Es geht los:
Hello! Elden Ring is one of the best games I've ever played. It mixes the blissful wonder of Breath of the Wild with the intricate design of Dark Souls. It's more accessible than previous From Software games, yet just as tense, punishing, and weird. A tremendous achievement.
I've played for about 40 hours over the past week, and every hour that I'm not playing, I wish that I was.
Paraphrased from a text conversation with
@DanRyckert
:
- Dude I think we're playing one of the best games ever made
- Yes. Yes we are
Jason Schreier
Es hat aktuell
absurde 98 Punkte auf Metacritic, über 27 Reviews.
Videogames-Journalismus ist so kaputt.
FromSoftware's Elden Ring is a nearly perfect culmination of the ideas and mechanics which originated in Demon's Souls and became cornerstones of the developer moving forward. Even more so than Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring feels like a celebration of everything FromSoftware has created in the last decade, merging elements of all its previous entries to create something at once wholly different and yet completely familiar. Elden Ring succeeds at almost everything it attempts to do - and it's attempting to do a lot more than players may expect.
Elden Ring might be the most accessible FromSoftware "Soulsborne" game yet, both in terms of story and gameplay. There is still a large amount of obscure conversations with NPCs and reading item descriptions remains the only way to really understand all aspects of the lore, but players will have a good grasp on the general plot and story throughout - something which cannot be said for all of FromSoftware's previous titles.
The smaller dungeons feel like perfected versions of Bloodborne's Chalice Dungeons, helped immensely by the fact that most are short, contained experiences which can be knocked out in five-to-ten minutes.
The largest and most detrimental visual quirk is how enemies look when viewed from far away - since so much of Elden Ring's open world is loaded at any given point, enemies in the distance are reduced to two-dimensional, low-poly images until players get closer to them. Thanks to the game's impressive draw distance and large areas it's easy to see these low-poly animations from a distance, and it can be somewhat immersion-breaking.
Screen Rant
One of the biggest selling points of Elden Ring is that it has an actually engaging open world. So many open games have become bloated messes, mere parodies of the genre, in recent years. Pins upon pins upon pins, with tie-ins and companion apps; it’s ridiculous in some cases. But Elden Ring feels fully complete, in the sense that discovery is paramount before reaching marked destinations for small dopamine hits. I constantly found myself looking off in the distance, and becoming fixed with finding out how to get somewhere.
The map is far bigger than expected, going beyond the limits of what the screen shows you at first. You’re constantly coming across new stuff, because exploration is so expansive. So there are some gates (think keys you need to get into specific areas), but by and large you can explore nearly the entire map. Finishing a “story” boss will lead you to the next area by default, or you can sometimes sneak there using a hidden path and sequence break (to a point). If you’re worried about a lack of “traditional” areas: don’t be. There are plenty of massive, deliberate zones just like the old games. That said, some of the open world stuff isn’t as exciting as I’d like.
When I was at the foot of the final boss, I went back and found 15 hours of more stuff to do, and didn’t exhaust it all. The “40-hours-or-more” mark for a first playthrough is roughly what a lot of people are looking at, erring on the side of “more.” In fact, on my second playthrough, I found at least 10 things I hadn’t done before in the first five hours of that next go-around. The scope should encourage multiple playthroughs more than any past From Software title.
So many challenges are optional that it not only funnels into that aforementioned genuine sense of discovery, but it also feels like you can choose how difficult you want the game to be. Sure, there are roadblocks in the sense that critical path encounters lead to new areas, potentially new items/upgrades, and better places to farm/level-up. Some of those gates are going to be annoying if you want a constant sense of story progression. I even felt the pang of linearity near the end of the game as things were wrapping up and funneling into a pointed series of boss fights.
Given how much Elden Ring encourages you to sit back and enjoy it, it was never truly an issue for me, because I could take a break and go explore somewhere else. It also doesn’t sacrifice the core Souls loop of overcoming challenges and the sense of accomplishment that hits you like a ton of bricks afterward. Yes, that setup isn’t for everyone. But I also think that Elden Ring is one of the most accessible From offerings yet from a skill floor perspective, while catering to everyone who has been along for the ride this whole time (the ceiling can get high still).
To say I was blown away by Elden Ring is an understatement. Sure it’s still going to appear esoteric and unapproachable to a subset of people. There are things it could still do better in terms of onboarding, and it could do even more on the front of quality-of-life enhancements for returning Souls players.
But as an experience, it’s one of the most wondrous and open-ended games I’ve played in years. It has so much to say from a design perspective that people will be talking about its choices for years on end, and playing it for longer.
Destructoid
The world of Elden Ring is an absolute marvel. This is one of the rare cases where a studio has really undersold both the scope and the quality of an open world. When I got the first piece of the map showing Limgrave and Stormveil Castle, I thought it must have been around 1/4 to 1/3 of the explorable territory. After all, Hidetaka Miyazaki himself estimated it would take approximately 30 hours to complete the game. I had only beaten the first of six Demigods at the 30-hour mark.
If I had to compare the Lands Between to any other open world, it would be Breath of the Wild’s. There’s so much to do and see here, and few games capture the raw feeling of exploration like Elden Ring does. I’m still far from experiencing everything the game has to offer, and I estimate you could put well over 120 hours into it and still not have discovered everything.
I thought the game was easier than previous FromSoftware titles, but it’s not because it has been toned down in any way. It’s no less challenging; it’s just that you have more options available when confronting a situation.
