Review: ELDEN RING is Another FromSoftware Title Great for Fans but Not Casuals or Newcomers

Elden Ring has been one of the most hyped games for the last few months. It’s an action-adventure Souls-like game developed by FromSoftware who also published it alongside Bandai Namco. The game was written by George R. R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki and is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Bandai Namco was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the game on PC for the following review.

I was very excited for Elden Ring. The trailers looked great and I’ve always wanted to play a Souls-like from FromSoftware. Several people I know talk about how great their games are and how they define the genre. My only previous experience with a Souls-like game has been Nioh 2 from Team Ninja and even then, there’s some debate as to whether that game fits the bill. I loaded up Elden Ring and I have to say, I’ve found the game to be greatly unenjoyable. This does not mean I think the game is bad; rather I learned that these games are not for me. From talking to people who have played Bloodborne and Dark Souls, Elden Ring is very much what they expected and it’s been a good experience. It sounds like if you’re a big fan of other FromSoftware titles, you’ll really like Elden Ring and rate it between an 8-10 out of 10. You can stop reading the review here knowing that. If you’ve never played anything by FromSoftware before, consider reading more below as I walk through what I did like and what I didn’t like which taught me that these games are not for me.

Going into Elden Ring, I knew that it was mostly about combat and that combat would be difficult. These are the main trademarks of a Souls-like that had been communicated to me. I was aware of this and understood that I was going to die a lot and that probably meant that I wasn’t going to get very far. Elden Ring started making me frustrated when I went to make my character though. The game lets you choose from several different classes, but they don’t tell you what makes each class different. Sure, there are different stat numbers and they’re all different levels, but that’s basically the extent of it all. I eventually settled on one and spent a solid 20+ minutes in the character creator (I’ll touch on this later) before being sent into the world with some story given. This intro got me pretty hyped to play and I more or less expected to lose to the first boss which happens immediately, but I wasn’t expecting to be thrown into a different world from that fight. It makes some sense, I just figured that I would have to keep fighting and losing to the boss until I eventually figured it out. So far, I had no real problem outside of the fact that a simple and basic tutorial would’ve been nice. Then, we get to the actual game and I almost immediately started having the joy sucked out of me. I find out too late that in this game, NPCs actually change up their dialogue if you try talking to them multiple times (to a point) lending themselves to provide varying levels of information depending on how much you talk to them. Sadly, there’s no indication of this in-game so I’m sure there’s a lot of vital information that I missed out on. This leads me to my number one gripe about the game: the story feels so unimportant.

This is why I say that for me, Elden Ring is not a good game. I recognize there are people out there that enjoy this game and I think that from a lot of angles it is a solid game and I can understand why many enjoy it. I just learned this is not a game for me. After the introduction video, the story doesn’t seem to really matter. The game feels like it was meant to just be you running around and doing whatever you want as long as you’re prepared to die a lot. In a lot of ways, this almost feels like a callback to old video games that required you to read the manual to know the story, lore, controls, etc. Once again, if you like this, it is fair and valid. I do not like it though. I play stories for the story most of the time and to have a world and story written by Martin and Miyazaki and then have the story feel so unimportant made me sad. Oh, another tip is to play with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard. You’ll thank me later.

Let’s talk about some other areas of the game though. The music and sound for the game have been fantastic. Graphically, there have been a few moments where it looked not great, but the vast majority of the time the game looks good. If you enjoy difficult combat, Elden Ring is perfect for you.

When it comes tot he character creator, it’s very detailed, but at the same time felt like certain aspects were limiting. I had a really hard time making a face that I liked in it. The creator gives you a slider in some areas providing freedom, but then 5 options in another and I felt like I could never get a solid combination. That being said, this is not a dealbreaker and merely my personal taste.

At the end of the day, Elden Ring feels like a niche game made for people of a special club that don’t care about bringing new people into their club. If you already like these games and know the ins and outs, you’ll probably really like it. If you’re new, there’s a pretty steep learning curve and not a lot of in-game help for you. If you’re willing to put in the work, you’ll probably be rewarded. If you’re a casual gamer or one that is driven by story content, I’d pass on this one. I recently started a new character thinking that maybe it would help me understand something that I missed and my experience was marginally better than the first. Earlier I said that fans of FromSoftware titles would probably give this an 8-10 out of 10 and I stand by that. My personal score is probably a 5 out of 10.