Of the almost 20 minutes of Elden Ring gameplay that From Software offered a few weeks ago, the image that caused the most impact was that of the character gazing at the horizon. The mists spread to every corner of the map, warning of a colossal-sized adventure and paying an increasingly common tribute to the introductory scene of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
A picture that quickly generated doubts and amazement, beginning to spin with more force in my mind after seeing how the game began to give a greater importance to mobility. Is Miyazaki, an author who has made his mark over the last decade, learning about one of the best video games of all time? The answer is yes, in a tremendously simple way and preserving what has transformed the Souls into titans of the industry.
It has been about nine hours that have flown by. The best thing about the Elden Ring closed beta has been enjoying every moment of discovery, remembering negative and positive feelings. The worst thing about having tried Elden Ring before its launch is that now we have to wait several months until its official arrival and it will be impossible to get it out of my mind. GOTY 2022 is going to be one of the closest in years.
As simple as it is effective
Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice have become two deviations within the imaginary created by From Software. One betting on a stark aggressiveness and the other requiring the use of parry as a tool to survive. Neither has the word Souls in their title and their special characteristics are mainly based on mechanics. With Elden Ring the paradigm shift is very similar.
Without fear of being wrong, this new game could have been perfectly called Dark Souls IV. Any veteran of the saga will find recognizable and unmistakable points of the previous installments. The monster catalog, dogfighting and unpredictable situations are everywhere, although a single ingredient is added to the formula by changing the flavor: the open world.
It has no greater mystery. Elden Ring picks up the much-maligned and celebrated open-world scheme that Ubisoft has used ad nauseam, created Rockstar, and refined Nintendo. He is commendable as a creator like Miyazaki, who is already on the altar of video game designers, is able to notice what the rest of the students in the class do well to incorporate it into your work.
Elden Ring takes mobility from Breath of the Wild through a possibility that has never really been implemented in his works, such as the jump. A single button dedicated to allowing our character to jump completely transforms the vision towards dungeons, walls, barriers and even fighting against enemies. We could roughly perform jumps in Dark Souls, but many times I was lucky to have aim with a mechanic that was not designed to create artificial shortcuts.
In Elden Ring we can generate them with great simplicity. Do you want to avoid that group of knights with torches and swords? Surround them on the rocks and camouflage yourself among the hedges. How difficult is the main entrance to a castle? He begins to climb the side ruins until he finds a more comfortable path. All this without ever exhausting our resistance, which is reserved for when we find ourselves in the middle of a fray.
In truth, if the crazy things that Souls players are capable of, with the brutal dedication that the community possesses, allow them to create unimaginable strategies, at Elden Ring the festival of originality aims to be vintage. Although there has always been freedom in the Souls, freedom stuck to the road. At Elden Ring it is no longer just the path, but how we approach the path.
On this trip we will also have Torrentera, our steed that serves as transport. With a simple whistle we can summon it from nowhere and make it disappear at your convenience. On its back we can quickly travel the nooks and crannies of the Midlands and even propel ourselves vertically to great heights thanks to enormous whirlwinds of air. It will be necessary to take good care of him, since although he has a double jump, he is not immune to large falls, as well as enemy attacks. Your presence is appreciated although, once again, nothing forces us to call you even once.
The essence of yesteryear with a pinch of salt
I remember it for those who may feel scared. Elden Ring is everything a From Software lover can hope for. A mysterious world like the Midlands, filled with quirky characters and crammed to the brim with monsters, dungeons, secrets, and an overwhelming number of hours ahead. If a regular Souls approaches 35 hours on average to complete, Elden Ring is aiming for an unprecedented duration. The closed beta has only allowed us to explore a small area compared to the rest of the map, but one that contains such richness inside that it is scary to think when we have the whole scenario at our disposal.
The typical bonfires no longer exist, now replaced by the places of grace that fulfill the same function. There we can rest, level up, make time pass and they fulfill a higher function: they show us the way to follow with a trail of light towards the next objective. We can pay attention to it whether we want to or not, there is no rule about it. And it is that with the same purpose is the compass, which allows us to place ourselves in a huge world, an opening in Miyazaki’s hand, in contrast to that iron fist with which it hinders the games of his games. It is a small help for a trip that seems, as always, complicated.
