Trick and treat

FromSoftware has been making stepwise progress toward Elden Ring’s calibre of open-world immersion for over a decade. Miyazaki and his team have done this by gradually peeling away the contrivances that games have been forced to rely upon to work around their technical limitations. The method by which players access the unique locales tucked behind

Demon’s Souls’ Archstones wasn’t fundamentally different from selecting discrete levels from the overworld map of an 8bit classic such as Super Mario

Bros 3; in contrast, observe the way that Elden Ring removes the fog-gate contrivance from its boss encounter with Flying Dragon Agheel. As you gallop across a waterlogged marshland in central Limgrave, an orchestral prologue breaks the silence. Then a guttural screech from overhead as you notice the scaly menace soaring to earth, shaking the earth as it touches down. Only then does the creature’s HP bar appear onscreen. Elden Ring doesn’t just contain magic; in places such as this, its execution feels like a feat of magic in itself.