DISCLAIMER: And of course, a slue of major life changes swept in right when I meant to get a decent publishing rotation going here at the blog. New job, new relationship, new developments in the ever tumultuous Burkholder Family: There’s been very little time to attend to this while still tackling my higher priority pursuits of writing and 3D modelling. Those changes are settling into routine elements of my life now, though, and so unless another slue is hot on the heels of the last, a decent publishing rotation is forthcoming.
But for now: Enjoy!
I cannot readily recall an era in gaming that’s known so many magnum opuses in such a short span of time. In 2019 we had Death Stranding, Kojima’s undisputed finest outing that cemented an already surefooted position in the rolls of game design legends. In 2020, we had Cyberpunk 2077, which regardless of its bugs was a masterwork of open world game design in which not a single feature felt lacking. 2021 was woefully lacking in anything approaching a moment of awe. The closest we got was Resident Evil: Village, which while a very good game was not nearly the best Resident Evil, and that fact speaks for itself.
That letdown, however, now seems to have a purpose in hindsight: Elden Ring finally finally finally dropped. If I don’t see another thrilling game for the rest of this year or all of the next, I’ll remain satisfied.
FromSoftware is nearly alone in being a studio to consistently outdo themselves with each new release, and each new release consistently outdoes its peer releases. Elden Ring necessarily then puts to shame all its predecessors and sets a threshold for quality that I’m not sure even FS will be able to meet again.
The adventure begins, as all real adventures do, in ignominy. You are once again something lesser that is destined for greatness. Chosen Undead, Ashen One, you are now Tarnished. And yet despite this less than florid appellation, you are called back from the void to put a mad world to rights. Your inheritance is that of Elden Lord who is master over what is presumed to be the fire of creation in this world: the Elden Ring.
Long time players of From’s games are no stranger to this setup. Indeed, this origin story has taken on something of a mythology in the gaming community that is on par with Elder Scrolls beginning every iteration with the player as some sort of prisoner or captive. It makes for one of the most powerful narrative experiences which also has the uncommon distinction of requiring no explicit narrative of its own. That is, there is no need for an NPC to explicitly tell you how special and important you are to the narrative. To be sure, there are plenty of them in both series of games; but the gameplay experience offers an inherent narrative of its own of the small becoming great. This concept also gave birth to one of the best lines in the Dark Souls series, by way of Ludleth in the series’ third entry: “I may be but small, but I shall die a colossus.”
Our info dump flatterer this time is Melania who gives us also a magical horse called Torrent, the first of its kind in a FromSoftware game–and what a pleasant surprise it is. After leaving Elden Ring’s iteration of the Platonic Allegory of the Cave, we are greeted with a magnificent vista replete with vibrant colors and almost peaceful ruination that recalls Breath of the Wild more than it does Dark Souls. And into this comparative paradise we are soon galloping atop Torrent, slicing and dicing and picking mushrooms and wandering into punishing boss fights that are the equivalent of max level sadists spawnkilling in the starter zone.
This is only an awesomely small fraction of the game world and experience. Through an ingenious trick of design, the map is kept focused only on what the player has explored and discovered insofar as accessible zones. What this means is that with every new triumph over the Regional Big Bad, the map expands to include the next region. By the end of the game we are free to look back on the little pocket of territory that was our birthplace and feel a sense of accomplishment that dwarfs that of similar experiences in similar games that begin with the whole of the map existing as a dark continent waiting to be explored in full.
The scale of the game world, to say nothing of the gameplay itself, is truly staggering. I’m nearing 500 hours of game time and am still uncovering things I missed. There are a seemingly endless amount of items and locations and weapons and characters. A multitude of builds and hybrid builds, for the most part equal in utility, are readily apparent when cross referencing weapons with spells and Ashes of War (which are themselves a much needed addition to the world of melee-only characters). It’s exceedingly fortunate then that FromSoftware introduced a major quality of life improvement in their latest Soulslike: a respec item. Gone are the days of a mind numbing number of replays to experience all of what the game has to offer. A step away from the previously and strictly hardcore Souls experience, but alas much needed in the opinion of this time-limited Adult.
My critiques of Elden Ring are as few as my praises are many, but I’ve critiques nonetheless.
The foremost is the one failing that FromSoftware seems unable to escape in all but two of their games: Sekiro and Demon’s Souls, the former benefited from a linear story and the latter from being the only FromSoftware game to make available all its levels from the start and so each area necessitated full development.
