Elden Ring
With Fromsoftware’s trademark difficulty and a richly imaginative world that doesn’t hold your hand, this ambitious action RPG is a crowning achievement
What happens if you cross the punishing challenges of a Dark Souls game with a vast and sumptuous open world of ruins designed in collaboration with Games of Thrones creator George RR Martin? You get Elden Ring – developer Fromsoftware’s latest uncompromising take on the dark fantasy action RPG.
You play as one of the Tarnished, embarking on an epic quest to become the new Elden Lord… but even with Martin’s involvement you shouldn’t expect to be guided with long cutscenes or massive lore dumps that grind the action to a halt.
The move away from the labyrinthine dungeons of the past widens the ways in which you can approach this game; but with the deep and complex web of storylines staying largely buried beneath the surface, it’s not always easy to know exactly what to do next. While you do get pointed in a general direction by the guiding ether emitted from the game’s checkpoints, that freedom of approach is how Elden Ring manages its challenges. This is still a Fromsoftware title, so its bosses will stomp you if you get careless, with the late stages home to the most challenging in the studio’s history; but the wealth of options means even a novice who can’t parry to save their life will have a chance.
Newcomers might yearn for something more digestible and authored, but with so many more ways to approach exploration and combat – and a vast and epic world that’s teasing your curiosity at every turn – there’s so much to lose yourself in here. Lore hunters will have a field day combing through the world’s mythology; speedrunners and those who thrive on challenge will relish figuring out the best weapons to build and where to find them. Even for most of us mere mortals, Elden Ring is an event: an invitation to greatness.
Arise, Tarnished, and prepare to savour every moment of this new modern masterpiece.
Alan Wen