As soon as I get to the outside of the cave in which I start, to the Necrolimbus, a Wild Sentinel welcomes me with his giant ax and on the back of a horse. Faced with a certain and continuous death, I decide to go to a swamp, in total contraindication to what the light of grace indicates to me. In a quieter environment? I practice my Warrior swords against rabid dogs, undead or giant crabs. Everything seems to be going smoothly, until without warning three other crustaceans emerge from the depths of the waters and begin to try to annihilate me. Touch withdrawal and begin to recalculate the plans to follow.
Meanwhile, I observe how bat-shaped monsters take care of their young, scare small animals and defend their territory. Goats gather in herds, turtles look for their place without disturbing and giant dragonflies just try to punch. A camp packed with soldiers, guarding treasure chests, is a very juicy target for the most skilled using stealth strategy. Tall grasses allow for the perfect camouflage, while collecting all kinds of materials that nature provides me to craft items.
It is a small, simple example of what can happen normally in the Elden Ring. All in fights that are very similar to what was seen in Dark Souls 3, always trying to rotate to catch the back or a flank while we roll without stopping. Critical blows from the back are still present, bad timing continues to be lethal to our destiny, and magic can be absolutely lethal. In fact, the special ability of my scimitars was to send strong winds in a straight line, which can momentarily knock out the enemy and take a lot of life.
The jump also fulfills its role here. If we jump and strike at the same time, we can break the enemy’s posture, leaving him completely exposed. Stealth plays by no means a secondary role in Elden Ring. More than once it has helped me to easily avoid several enemies at the same time or to surprise others from behind. And we are not talking about a Metal Gear or Splinter Cell, but it just comes down to crouching down to make it harder to spot us.
I can’t speak highly enough of horse combat. Perhaps it is my fault, but I have not found all the usefulness that is assumed, beyond serving against very great enemies. The swords are inaccurate and in the end you end up giving up fighting that way. Of course, invocations are the perfect resource for those who choke on the most imposing bosses. However, the other side of the coin is being invaded and seeing yourself in the middle of a duel while another spirit helps you in combat.
Make yourself at home, but discover what we have to offer you. The changes are noticeable, but with respect and without being disruptive enough with his past. We will continue to find unfair situations, dragons falling from the sky, giants jumping towards us or small armies ready to bombard us with arrows. More than one controller will continue to run the risk of not surviving the games.
Not to forget the dungeons in a Souls. Although the main objective is to go to the imposing castle that we could see in the gameplay, there are many caves, nooks and crannies to sneak through. Many times they are indicated by dark statues, but other times they are simply hidden. Are very short, just a couple of corridors and two or three traps to lead to a boss fight optional. In the case of the castle, the beta does not allow to explore it completely in depth, although everything indicates that we will relive the mythical shortcuts of the Souls.
However, the world of Elden Ring does not pick up something much more difficult to replicate and that Red Dead Redemption 2 does masterfully. The world is not organic, it does not feel alive. There are moments of simulation, like packs of wolves running through the field or a huge chariot pulled by giants, but everything still feels the same as in the rest of Souls. Nothing moves if you don’t get close, everything is dead until your presence gives it life. This is the way it has always been in Miyazaki’s games and it still is in the Elden Ring.
A work of art
It remains to be seen how much the lord’s weight is George R. R. Martin in the plot of Elden Ring, but what leaves no doubt is that visually it is amazing. Elden Ring looks good, very good, graphically it is not a pointer, but it is above average. And if by pure technical muscle it does not match its competitors, sweeps on an artistic level.
Whether we’re talking about Demon’s Souls or Sekiro, not once does the development team falter. Bravo for the designers in this regard, because the bestiary that we find is immense and I emphasize again that we are just in one region of a vast map. Gargoyles, cave primates, skeleton warriors, floating jellyfish and even lumps of meat and guts. Everything looks fantastic.
Bosses are not far behind either. This is where more goals are scored from the study, since each one of them has its own charisma, unmistakable to the eye. Stone guard dogs, cave werewolves or indefinable creatures, everything has a place in the imagination of From Software and so they have captured it. Everything we could see in the previous gameplay is real and it has looked like this in the closed beta.
It is important to note that it is still in the development phase and I have experienced occasional FPS drops on PS5, regardless of stressful situations for the title. There have also been a few bugs with invisible enemies, but it doesn’t seem like anything that can’t be fixed until launch.
There are many, many positive feelings that Elden Ring has transmitted to me. The beginning of 2022 is set to be a tremendous binge of video games, where more candidates for GOTY will be presented at the beginning of the year than in anything seen in 2021. Of course, Hidetaka Miyazaki and his entire team have laid out the tracks for the train of the hype is up and running.
