First Impressions: Elden Ring (PS5)

I had purchased Elden Ring at the same time as my Playstation 5 a few years back, successfully saving it on a shelf for a moment I felt was right to start playing it. When Grand Theft Auto 6 was delayed again and again, it opened up some serious play time, and I knew that Elden Ring would easily fill that up. 

To bring you up to speed, I’ve been playing From Software games since King’s Field on the first Playstation. I was a fan of their dreary dungeon crawlers long before they published Demon’s Souls in 2009 and the world took notice. I spent the 2010s beating their follow up games usually as soon as they came out. 

To be honest though, I wasn’t sure I was still good enough to play Elden Ring, having played about ten whole minutes of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (their samurai action adventure) before saying “NOPE”. Their parrying mechanic has never been something I could grasp consistently, but not knowing it was never a game breaker in their Souls games. In Sekiro it’s essential as far as I can tell.

I’d of course heard all about Elden Ring thanks to it’s global success, and from a co-worker who was ravenously trying to “platinum “ it at the tume. This created a few expectations that I had going into the game. 

I had heard that it was now a huge open world instead of the usual mostly linear or central hub layouts they usually present. It also crept into my preconceptions that there was a horse now. I was pretty sure I’d hate that change as I prefer to walk everywhere and explore things close up. I rarely used mounts in recent Zelda games or the Horizon series on Playstation.

With the open world I feared that the game would suffer an “Ubisoftization” and when I opened up the map there’d be what I call “a thousand points of filler content” a la Farcry or Assassin’s Creed. I also thought the entire look and style of Elden Ring would be a polished up a bit or look cartoony.

I was wrong about a lot of those misconceptions. The art style, the font used, and the feel of the game are very much in line with the Soulsborne pedigree, This is Demon’s Souls 6 as far as I’m concerned.

I’m a “Tarnished “ this time and bonfires are “Sites of Grace”, but this game really is more of the same. Sooooo much more, as the map keeps expanding as I explore and I know there’s a huge DLC expansion out there too. 

This is all a good thing as I’m having a lot of fun exploring the vast world, scrambling and grinding to level up, dying here and there. Part of Elden Ring’s broader appeal includes so many more campfires than previous games. There are few instances where a major boss fight wasn’t seconds away from a save point, making repeated attempts at victory less cumbersome. 

I’m taking my time, practicing parrying a lot, and enjoying the amazing views and weather effects as I hack and slash my way through the game. Elden Ring is amazing and there’s nothing else like it. I still may not beat it, but at least I won’t have to worry about this guy anymore: