as statues near a sarcophagus,
catching tomb raiders with their
trousers down. But there’s much less
artfulness to the crafting resources
that litter the surface world. These
are just respawning collectibles to be
hoovered up automatically, as much
to be rid of the HUD prompt as
anything else.
Elden Ring is fascinating, then, not
just because it’s a new FromSoftware
game, but because it’s two types of
game struggling to co-exist. To couch
it in Souls vernacular, it’s a pair of
inherently mismatched bosses trying
to be Ornstein and Smough. In
Stormveil Castle, layers of rickety
staircases and overgrown gaps flash
you back to Demon’s Souls’ Gates of
Boletaria. Exit the castle and all of a
sudden you’re playing Zelda again,
except that there’s no free-climbing
(not even a ledge mantle) and no
whimsical object physics to entertain
you on the road. At least you can
sprint without draining your stamina.
Far from being put off, I’m eager
to see how this difficult balancing actwill evolve in the course of a plot that
asks you to choose between seeking
‘power’ and ‘understanding’ – a
choice that seems geared toward the
starker split between mainline
dungeon runs and exploration.
The setting is The Lands Between,
home to the titular Elden Ring,
whose Grace once burned in the eyes
of inhabitants and fuelled the
towering, radiant Erdtree you’ll spot
on the horizon. For reasons
unknown, a portion of the citizenry
lost this Grace many years ago and
went into exile, becoming the
Tarnished. As the game begins the
Elden Ring lies broken, its pieces
taken by the demigod offspring of
Queen Marika the Eternal, who wage
war on each other even as they’re
mutated by the Ring’s power.GRACE IN THE HOLE
Known as the Shattering, this
conflict leaves most of the queendom
in ruin. The old aristocracy clings on
as vagrant armies parked outside
looted castles. The ordinary folk haveUPS AND DOWNS
The best bits and pet peeves of our hands-onTHE ANIMATIONS!
You can see the benefit of From’s
time with Bloodborne and Sekiro.
The swinging and stabbing is
poetry in motion.THE SWAG!
Nobody does eldritch outfits like
From. The Raya Lucarian set
makes you look like a weaponised
theme-park mascot, for instance.THE STEALTH
You can click to crouch in bushes,
for infrequent backstabbing. It
does the job mostly, but it’s
perfunctory and charmless.THE LEDGE MANTLING
Or rather the lack of it. What’s the
point of an open world littered
with sloping, ridged surfaces if I
can’t haul myself over a wall?LIKE LIKEDISLIKE DISLIKETHIS CONFLICT
LEAVES MOST OF
THE QUEENDOM
IN RUIN
Elden Ring
COVER FEATURE