Elden Ring Reviews
Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path.
More than an open-world Dark Souls, FromSoftware's Elden Ring offers a new experience that will still feel familiar and satisfying to fans.
An open world action RPG from FromSoftware that reaches new heights, but spends too much time in the familiar.
Grandiose, mysterious, but now a touch more welcoming, Elden Ring tweaks the FromSoft formula to open up its world.
FromSoftware doesn’t rewrite the medium’s rulebook, but does tear its own tenets asunder while reconstructing them into a cohesive whole that outclasses all that came before it. The Lands Between invites you to explore it with an unparalleled level of freedom, offering up a plate of seemingly impenetrable challenges and intimately constructed stories that are always a delight to indulge in. This is, without doubt, one of the best games in recent memory.
Elden Ring is both a refinement and evolution of the Dark Souls formula, presenting an expansive world that's as hostile as it is inviting. Despite the occasional excess, suffering has never been as much fun as this.
Elden Ring represents a truly amazing combination of various game elements that all come together to create something fascinating, special, and unforgettable. Elden Ring isn’t just the best game this year; it’s one of the best games ever made.
From Software's latest is a masterpiece of open-world design that places exploration and player agency at the heart of the experience.
Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s most accessible, and difficult, game yet
Like most great works, Elden Ring is magnificently flawed, equal parts beautiful and ostentatious. In this age of cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers, triple-A development, what more can you ask for than something wholly confident in its bullshit? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m only about one-third of the way through the game and would love to see at least one of its multiple endings sometime this year.
What ultimately matters, however, is that Elden Ring succeeds at almost every goal it sets out to achieve. It’s the culmination of years of refinement of FromSoftware’s formula. Mechanically, and thematically, this is a game making a statement: that you can buck industry tendencies even as you adopt their trends.
I can appreciate that Elden Ring doesn't want to hold a player's hand and gently guide them to the next point of interest, as so many other games do. But that lack of guidance often seems to slip into a willingness to let a player wander aimlessly if they're not careful. Players who use guides or rely on the in-game hints from other players may not feel this issue so acutely, but aimlessness has been a major feature of my time with the game so far.
Elden Ring is one of the best games in years, with a breathtaking vast world to explore, and one of the most satisfying combat systems in an RPG. This is the accumulation of FromSoftware's work over the last thirteen years and an evolution on its inspiring formula.
Elden Ring offers rewarding gameplay, a cohesive setting and gripping lore. Some of the open-world systems feel clunkier than they should, though.
Elden Ring is an action-RPG with an open world that's not only incredibly rich, but encouraging too. This game will be the talk of the Blighttown for years to come.
Maybe I’m just becoming jaded by all the games lately that I think were overhyped and then underdelivered, but Elden Ring is a rare example of a game that grabbed ahold me and won’t let go. I’m joyfully exploring every inch of the land and delighting in my discoveries, and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.
Deep, wide, and absolutely packed with adventure, Elden Ring's immense, deadly open world is nothing short of game-changing.
There are no other dynamics quite like it in games; they acquaint us with an array of miseries and charge us money for the privilege.
Elden Ring is a gaming achievement the likes of which we rarely seen, and you will be remiss to not pick it up and see what the hype is about for yourself.