As the player progresses through Elden Ring, we are left feeling that the world is getting smaller as it is getting larger. There are less characters, less dungeons, less enemy variety and less exploration to be had in general. This dense and elaborate world we are introduced to steadily loses color and depth as the story progresses, albeit with some truly striking deviations (Leyndell, Volcano Manor, the Haligtree, to name a few) even if most are locked behind secrets. These later areas never fully disappoint, of course. The experience on first sight still awes. But I couldn’t help but feel I was progressing through only the shell of what I thought was going to be a mesmerizing endgame.
Indeed, this culminates in what amounts to probably the most underwhelming boss fight in FromSoftware history: the equivalent of a Street Fighter match against an experienced Zangief player. This head scratcher is made worse by the fact that one of the *best* boss fights in FromSoftware history is locked behind a secret area. One is left to wonder how such a fumble at the one-yard line was allowed to occur. But, as fumbles go, this is one that I shall let pass on the merits of the many points scored beforehand.
My next substantial criticism is the other side of this same coin: There is such a plentitude of lore that to try and piece together the history and current state of the world is to become lost in a sea of cinematic references, item descriptions and dialogue snippets that even as many as they are still fail to account for some of what there is to see and find and kill in the Lands Between.
This was one of the ways in which Bloodborne was a triumph for FromSoftware; that is, every enemy encountered and piece of scenery spied could be tied with relative ease to some other previously or presently learned information. The lore was interwoven so expertly that only a little bit of extracurricular interest was enough to start digging into the mystique of Yharnam and its attendant horrors.
In Elden Ring, however, I have failed to discover the origin of far too many plot elements and world building for having played almost 500 hours across multiple playthroughs and along multiple routes to the endgame. My stance on spoilers and what classifies as a spoiler prevents me from providing too specific of an example but there are two encountered almost immediately: the singing gargoyles and the crucified zombies playing host to picnics of otherwise normal soldiers. I’m sure there is some small, small detail hidden in a trove of other details that explains or hints at their origins. But therein lies the issue: There is simply too much lore. Trying to make sense of it is to solve a dodecahedral rubix cube. Possible? Yes. Nauseatingly complex? Also yes.
I am reluctant to say anything at all concerning the story. It is my firm belief that FromSoftware’s games must be played as blind as possible. If you can stay away from even screenshots and trailers, all the better. I managed to do so with Elden Ring and am so very glad that I did. But as this is a review: Reader beware, there be light details ahead.
Veterans of the Dark Souls series will find the broad strokes of the plot familiar. A mysterious order of assassins slew the first Elden Lord, and the eponymous Elden Ring shattered in an event called…wait for it…The Shattering. The Lands Between was soon awash in blood and war as the powers of the world warred for control of the shards of the Elden Ring in hopes of forging the artifact anew and claiming its power.
All of this, as you can imagine, comes to naught. The great powers fight to a standstill. The Lands Between are rent asunder by catastrophes natural and magical. Now the world is in decay. Gods and demigods alike have fallen awry of their own hubris. Madmen and mad beasts stalk the land.
Above it all looms the Erdtree, radiant and massive and visible from all points in the world, and in many ways the obverse to the analogous Kiln of First Flame in Dark Souls. And much like the Chosen Undead in search of the Kiln of the First Flame, we Tarnished are setting out to reach the Erdtree.
Fairly straightforward, yes? Wrong!
There are more secret, more vague, more plentiful plotlines and subplotlines in Elden Ring than in the entirety of the Dark Souls series. Some contain such integral information about the world and its history that I was shocked to discover it only on the other side of some intrepid secret hunting. One such secret drastically alters the last leg of the game’s story and unlocks a very different (and haunting) ending. So to that end I’ll give one word of advice: Explore! Thoroughly. You may need to slog through dozens of iterations of “Try Fingers, but hole”, but I promise it’s well worth the trouble.
In sum this review ought not to be read as an endorsement or recommendation but as a commandment no different than that levied upon any aficionado of any artistic medium. Elden Ring is in rarified company in its immediate induction into the canon of gaming, which is itself a short list of elites. If one is to consider themselves a true gamer, he must delve deep into the Lands Between and surface victorious. Anything less does a disservice to the hobby and to the art of game design. You won’t come away empty handed, but don’t be surprised if many hours whisk by in the meantime.
Now: Arise, ye Tarnished!