In Elden Ring, whenever I ran into a boss I just couldn’t take down after the first few tries, I left and explored. Typically, I’d clear a few areas, find some upgrade materials and a new item or two, and then head back and take the boss out. Since every Site of Grace (bonfire) acts as a fast travel point, you can quickly dip out and take a breather if you start getting frustrated.
I played Elden Ring on PC, and it’s a gorgeous game in 4K. However, I imagine mid-range PCs will struggle with it. Even with my hardware, I would get microstutter every once in a while. The odd thing is, it didn’t matter if I stayed at 4K or dropped down to 1440p; they still happened. Turning Resizable Bar on seemed to help a bit, but that might have been a placebo.
Unfortunately, there’s no DLSS, RTX, or FidelityFX here. I’d love to see DLSS added at some point since it would likely help with texture streaming and maybe cut some of the microstutter.
Elden Ring is a tour de force and is maybe the only example of a studio underselling a title. It’s an M-rated Breath of the Wild, full of secrets, intrigue, and an enthralling world to explore. It’s a game that makes me excited about gaming, and it’s fantastic to see a highly anticipated title like this turn out so well.
Games like Elden Ring only come once or twice in a generation and raise the bar on what the medium can offer. It’s challenging and unfair at times, but it also gives you the tools to overcome any of its obstacles, and those who persevere will get one of the most satisfying experiences in gaming.
Game Revolution
However, for a game that has carried expectation in a way that few titles can approach, we’d hoped Elden Ring would try to be something more: to be the new gold standard for the genre and to be the largest paradigm shift for modern action-adventure games since Demon’s Souls landed over a decade ago.
And while it doesn’t quite reach those expectations, it’s still an absolutely incredible experience that fans will spend the next 6 months exploring.
The boss fights in these games can be nothing short of magical and Elden Ring absolutely delivers. We found ourselves loudly swearing just as much at the amazing set pieces and locations the fights take you to, as we did at the perfection most bosses demand. There is so much to this game, and the bosses, that hasn’t been seen yet.
With the very little guidance, the game gives you regarding where you should go next, we occasionally found ourselves smashing our heads against the wall of bosses we were clearly under-levelled for.
Similarly, by doing a lot of exploring, we also found ourselves reaching story critical moments that were supposed to pose a huge threat, only for them to be felled in a few shots thanks to the inadvertent grinding we happened to do on our travels.
There are still plenty of times when a boss will kill you in one hit, with an attack that’s so un-telegraphed that it feels nothing but cheap. We’d really wished that by now, those types of encounters would have been ironed out, but it’s common enough to be a frustration.
There are optional forts in Elden Ring that dwarf castle Boletaria.
While the art direction and style of the game is unimpeachable, graphically, Elden Ring can often look dated. This isn’t helped by the visually incredible Demon’s Souls remake on PlayStation 5, but there are plenty of muddy textures throughout the world.
Faces and skin generally have always looked a bit strange in the Souls games, and Elden Ring is no exception. On PlayStation 5 we also encountered some performance issues, with stuttering occurring when the open-world was attempting to load in some grass textures and other bits of decoration.
This didn’t occur at all during indoor sections. The game offers two modes, one that prioritizes frame-rate and another that prioritises resolution. We stuck with the frame-rate options throughout, and while the game still looks good, especially with the overwhelming amount of colour that’s been used, it looks closer to something like Dark Souls 3 than the Demon’s Souls remake.
Videogames Chronicle
Stumbling upon high-level areas, toppling optional boss fights, discovering secrets and hidden quests, spotting strange but captivating enemies and locations off in the distance: Elden Ring wholeheartedly fulfils that fantasy of an open world FromSoftware experience, triumphantly fusing difficulty, freedom, and intrigue.
What's more, there's a frankly absurd amount of optional bosses in the game. Some simply roam the open world while others are hidden away in dungeons, caves, and catacombs. The only problem is some of them are just a bit crap. Either repurposed enemies from the mainland or posing little threat in general, they can be very hit or miss. And since there are so many of them, it can sometimes feel like they're just there to pad the game out a little more. The issue is nowhere close to being a Dark Souls II problem, but a bit more care and attention for these side battles wouldn't have gone amiss.
The same can be said of the non-mandatory dungeons: the first few will be exciting ventures into the unknown, but you'll quickly begin to spot their quirks and general layouts. A lot of them begin to look the same the more you play, with a simple puzzle of finding a lever to unlock a door being the task behind a lot of them. They're enjoyable enough, but don't expect to find anything revolutionary down in their depths.
However, where the game falls short is in its visuals and performance. There's no getting around it: Elden Ring doesn't look as good as PlayStation 5 launch title Demon's Souls. Bluepoint Games did an outstanding job remaking the 2009 classic for the modern era. In comparison, Elden Ring looks... fine? There's a clear drop in overall visual quality, but the art direction of FromSoftware shines through with some jaw-dropping scenes and environments.
What isn't acceptable is the framerate. The game has two options: Performance Mode aims for 60 frames-per-second while Quality Mode improves the graphics. The vast majority of our playthrough was conducted in Performance Mode, and rarely did the title maintain a consistent framerate for any decent length of time. We're not talking dramatic drops that slow the game to a crawl, but rather constant little dips here and there which become a bit of a nuisance. While we just about managed to put up with it, you'll constantly notice the framerate dipping no matter where you are in the open world or what you're doing.
Except there's more: persistent texture pop-in occasionally spoils the scenery. It happens most often when fast travelling to Sites of Grace, but can also occur when you're simply riding about the open world. It takes a second or two for the greenery at your feet to load in, and other smaller objects will suddenly just appear in the distance despite being able to see the landscape well beyond them. A common problem for open world games, but it's particularly egregious in Elden Ring.
Push Square
