become ghouls infesting the stumps
of villages. The countryside teems
with mercenary cavalry, shackled
ogres, territorial dragons, forgotten
battle golems, and wraith-like black
knights. But the Ring’s destruction
also somehow triggers the
restoration of Grace to the
descendants of the Tarnished – that’s
you! – who are called back to their
homeland to fix the mess.
There are at least two endings in
store. As a returning Tarnished exile,
guided by a scarred maiden called
Melina, you can reclaim the Ring’s
shards from the demigods, eventually
becoming the Elden Lord. This
appears to be the main path. Or, you
can dig deeper into the morass of
events surrounding the Ring’s
destruction, perhaps investigating
how your ancestors came to be
banished. This route is more
exploration-driven and based around
deduction from lore entries, much as
you had to track down certain NPCs
to reach alternate endings in
previous From games.
It’s an atmospheric foundation,
but as with the stamina-based
combat, there’s a sense of excavating
well-trodden ground. The story
supposedly features writing from
George R R Martin, but this feels
much more like a rerun of the Souls
arc than Game of Thrones – another
eldritch universe rotted by cosmic
energies that must be purged of its
obstinate rulers by undead pilgrims.
Parallels accumulate steadily
while roaming the landscape.
Dragons are once again central to the
mythology: you’ll find churches
dedicated to them, where you can
trade bits of their anatomy for
seismic Incantations. Magic is
colour-coded by social class, much as
in Lordran, Drangleic, and Lothric:
blue magic projectiles for blue-
blooded wizards, righteous lightning
and golden heals for the priesthood,
fireballs and bestial transformations
for the weirdos in the caves. Is Grace,
the metaphysical substance that
binds The Lands Between together,
just an analogue for Fire or Humanityin Dark Souls? I’m hoping that Elden
Ring will deconstruct its influences
and use the new open world format
to bend them out of shape.CHOKEPOINT-AND-CLICK
Either way, the bosses should be
worth the journey. Limgrave being
one of the earlier regions, its celebrity
monsters are as much tutorials as
adversaries. Margit the Fell Omen, or
‘Git’ as I’ve come to know him, is a
classic end-of-prologue boss,
designed to leverage everything
you’ve hopefully learned from the
opening hours. It’s unwise to block
every last one of his enormous swings- even if you succeed, you won’t have
much stamina left for a counterattack - so you’ll need to hone your timing
and dodge a certain percentage.
Likewise, you can’t just melt him
from afar with spells – he’ll jump on
you or lacerate you with sorcery of
his own. He’s got a second, more
aggressive phase involving a massive
golden hammer, testing your reserves
when you think you’re on the home
BELOW: (^) Honestly now,
how many arms does
one person need?
Elden Ring
COVER FEATURE