A near-perfect realization of decades-spanning design ambitions, Elden Ring takes the expected Souls formula and transcends it into a sprawling yet dense open landscape. Without a doubt, when it comes to overall game structure, progression, and gameplay, Elden Ring towers over any other open-world experience and clearly stands among the most thrilling gaming experiences ever made.
Unfortunately, everything isn't so cheery when 9th gen hardware has a hard time keeping up with this world built on a rather old engine. No matter the platform you're dealing with, stuttering, frame drops, pop-in, and all sorts of technical mishaps happen throughout the experience, especially during launch. Elden Ring is a massive experience, one that would understandably have some jank to it just like any other open-world experience, yet the performance issues here are frankly tiresome, though never impeded my experience too harshly. Similar to games like Fallout: New Vegas, some technical mishaps are understandable when the product you've produced is so forward-thinking and engaging.
To say you can spend hundreds of hours exploring everything Elden Ring has to offer is a severe understatement. In the nearly 135 hours I played, I still haven't defeated every boss worthy of an achievement/trophy, and I'm more than certain I've missed plenty of fantastic weapons and spells I will come across in plenty of playthroughs to come. What makes Elden Ring so fantastic to play is that it offers such amazing diversity in how to approach its world, and offers total and complete freedom to grow as you see fit. I highly doubt you're expected to kill every single boss on your first playthrough of the game, let alone find all of the spells, weapons, what have you. Not looking anything up on this first playthrough cemented this idea of slow exploration from the beginning. Digging through Elden Ring at my own pace, and being surprised by nearly everything throughout my playthrough was a magical experience all my first run of Dark Souls III.
Unlike Dark Souls III though, Elden Ring's main quest structure doesn't fair as well with FromSoft's generally vague quest design. I did - in fact - have to look up several things to get through the end of the game. I'm not happy I had to look things up, but Elden Ring can get cryptic to absurd degrees, leading to extended periods of time where I ran around doing side content because I hadn't a clue where to go. Obviously, a lot of that can be pinned on my own failures, and it certainly won't be an issue going forward in future playthroughs, but it's still something to reflect on. Ultimately, I appreciate the more cryptic design of the map and quest layouts, especially due to the oversaturation of Ubisoft-eque dribble over the past decade. While I do feel there can be a healthy balance between two major extremes, I would pick Elden Ring's structure and map beyond anything churned out of the regular AAA dribble factory.
I dare call Elden Ring a masterpiece, but its key issues hold it back from being something I'd declare "perfect." Nonetheless, this is the greatest open-world video game ever crafted. To say a new, immensely high bar has been set for AAA games going forward is an understatement. Hopefully, with some performance (and difficulty balance) patches, Elden Ring can shape up to its full potential. If not here, then definitely with its inevitable follow-up.
Unfortunately, everything isn't so cheery when 9th gen hardware has a hard time keeping up with this world built on a rather old engine. No matter the platform you're dealing with, stuttering, frame drops, pop-in, and all sorts of technical mishaps happen throughout the experience, especially during launch. Elden Ring is a massive experience, one that would understandably have some jank to it just like any other open-world experience, yet the performance issues here are frankly tiresome, though never impeded my experience too harshly. Similar to games like Fallout: New Vegas, some technical mishaps are understandable when the product you've produced is so forward-thinking and engaging.
To say you can spend hundreds of hours exploring everything Elden Ring has to offer is a severe understatement. In the nearly 135 hours I played, I still haven't defeated every boss worthy of an achievement/trophy, and I'm more than certain I've missed plenty of fantastic weapons and spells I will come across in plenty of playthroughs to come. What makes Elden Ring so fantastic to play is that it offers such amazing diversity in how to approach its world, and offers total and complete freedom to grow as you see fit. I highly doubt you're expected to kill every single boss on your first playthrough of the game, let alone find all of the spells, weapons, what have you. Not looking anything up on this first playthrough cemented this idea of slow exploration from the beginning. Digging through Elden Ring at my own pace, and being surprised by nearly everything throughout my playthrough was a magical experience all my first run of Dark Souls III.
Unlike Dark Souls III though, Elden Ring's main quest structure doesn't fair as well with FromSoft's generally vague quest design. I did - in fact - have to look up several things to get through the end of the game. I'm not happy I had to look things up, but Elden Ring can get cryptic to absurd degrees, leading to extended periods of time where I ran around doing side content because I hadn't a clue where to go. Obviously, a lot of that can be pinned on my own failures, and it certainly won't be an issue going forward in future playthroughs, but it's still something to reflect on. Ultimately, I appreciate the more cryptic design of the map and quest layouts, especially due to the oversaturation of Ubisoft-eque dribble over the past decade. While I do feel there can be a healthy balance between two major extremes, I would pick Elden Ring's structure and map beyond anything churned out of the regular AAA dribble factory.
I dare call Elden Ring a masterpiece, but its key issues hold it back from being something I'd declare "perfect." Nonetheless, this is the greatest open-world video game ever crafted. To say a new, immensely high bar has been set for AAA games going forward is an understatement. Hopefully, with some performance (and difficulty balance) patches, Elden Ring can shape up to its full potential. If not here, then definitely with its inevitable follow-up.