abruptly, locking you out of pivotal lore and character development. I eventually resorted to looking a lot of these up, out of pure fear I’d trip in a forest somewhere and leave a character dead elsewhere. Now that being said, almost all of these are incredibly powerful stories worth experiencing, but unlike previous games, missing these quests doesn’t feel like my fault. A frustrating experience only Elden Ring could provide, truly.

History in Bloodshed

I should point out that despite being a story guy, I’ve barely mentioned it here. That’s purposeful, as Soulsborne stories rely heavily on player investigation. Suffice it to say, the scope is larger than it first appears, and the lore of the world is deeply interesting. In fact, I hope we learn even more in DLC or something, because the world and universe is absolutely ripe for further storytelling.

I’m not afraid to tell you how beautiful the world is, though. There’s a particular underground vista that made my jaw drop early on, and there were a handful after even that. While technically it’s no powerhouse (the graphics and framerate are nothing to write home about), it more than makes up for it artistically. So many bosses and enemies looks breathtaking, and you won’t believe how many varied areas you go to. It’s an absolute stunner to explore, made all the more so by the subdued and moody music.

Rise, Tarnished

Elden Ring is only so frustrating because when it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s absolutely exceptional. I don’t even typically like open-world games, but I was captivated to explore everything I could find in this macabre world. I wish like hell all parts of the game were created equal, but even with every complaint I’ve had, I want to go back in for more despite Platinuming the game. The nice thing is that every complaint I’ve had could be fixed with patches, so I can only hope that will soon be the case.

Despite its shortcomings, I think anyone interested should check it out. It’s certainly the most accessible of the franchise, and it’s often the easiest (when you’re not in the late game cheesefest absurdity). It’s an excellent onboarding for newcomers to this genre, and it’ll prepare you for the studio’s better past games. So rise, Tarnished, now is your time.

 

This review is based on a purchased copy of Elden Ring. It is also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox, and PC via Steam.