Elden Ring is an open world masterpiece—if you're up for the challenge

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In gaming, there are easy games, there are hard games, and then there are Souls-like games. The name describes a genre of game with tight combat and extremely challenging enemies, inspired by the Dark Souls series. Now the original team behind the Dark Souls trilogy is back with an entirely new entry in the genre: Elden Ring. 

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Elden Ring leaves the Souls name behind, but it builds on the same foundation while taking it to new heights. Most notably? It takes the tight, intricate level design of the Souls games and explodes it into a rich, dense open world that is stunningly crafted, akin to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But where Breath of the Wild gives you the sense of a world that is open, free, and tranquil, just about everything in Elden Ring’s world wants to hurt you.

It’s a risky combination, especially with the Dark Souls series having such a well-established (and beloved) blueprint—but it works marvelously. Elden Ring is just as challenging and complex as all its predecessors, but developer FromSoftware have borrowed liberally from other successful open world titles and put their own spin on it. The result? An instant classic that belongs among the best games in recent memory.

Elden Ring is an open-world action RPG from developer FromSoftware and directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. It was written in “collaboration” with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, who apparently assisted with the plot, world-building, and some key characters. That Game of Thrones influence comes through in the world, though the actual plot of this story will feel familiar to Souls fans. 

The game places you in the world of the “Lands Between” as a so-called Tarnished. You create a custom character, pick from one of several starting classes, and are thrown out into the world to explore. Defeat enemies and you’ll gather “runes”—the game’s primary currency—to buy items and level up. When you die you lose the runes you had in hand and you have one chance to make it back to where you died to get them back. Die again and they’re gone for good.

What’s the plot of Elden Ring? The main thrust of the plot is that The Lands Between have fallen into ruin due to the shattering of the Elden Ring, resulting in disorder between life and death—hence the whole respawning thing—and a great war between the various demi-gods of the realm. You’re here to sort it all out.

What platforms is Elden Ring on? The game is available on current generation consoles like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, as well as last-gen consoles like PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs. 

How many hours does it take to beat Elden Ring? The game’s director claims the story can be beaten in about 30 hours, though if you’re going in blind I’d expect to take at least twice that. This review is written after playing for approximately 28 hours, though I still haven’t beaten the final bosses. If the main character turns heel and the ending is a deeply unsatisfying committee meeting, we’ll update the review.

Parental Guidance: Elden Ring is rated M for Mature 17+, specifically for blood and gore, suggestive themes, violence, and language. 

As you’d expect, it’s quite violent, and some of the bosses and areas could be scary to young players. One of the early bosses is composed of several dozen severed limbs, for example, so… it’s that kind of game.

The combat is deep, varied, and gives you plenty of options

Elden Ring looks and plays just like the Dark Souls games, giving you a massive variety of weapons, shields, magic, and incantations to use to defeat enemies. In addition to customizing your own character, you’ll find dozens of different weapons on your travels, from basic swords and shields to legendary weapons taken right from some of the bosses you’ll beat. 

It is a lot for new players to learn, but you can get by with just the basics even if this is your first Souls-like game, focusing on light and heavy attacks and various dodges and rolls. There’s also a wide variety of new magic spells and other abilities—including summoning spirits to help you—that make even challenging fights a little easier.

Of course, it’s still Souls-like, so the enemies are a massive challenge to overcome. There’s at least a basic tutorial in the game—after which the first character you meet invites you to die in a ditch. Fun!

Mounted combat and travel is a breath of fresh air

One thing that helps turn the tide in the open world is your spectral steed, Torrent. Unlike most open world games, you earn your ride almost immediately, making it much faster to travel around the vast world around you. Torrent is one of the best open-world mounts I’ve ever used thanks to his double-jump and ability to leap up massive cliffs on special gusts of wind. Usually scaling a mountain on your horse and jumping off is something you do as a glitch; here, it’s intended. 

Mounted on Torrent, you can use your full complement of weapons, giving you a simple way to control (or escape) fights even if you’re still mastering the basics of fighting up close. Every open world—from Zelda to The Witcher—has some kind of horse, and Torrent instantly leaps to its place among the very best.

The game is as rewarding as it is challenging

There have been years of debate over whether purposely difficult games like Dark Souls and Sekiro need an “easy” mode. Though I don’t think there would be much harm in making the game more accessible to people who have trouble with the action elements of the game, when a boss "clicks" and things seem to slow down as you finally beat it, it's incredibly rewarding.

