ne mark of a great videogame is
how clearly you remember it. A
decade on from Dark Souls, there
are still parts of its flame-cursed
world I can readily map out on
paper – their layouts, threats, and
variables hammered into me by a
combination of fabulous aesthetics,
surgical perspectives, and brutal
trial and error.I already have a similarly crisp
memory of parts of Elden Ring,
FromSoftware’s blend of Souls
dungeons and combat with an openworld and day/night cycle
reminiscent of Breath of the Wild.
One of the first areas you’ll reach in
the early Limgrave region is a
crumbling encampment backed by
candle-strewn hearses. Guards in red
peer into campfires. Others roam the
paths, accompanied by wolves. It’s a
tidy little murder-maze with some
familiar AI behaviours – as in Souls,
the canines are fond of circling you
before they pounce. Playing as an
Enchanted Knight equipped with
spear and staff, I do a bit of circling
myself – creeping through bushes to
different entrance points and felling
sentries with Glintstone spells.STAB LIBBING
One enemy makes it into melee range
unscathed – a caped elite with
midboss pretensions. It’s a
straightforward duel to begin with:
wait out his combos and don’t
overextend my own, dividing my
stamina carefully between attack and
retreat. I experiment with Elden
Ring’s fancy dedicated jump button, asmall but decisive departure from
Souls, which lets you quickly stagger
many shielded adversaries using
plunging blows. I also make effective
use of the new guard counter, which
grants bonus damage when you
launch a heavy attack after blocking a
hit. But when I get the elite below
50% health, they raise the stakes,
switching to a two-handed stance
with more florid combos. I’m nearly
killed by one riposte, but yank victory
from the jaws of defeat through sheer
Determination – that being a Dark
Souls 3-style weapon skill that
supercharges your next blow.
A lot of Elden Ring stands out this
sharply in the memory, demanding
meticulous attention to every inch of
ground. But then you summon your
valiant steed Torrent, a souped-up
mountain goat with a double-jump,
and the edges start to blur. The first
of six open world regions, Limgrave
is as glorious and torrid a backdrop as
any Souls environment before:
mountainous trees of frozen starlight,
temples that curve into the earth,ABOVE: (^) Magic is
flashier and more
immediately powerful
than in Dark Souls.
Elden Ring
COVER FEATURE