If you’re anything like me, you played Elden Ring pretty hard when it first came out. I wasn’t even assigned to work on the game, I just clocked in after 5pm like any other normal person. It was a blast, but Elden Ring lost its luster for me on repeat plays. That natural sense of open-world exploration is obviously not there the second time around. That sense of adventure and exploring the unknown is a cornerstone of Elden Ring’s appeal—and if you boot it up now, you might find it’s back.
The reason is simple: a staggering amount of time has passed since Elden Ring came out. In fact, almost two years! Googling nearly turned me to dust, but when I managed to put my ancient bones back together, I realized I’d forgotten about Elden Ring. Of course, the important stuff remains. I know how to get to the Mogwen Palace, how Lanny’s questline works, and where to find the two halves of the Halig Tree Medal. But the placement of the weapon was good, the construction was good… All this information came out of my brain over time.
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I’m not an old guy either. I am 25 years old. This is what work does to my memory. While younger me could remember the location of every blacksmith’s ember in Dark Souls, I couldn’t even begin to guess where the beating or bleeding daggers were in Elden Ring. I’ve even forgotten how some of the great companion quests work, I’m just a scrub. After realizing this, I went back to Elden Ring and relived the exciting journey I had started out with. It’s a rosy holiday season as we look back at the 2022 Game of the Year.
Would you believe it, a lot of the caves and random landmarks I would have avoided while trying to piece together a half-decent Dex Faith build suddenly turned into potential gold mines. Enemy locations are a vague memory, bosses are occasional surprises. I even had a proper face-palming moment after forgetting that a certain chest on the Tower of Return teleported me across the map. Two years is too short a time to call it nostalgia. It’s more like a cup of espresso with digital catharsis.
However, if you want to achieve this effect, you need to follow some rules. One, choose a different version than the one you originally played. Your brain is a wonderful thing, and if you relive every step you took while launching, the pieces will probably click into place and you’ll remember everything. Also, if you can manage it, stay away from the wiki! iGamesNews’s Elden Ring guide is a notable exception, but at least try to figure out the content organically before looking it up (don’t tell any of our guide writers that I wrote this).
But what if you have a perfect memory, you know exactly where the good stuff is, and you don’t want to pretend that all your answers aren’t waiting for you online? Well, this is where community comes into play. For those who like randomness, the Elden Ring randomizer has been around for a while and is customizable. Want to mix weapons and armor? sure! Want the completely random experience of swapping bosses on the map? You can have it too.
No matter how you do it, now is the perfect time to play Elden Ring again. Not only that, but with DLC sure to be coming soon, it doesn’t hurt to have a new save file at the end of the game. If you start now, you can have a fully equipped character ready to embark on a truly new adventure. Whenever it might land.
