A REVIEW OF ELDEN RING, THE LATEST FROM FROMSOFTWARE.
Elden Ring was without a doubt among the handful of the most anticipated games of 2022. With FromSoftware’s long and untarnished (get it?) legacy of successful games with punishing difficulty and rewarding satisfaction, fans were eager to find out what was in store in the next entitlement, especially now that Hidetaka Miyazaki Collaborated with George R.R. Martin.
HAVE FUN RAGE QUITTING
It goes without saying that Soulsborne elites had one and only one thing on their calendar for 2022, and that is the release of Elden Ring. It wouldn’t be surprising to have ‘Elden Ring’ written in large fonts and circled twice over with a permanent marker on their calendars. This time around though, FromSoftware also released an assurance that the game is not just for the elites. ‘Filthy Casuals’ can also watch the words ‘YOU DIED’ cover their entire screen a hundred times over, and take out their rage quit frustrations on their controllers. FromSoftware has achieved this by putting the player in a vast and seemingly unending open world rather than in narrow corridors and alleyways more commonly seen in linear campaign games. This means that on top of the morbid sense of unwavering hopelessness, you’ll also get a sense of utter confusion. Elden Ring flaunts a massive open world setting with a gorgeous yet dangerous landscape filled with a variety of enemies and bosses to test your skills and your patience. On top of that, exploring the vast world of the lands in between interacting with the many NPCs and uncovering all the amazing lore makes for a brilliant Soulsborne experience indulged in a new setting.
With a whopping 96 on Metacritic from near-perfect scores by almost all the critics, it can easily be said the title lived up to every expectation that the gaming community had for it. Playing the game would show that the best thing about Elden Ring is the difficulty and the character upgrading system. As Miyazaki assured us before launch, the game holds the signature FromSoftware difficulty without making it frustrating in any way. If a level or an enemy is too difficult you can always grind, upgrade your specs and go back to overcoming what was stopping you.
STORY
The Elden Ring is sealed inside the Erdtree, the massive, glowing, golden tree in the centre of the game which can be seen from everywhere. The Lands Between used to be ruled by Queen Marika, the Eternal. Queen Marika served as the keeper of the Elden Ring and maintained the Greater Will’s vision of the world. But in an event called the Night of the Black Knives, assassins killed many of Queen Marika’s children and demigods who were eligible to take Marika’s place afterwards. This event shattered the Elden Ring and Queen Marika disappeared without a trace. Afterwards, for centuries the remaining of Marika’s children kept shards of the Elden Ring and engaged in a war with each other for the title of the Elden Lord. You are a Tarnished, belonging to a group of people who are rejected by the Elden Ring. But when the war reaches a stalemate, you are called upon by the Greater Will to collect the shards of the Elden Ring and bring order to The Lands Between and become the Elden Lord. Of course, there is much more to the plot which can be slowly uncovered by exploring every corner of its massive world.
MASSIVE OPEN WORLD
In a new attempt, Miyazaki collaborated with George R. R. Martin, famed author of the ‘A Song of Ice And Fire’ series which went on to inspire the acclaimed HBO series, ‘Game of Thrones.’ The plot is heavily inspired by European folklore and it pertains to the cryptic mysteries of traditional FromSoftware games. It is not entirely clear and can be interpreted in multiple ways, but the basic lore goes like this. The world in this game is known as ‘The Lands Between.’ It is divided into many sections such as the serene Limgrave, a vast green layout of open plains that hold many secrets and entities. The rotting Caelid whose red skies and foggy lands may remind you of Mirpur during the rainy season. There’s the mysterious Liurnia of Lakes and much much more. These lands are blessed by an obscure god known as the Greater Will who uses the Elden Ring to bring a harmonic order to the world and its inhabitants.
ELDEN RING FLAUNTS A MASSIVE OPEN WORLD SETTING WITH A GORGEOUS YET DANGEROUS LANDSCAPE FILLED WITH A VARIETY OF ENEMIES AND BOSSES TO TEST YOUR SKILLS AND YOUR PATIENCE.
IMMERSION
The visuals of the game are perfectly on par with gamers’ requirements and desires. That being said, though, such a massive game with so much to explore doesn’t have that jaw-dropping polish of linear singular plot games. As usual, FromSoftware again inspires the players with an awesome soundtrack and intense background scores. The character spec customisations allow you to dive into the game and upgrade your character according to your own style and face the game at your own pace. Again, this freedom of levelling up doesn’t make the game any less intriguing or make anything repetitive at all – though it may water down the difficulty in some cases if you get too overpowered. Even that can be resolved in the late game when levelling up takes more effort than repeatedly dying and memorising the move-sets of the enemy.
SPEC REQUIREMENTS
The game is available on all platforms in both the current and last generation of systems. It runs quite smoothly on all consoles but reportedly has some frame dropping issues on pc. The pc requirements are Intel Core i5-8400| AMD Ryzen 3 3300X, 12 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, 3GB | AMD Radeon RX 580, 4GB GPU, and 60 GB of free space at the minimum.
VERDICT
Elden Ring holds its signature punishing difficulty and skilled application of focus and move-sets to give the players a challenging gameplay. You will get that rewarding feeling of achievement after finally beating a difficult foe, but it does not trap you in a seemingly unending loop of repetition. The pacing is dynamic – it’s up to you how much time you want to invest in completing the main storyline, or if you’d rather explore the world, farm game points and level up. The game has introduced a new lane for RPG mechanics and sets a new milestone for future games.