Elden Ring review 2023: open-world game of your dreams

Elden Ring is a game full of differences. While offering a sizable world to explore, it penalizes you if you stray too far from the next plot point. It gives you a hint as to where you should go next, but if you haven’t thoroughly searched the area, the key path might be too difficult. Although it makes an effort to be simpler to play than previous From games, it is very challenging from the start. Fans of the Souls games know what to expect, but newbies may find this game even harder to get into than the ones that came before it.

Elden Ring: Description

Even though Elden Ring is another game from FromSoftware, it is very different. It’s bigger, longer, and, I would say, much easier to get to, even though there are times when it’s very hard and you might lose progress. It’s one of the best games we have played in a few years, and it’s definitely the best game I’ve seen come out since the PS5 and Xbox Series X came out. I think that will still be true for a few more years, and GOTY for 2022 seems like a sure thing at this point, especially after the recent delays.

First of all, The Lands Between, the world Elden Ring made for this game, is a big deal not just for the creator but for the whole idea of open worlds in games. At this point, I’ve played so many open world games that I’m pretty sick of the idea. But Elden Ring changed all that with its huge, incredibly varied map that was still interesting after 100 hours, and you could probably find 100 more hours of secret hunting in a single playthrough. Even though it has “biomes” like starting greenery, a swamp, and an icy mountain, it never feels repetitive and has some of the best scenic storytelling I’ve seen. It also has masterful level design that uses height, both above and below ground, in a way we rarely see in maps like this.

Elden Ring System Requirements

Elden Ring has pretty high minimum system needs. For the game to run at a decent framerate, you will need a fairly new processor and graphics card. If you want to get the most out of the game, you’ll need to make sure your system meets the standards.

Elden Ring: About

FromSoftware made Elden Ring, an action role-playing game set in the year 2022. It was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, and fantasy writer George R. R. Martin helped build the world.

Elden Ring: Story and setting

George R.R. Martin, a well-known science fiction writer, helped write the backstory for Elden Ring, and his effect on the game is clear. The Lands Between is a complex fantasy world with a lot of interesting people and a feeling that the status quo is not set in stone. Like a lot of other From games, the details of the story aren’t that important here.

The atmosphere and characters are what usually stand out. Still, if you can’t wait to find out: The Elden Ring is a powerful object that broke into four pieces after the Shattering, a terrible war. Each of the four demigods who took a piece of the Ring turned evil because of it. You play as a Tarnished, who is an immortal, undead fighter who can beat the demigods, change the shape of the ring, and become an Elden Lord.

As usual, From does a great job of squeezing a lot of story into short bits of conversation, descriptions of items, and even the layout of the levels themselves. But Elden Ring is a little easier to figure out than other Souls games because there is a place called the Roundtable Hold where you can meet other explorers and get small bits of information about the game’s main bosses. It’s a good idea that can be used or not, and it makes the stakes of every big boss fight clear and easy to understand.

Character Customization

I really liked how much you can change how your character looks and acts. You can add different skills and scaling methods across the board. This lets you make a traveling hero that fits your own ideas. Respecialization and changes let you fine-tune your creation without having to worry too much about experimenting along the way. You can add explosive pots and potent perfumes to your ever-growing arsenal to round out your armory.

Combat will be very different from one person to the next and from one building to the next. However, melee combat has become more precise and varied than ever. With a behind-the-scenes stagger system that awards players for taking risks with timing, the flow of battle makes the single spammy strike a less good choice when facing a tough enemy.

The open world is beautiful, full of flavor and mood, and filled with great things to find. But the legacy tunnels are the stuff of legend, and they often have more than one way to get out. These well-planned places are a dream to explore, and Elden Ring often gives you more than one way to move through them.

Elden Ring: Difficulty Level

Elden Ring is definitely hard, much harder than any other game from From Software. A lot of that is because the bosses and enemies are hard, but a lot of it is also because the player has a lot of choice in the game. It doesn’t tell you where to go in any way, so it’s easy to end up in places that are hard for you to get around in. It won’t stop you from riding to places like Caelid, which looks like it was taken right out of Bloodborne, or Caria Manor, where the enemies were so scary that I jumped out of my chair in fear.

Instead, it trusts you to look at the situation and think about what you can do as a player and as a character. Then you can decide if you should go back to a place that is easier to handle and keep working on your character so you can come back later.

Some people, like me, will fall hopelessly in love with the thrill of wandering aimlessly into a corner of the map and being brutally killed for hours on end, only to walk away with the satisfaction that they kept getting back up and won in the end, even though they are bloody and bruised. Others, on the other hand, will find the idea of navigating a dangerous catacomb all the way down to its deepest depths and facing all kinds of scary animals just to get a few meager crafting materials to be the worst kind of pointless. But either way, the method is brave and should be respected for that.

