Overview:
Elden Ring is the latest game from the developers of Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. FromSoftware has created an open world souls-like game with many RPG (role playing game) elements, like player customization, class selections and a multitude of different builds and abilities.
Similar to the games before, Elden Ring’s story is very ambiguous and is mostly up to player interpretation. However, the central theme of the story and gameplay is clear. You are a tarnished warrior who has been awoken from death, the lands you awaken in have been ravaged by a war, you as a warrior must fight a wide range of enemies and bosses who hold shards of the Elden Ring, a rune that determines who is the ruler of the lands.
ESRB Rating
Rated M (Mature 17+)
- Blood & gore
- Language
- Suggestive themes
- Violence
The Good
- Great visuals
- Fluid combat
- Amazing boss battles
- Great open world
- Infinite replay ability
- Multiplayer
- Challenging
The Bad
- Very ambiguous lore & story
- Performance
Honest Rating
5 Stars
Honest Review
Elden Ring is one of the best games I have ever played. From breathtaking visuals to an almost endless open world, packed with many side quests and bosses, I have become completely immersed in the Lands Between. As a fan of the Dark Souls series, I was happy to see this more open world approach with Elden Ring, allowing the player to leave an area if the boss proves too challenging and to return once you’ve leveled up to absolutely destroy them in a few hits. It’s this alone that has had me hooked for over 40+ hours so far (I have yet to complete the game), as I have always enjoyed a good challenge and with the staggering number of optional bosses, dungeons, and areas to explore in this game, the paths for the player to take seem limitless.
The main bosses of any souls game are the meat and potatoes of the story, and in Elden Ring they are not a disappointment. With amazingly cinematic cutscenes, and amazing arenas I oftentimes found myself losing on purpose just to take in the gorgeous surroundings and the amount of detail that went into a game of this scale.
My personal experience was on the PlayStation 5, and for the most part the performance has been very stable. I did, however, encounter a few severe frame drops when just exploring the Lands Between, but other than that the locked 60 fps performance mode has been wonderful, giving the best of performance and visual quality. For anyone on the fence about getting the game, give it a go – even if you don’t like previous souls games, this one is more approachable and is a great starting point to an even greater genre of games.