When the opportunity arose at the end of last year to play at least an excerpt from the game Elden Ring, we didn’t hesitate for a minute. Ours first impressions mediated by Petr, who as an old fighter rightly claimed a ticket to Mezizemí and from his story he felt that he was satisfied with the news from FromSoftware. Then, of course, the offer came even more lucrative, which, despite some of the identical content, also could not be rejected. At the end of January, we had the opportunity to play the final version of the game with a character of your choice and do whatever comes to mind for six hours. So I took the baton – mainly so that Petr wouldn’t play for the Elden Ring review for the third time – and I decided in advance to focus specifically on just some of the many areas the game has to offer. So if you’re wondering how FromSoftware’s open world works, what exactly all the talk about this studio’s most accessible title means, or how powerful magic is, reach out and let’s go.
A charming world
It should be emphasized at the outset that even these impressions do not undermine the review. Although it is the nature of our work to evaluate what we see, the review naturally places much higher demands and, most importantly, unrestricted access to the game as such is needed. I explain this for two obvious reasons – first, as game publishers would say, the community of soulslike games is very passionate, and secondly, hard to take still impressions from the defined section as a definitive. It should be noted, however, that the developers limited our journey with a six-hour timeline and, in large part, also because this time it was not played on their own device, but remotely via Shadow technology. And even though I want to praise this solution for really minimal latency and seamless image quality, it was still a streamed game that didn’t offer the desired accuracy and response at critical moments.
But that’s why I didn’t try to kill all the monsters and bosses I came across during my wanderings, and as I mentioned above, I focused mainly on my own processing of the world and revealing the differences that make Elden Ring different from Dark. Souls. And I really can’t begin with anything other than the design of the Earth, and the open nature of the vast map you’ll be moving around with your Spotted. If you play one open world after another, you’re probably used to being more or less guided by developers to exactly the places they find interesting and important. For games like Assassin’s Creed, Dragon Age: Iquisition or Forza Horizon, you don’t have to think too much about whether you happen to miss something, because the developers will take you there somehow, but Elden Ring goes completely differently to the whole design world. When you understand that there can be massive detours from the main road almost everywhere, you will most likely start with the curiosity that the developers in the map design obviously expected.
Seek and you will be rewarded
People from FromSoftware don’t try to point out that it could be just behind this bush something be. No, they deliberately leave things nicely hidden, don’t answer all your questions right away, and let you really explore the whole world and its laws. For example, you can see monsters that cross the landscape for some reason. At that moment, after a few hours of playing, I was automatically asked questions like – why, where they go, it means something, they are going to kill them or what I will benefit from. And no one answered them until I found out for myself. What’s in this forest? Where do these stairs lead? Why is this gate here when the entrance to the fortress stands there? Sure, you often come across only a few rooms, one chest, or a bunch of enemies, but it has often happened to me that I unknowingly immersed myself in a complex of corridors and rooms that automatically acted as a whole level from previous studio games. But no arrow or lined path led to them, which evoked in me a very discoverable and satisfying feeling that one is beginning to understand the Earth.
However, it is not just dungeons, castles or fortresses – in fact, the world on the surface is alive, although when viewed from above it may not seem at first glance. Yes, I come across a part of technical processing, which I still have a problem with and it will obviously not change in the full version. However, everything balances the stylization and pomp of the buildings and enemies you may encounter in Elden Ring, and that’s why I didn’t need to deal with every fuzzy texture or tearing animation. But when you look outside the graphics at how the world is populated, that bosses can occur virtually anywhere and you may or may not have to fight them, you begin to understand that although this is the first open game from FromSoftware, developers manage to handle the entire space much better than routines from other studies. The Czech or Slovak player can well understand the feeling I had while playing Elden Ring as ten the moment you stopped using the map in the Mafia and started to really notice the world around you, and that’s a feeling that makes me look forward to when the game finally arrives.
There is no right style, everything is allowed
The second big part, which I focused on, is very closely connected with this – it is promised freedom in the approach to my own playing. As mentioned above, FromSoftware developers have made it known here and there that Elden Ring will be more accessible than Sekiro or Bloodborne, which could be in the ranks of those passionate fans feel that the studio softens and goes to the mainstream. But this is not the case and the Elden Ring remains a title that you must approach with prudence and precise timing, but this may not always be the case under all circumstances. If you choose a purely offensive class and fight spells or stealth, you can add to the fact that the Elden Ring does not leave the set formula at every turn and is tou hrou from FromSoftware, which players are looking forward to. But if you mix those spells, for example, you can suddenly approach fights from a greater distance and after tying spells to weapons or armor, you can go through even harder fights more comfortably. This is helped, for example, by the automatic targeting of shots by magic projectiles or my favorite magic daggers, which stab at the enemy with great success and complete the overall PCB for constant damage.
Riding a horse
Torrent is your faithful steed, which you will reach in a very short time after the start of the game. Its presence in the game is not only due to the effort to give the player the opportunity to overcome distances faster, but underlines the overall design and allows you to discover even more and fight more actively. When it comes to exploring the world, Torrent can jump higher than you could, which opens up more space and seemingly inaccessible places full of great content. In the case of combat, it is necessary to really train and devote time to memorizing, how long the animation of the lunge on the left or left takes and how it is appropriate to combine it with the speed of your ride, the size of the enemy and the direction of its movement.
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Of course, you can also sneak in, as has been said many times, and thanks to that, with a considerable amount of patience, clean up the entire camp, for example, without the remaining living adversaries noticing it at all. Of course, sometimes this is not possible and the design does not allow you to proceed quietly effectively, especially when moving through the landscape, but you can save a lot of hard moments and also have a good feeling that you have not attracted any attention. At the same time, you have to pay attention not only to unnecessarily large clusters of enemies, but also troubadours who do not hesitate to call in additional reinforcements with their short musical performances and basically guarantee you a return to the fireplace after the obligatory inscription YOU DIED. It is in these places that you can see a ray of light here and there, which usually leads you to the next hearth or place where the main storyline continues, but it is a rare and almost invisible navigation element that certainly does not enter the way the developers created the whole world.
For the story clearer!
However, if you decide to follow the navigation, sooner or later a story will begin in front of you, which – unlike previous works of FromSoftware – has very specific outlines. He is framed by a trip to a special instance called The Roundtable Hold, which serves as a center for all the Spotted, who set out for the Interlanders with the same task as you. Or not? Of course, this is not obvious at first glance, but it must be admitted that NPCs willing to communicate and move the storyline are more than enough. You will meet some of the characters along the way, and you will come across some of them – such as the eternal blacksmith strapped to your furnace – for the very first time. But they all add a bit to the overall mosaic, which still remains largely vague, melancholic and, with the help of your mysterious guide, also considerably ethereal, but it is definitely possible to capture more clearly what is happening to the world and what is your motivation to move the whole gear.
However, if you decide to follow the navigation, sooner or later a story will unfold in front of you, which – unlike previous works of FromSoftware – has very specific outlines.
I don’t have to emphasize that it’s often a contribution to combat, but I wanted to say that Elden Ring is much more than a rhythmic game in which you just push buttons according to the enemy’s learned movements. You don’t even have to pull out a weapon, and yet you’ll find so much interesting content that can dilute the expected gameplay and let you truly see the world to the fullest. Of course, until you encounter a dragon that decides to disrespect you and gets stuck in place for the rest of the allotted time, regardless of the fact that you call summons and other players for help. But it didn’t happen to me, it didn’t happen to me certainly not a little bit did not happen.
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