YOU DIED - This is a combination of words that you’ll have burned into your screen by the time you’ve established yourself as the heir to the Elden Throne in From Software’s hit new open world action role-playing game, Elden Ring.
Thirty-three hours in and I’ve waded through and beaten at least a handful of the optional dungeons scattered across Limgrave and Liurnia, and have defeated at least three of the main bosses and acquired their Great Runes across Caelid, Raya Lucaria, and Stormveil Castle and died over a dozen times in the process. Elden Ring takes the basic essentials of their games such as Dark Souls, Demon Souls, and Bloodborne and applies them to a Breath Of The Wild-type world with all the difficulty one could expect from their game. Fresh out of the gate the game first introduces you to an NPC by the name of White Mask Varré who makes sure to let you know your place in the world as a Tarnished, destined to die in some unseen ditch; He even goes so far as to call you maidenless, something that is a must to become Elden Lord in the world of Elden Ring.
One may expect the enemies from here on out are easy, or at least easy as a Soulsborne game can be, and go on along the
path to confront the first of the game's many bosses. A man sitting atop a horse, clad in golden armor and wielding a mighty halberd in hand,
. Now, I did as many had tried before me and went to confront this great opponent, sword and shield in hand, and without my trusty horse Torrent I could do little more than guard, duck, and dodge from the man's onslaught of attacks before he eventually broke my guard and skewered me like a fish.
That was my first death in Elden Ring, and I was hooked.
I’ve made it maybe thirty percent of the way through the game by now. Fighting all matters of enemies and meeting all matters of people, and I just have to say that unlike previous From Software games these people actually feel like. . . People. No more is the gloomy atmosphere of a broken and dying word like Dark Souls, or the tenseness of a world on the edge of frenzy like Bloodborne, but we the Tarnished are instead faced with a world that may yet still be salvageable, with people that yet still clung onto hope of a fixable world with intentions of their own. For the first time in Soulsborne history you sit there and think, could I actually make a difference in this fresh new world?
In a recent conversation with my friend Ben he told me something interesting regarding the Soulsborne series as a whole that can be described as “Omina Est Victus” or “Everything Is Broken”. The world, the people, and even the timeline all share this quality that can be seen in games spanning the genre like Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Remnant, and even Sekiro. The world of Elden Ring is broken, but not in the same way. This is a world where you may be able to do something about it, and over the course of the journey you are given a multitude of ways to make or break the world from Ranni, to Melina, the Forsaken Dung Eater, and even the merchants you see scattered across the world, each present you with an opportunity that could leave the world for the better or break it irreversibly.
I wholly recommend checking out Elden Ring, if you’re not phased by the graphics or the combat I would recommend at least checking it out for its story and unique characters. Don’t get me wrong, this game isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s definitely an experience worth experiencing.
-Ty