Elden Ring: Combat

Elden Ring has the best combat of any game, with a sense of weight and accuracy that awards patience and learning, whether you use weapons or spells. You can fight on the ground or, if you prefer, you can fight on horses by galloping around an enemy and then running away to safety. Your horse, Torrent, is a great way to get started. He climbs steep rock faces like a mountain goat and is fast and agile enough to make exciting escapes. It is possible to gallop across a misty lake, wake up and draw a dragon out of the cave it guards, dip into the cave on horseback, steal the wealth, and get away.

Miyazaki and his team are interested in secrets. Since the world has become more open, there are more opportunities for riddles, puzzles, and treasure hunts. When you find a cave mouth on an out-of-the-way beach that leads to a maze of treasures, you feel a deep sense of wonder and excitement. The ghostly graffiti that other players can leave to point others toward these places of interest has never been more useful. Miyazaki’s worlds have always felt like elegant machines, with secret paths and tasty shortcuts that make you go “ah-ha” when you figure out how they work. This sense of a watchmaker’s vision is only made stronger by Elden Ring’s bigger size, and small details like the skeletons who tap their heads back into place once they’re put back together from a pile of bones make sure Elden Ring is fun from every angle.

Elden Ring: Gameplay

It’s easy to explain what Elden Ring is, but it’s harder to explain what it’s like to play. Elden Ring is a type of action/RPG with an open world. You make your own character and then go out to explore, facing both regular enemies and bosses who are very dangerous. You can find new things and gear, level up your attributes to get better at melee, ranged, or magical combat, and ride a horse to explore the dark fantasy Lands Between. If you’ve played a Souls game or Bloodborne, the gameplay should feel very familiar to you at this point.

One part of the experience is making your perfect character by distributing attributes and upgrading weapons. Another part is getting good at the satisfying and deadly battle. Elden Ring is very hard, just like most other From games. Most monsters can kill you in just a few hits, and even bosses usually only need one or two. Foes will attack you from the front, from behind cover, from the ground, or from above. Your ways to heal are restricted, and neither your melee attacks, your magical projectiles, nor your dodges to save your life are instant.

Elden Ring: Open-world elements

Elden Ring is the best world design work that From Software has ever done. It is epic in size and scope. But what makes it special isn’t just that it looks great or that its open world is huge, full of details, and full of things to do. Instead, it’s how the studio has used its own esoteric design principles to create a new, elegant, and very From Software-like experience. The game is based on the same strong action and role-playing elements as its predecessors, but it lets you explore more than ever before.

Elden Ring is an open-world game that doesn’t fit into any other group. From Software has mastered the delicate orchestration of highs and lows and the building up and letting off of tension. This, combined with the thrill of freeform exploration and finding, makes for a heady mix of game design.

Elden Ring guides the player with the lightest of touches. The Lands Between is really open, and the player can explore on foot or on horseback however they want. Five Elden Lords, each with a piece of the Elden Ring, are in charge of the world. As a humble Tarnished, your goal is to beat these corrupt lords, take their shards, stand before the Erdtree, and become an Elden Lord in your own right. After a short movie that explains the story, you’re on your own and can go wherever you want in the world.

From Software’s design philosophy is to get rid of all but the most important parts. In Elden Ring, this process strengthens exploration and finding, which are at the heart of the game. Most of the time, the studio’s games give the player very little and ask for a lot, and Elden Ring is the most confusing and difficult one so far. Most of the things you’d expect from a current open-world game aren’t there. For example, there’s no map until you find an item that shows you the landscape of a certain area. Even then, you won’t know what’s interesting in that area until you’ve been there and seen it for yourself.

Elden Ring: Graphics and Sound

Elden Ring is a beautiful game, from the golden leaves of Erdtrees in the distance to the rings on a suit of armor that are stained with blood. Even though it’s not the most graphically ambitious game out there (possibly because it spans two generations of consoles), it has a memorable art style, with enemies that look appropriately grotesque and interesting building in each level.

The sound design is also good, with music that tends to get loud and obnoxious during boss fights but stays quiet in other parts of the game. In line with the quiet setting of the game, the voice acting feels off. Bandai Namco hasn’t shared a voice cast list yet, but the actress who voices the villain Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon is a standout performer who perfectly captures the character’s madness and evil.

Elden Ring: Pros and Cons

Action role-playing game Elden Ring is played from a third-person point of view. The open world of the Lands Between, which was made by the demigod children of Queen Marika the Eternal, is explored by the players. The player’s goal is to become the Elden Lord, who rules the Lands Between as people should.

Final Words

In a field full of games that are too long and have too many features, Elden Ring is different in almost every way. It stands out from other open-world games because it is committed to design by subtraction and gives the player full control over how to move through the world. Elden Ring takes the pieces of what came before and puts them together to make something that will be remembered as one of the best of all time: a success of design and creativity and an open-world game that stands out as much for what it doesn’t do as for what it does.