Elden Ring has kept all the difficulty from previous games, but it’s removed some of the tedium. For example, it was common in previous games to work your way cautiously through a level, reach a boss, and then get crushed. Then you’d start back at the very beginning of the level and have to run all the way back, usually sprinting by all the enemies you carefully beat the first time.

You can usually unlock shortcuts that make these run-backs simpler, but you’re still spending 4-5 minutes just getting back to the boss…who proceeds to crush you 10 more times. Elden Ring adds respawn points closer to these bosses so you can jump right back in and try again much faster. It doesn’t make the boss any easier, it just gets you back sooner.

Ultimately, this is still a challenging game and it will remain frustratingly inaccessible to many. There are more varied ways of beating each boss—especially as magic is far more powerful than in the Dark Souls games—but you’re going to have to improve as you move along to beat the game. You’ll need to learn how bosses move, which attacks you can avoid, and how to dodge around them. It’s chaotic and incredibly frustrating at times, but damn is it fun.

The combat won’t be for everyone

At its core, Elden Ring is still a game about fast-paced combat. That means you’re going to have to rely on learning how and when to attack, how and when to dodge, and how to space around certain enemies. Though the open world elements open up different paths for progressing through the game, eventually these paths condense to one: right through a main boss.

The biggest bosses reside in “Legacy Dungeons,” which are similar to the large interconnected levels in previous Souls games. There are secret paths that let you immediately travel almost anywhere you want—letting you beat them in different orders—but there’s really no getting around having to beat these bosses eventually. You can level up and acquire new abilities to make the fight easier—even fast traveling in and out from checkpoints inside at will—but you will have to beat each to move the story to its conclusion.

The game is overwhelmingly complex at times

This is not going to be a negative to many Souls veterans, but Elden Ring is a remarkably deep, complex game. It’s a full-blown sword and sorcery RPG, so you have to manage your character’s development, allocating stat points into various categories. These choices affect how much damage you do, what kinds of weapons you can use, and how much equipment you can wear. It’s not uncommon to find a really cool sword and need another 20 levels before you can even use it.

Speaking of weapons, those also need to be upgraded—you simply won’t put a dent in later bosses without doing so. There are also special abilities that can be swapped around between weapons, and spirits you can summon for help, and a ton of special items like talismans, and "great runes" you need to power up—it's a lot.

It’s this complexity that gives the game such incredible replayability, but it does mean new players will need a bit of a leg up. If the phrase “Quality Build” means nothing to you, pick up a strategy guide to help you figure out what’s what. 

Yes, if you love a challenge this is the game to get.

In most games, the first enemy you run into is meant to be a pushover. Think the first turtle that comes sauntering toward Mario, ready to get squished. Elden Ring is different. One of the first characters you meet invites you to die in a ditch, then the first enemy you run into after him—a glorious, golden knight on horseback—absolutely destroys you. Run into the nearby church for cover? He knocks the church over. It’s like walking into a pickup basketball game and getting dunked on. 

In many games, death is the end. You die, you lose, game over. But there isn’t a “game over” screen in Elden Ring. Sure, it doesn’t feel great when the giant fire-breathing dragon turns you into crème brûlée for the 15th time. But death is just one more step on the path. You’re not supposed to beat the golden knight. But come back in five hours? Now you get to dunk on him.

It would’ve been easy for this game to just rehash the best beats from Dark Souls games, add a little Game of Thrones flair, and put it in a cookie-cutter open world. That would’ve been a good game. 

Instead, Elden Ring swung for the fences, and it nailed it. The world is massive, but every inch of it feels crafted, with dozens of little secrets to discover as you move through it. After more than 24 hours roaming The Lands Between, I have only barely begun to scratch the surface.

I went into Elden Ring expecting to compare it to previous Dark Souls games. But more than anything it reminds me of Breath of the Wild. They’re different games, and Breath of the Wild is already considered one of the best games of all time, but Elden Ring justifies the comparison in so many ways. Simply put, Elden Ring is a stunner, and if you don’t mind a bit of a challenge, it is a game that should not be missed.

Elden Ring launches midnight February 25th and is available on Playstation, Xbox and Windows PCs. 

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