Getting the magic right in the game is hard. You want spells and the arcane arts to feel satisfying and heartfelt, but at the same time you want it to evoke a sense of all sublime knowledge and insight—a feeling that is both unknowable and inhuman. You want to feel the tingle of magic in your fingertips, the surge of mana in your veins through the cushion of your choice. Simply holding down a trigger button and whispering some slack fire attack won’t do the job: you need to feel the weight of your spell, feel the weight of your spell.
A lot of games get magic wrong. It’s too geometric, or too rigid, or too petty.i should have known from soft Would buck the trend of underpowered, watered down magic in games – I just didn’t expect the studio to be so good at it.
Back in March 2022, our very own Alex reflected on just how good Elden Ring’s magic is after the game’s release. Writes that before explaining – thanks to the game’s fascinating relationship to all things eldritch – a magical run in the Elden Ring helped him fall in love with the game all over again.
After actually getting my hands on Bloodborne earlier this year, I thought I’d overlook this: I didn’t need to learn spells and incantations that my peers learned. No, I’ll go grab a giant blade, and walk through the Lands Between like I did Yharnam: with a stubborn stubbornness and a gigantic blade. So I traded Ludwig’s Holy Blade for Bloodhound’s Fang and got most of the game.
Nimble, nimble, nimble, I managed to kill most bosses without hesitation: Margit fell in one fell swoop, Rennala succumbed with ease, and even Starscourge Radahn and his poor pony were knocked out a few times by my blade skills. Knocked down on the downswing. Everything was going well; I couldn’t simply chop them down. The standing bosses would eventually falter under my relentless attacks. I am invincible! One stain bears all stains! Let everyone stand in despair in front of me!
Then I got to Lake Rot. Christ, what a mess. Constantly tormented by disease, my glass cannon can barely step into the poisonous swamp to end all poisonous swamps – it doesn’t matter whether I make it through the root abyss unscathed, or through Kellid like a grim tyrant… rot It’s too much for me. It’s in my blood, my bones, my soul. I rummaged through my inventory, desperately looking for something that would allow me to overcome this dastardly geographic barrier that popped up, and prevent me from dying. I found Larval Tear and I thought ‘well, let’s get some magic on the road’ and I started re-examining my character.
What a difference. Arming myself with one of the many staves I’ve stolen on my travels so far, I set about internalizing some of the more interesting-looking spells I’ve picked up from various dead things in the world. At first, I did this just to heal myself as the rot got into my skin and devoured my armor, but it wasn’t long before I ran into my first boss since respawning. I stood in the back of the arena and spelled out spells one by one—the animations, the effects, the feel in my hands all resonated. I feel every blow as it leaves my finger and lands on my opponent.
All the dodging I’ve learned from wielding an impossibly large blade helps me dodge, weave, and roll around foe’s reckless attacks. When it recovered and tried to attack me again, I threw the space rock into its skull. I set it on fire. I pass judgment on whatever holy deity decides to smile at me that day. And–no blows–I magically killed my own boss. Wow.
So I became arrogant. A friend invited me to join an unofficial Elden Ring PvP battle in the Colosseum. Armed with my new build—and a mind full of forbidden magic—I finally accepted. It’s two-on-two; me and my tank build a buddy with two sword users who look rough and ready. When my partner enraged and took the brunt of the attack (all of which barely scratched him, thanks to some nasty blocking and parrying skills), I went around the melee and hurled holy light, poison, and flames at his attacker . With the power of death itself.
They fell. They fell hard. So, with confidence and bloodthirsty, we began to invade other players. We got another mage/tank duo shortly after–and it was one of the most satisfying battles of attrition I’ve ever had in a game. We swap spells when our guards swap blows, we heal when they clash, and they regenerate stamina when we put as much distance between them as possible.
This – this is what I’ve wanted all my life from magical combat in games, ever since I was about 11 and saw some SeeD backing them up with a fire spell in a mid-game Final Fantasy 8 cutscene allies since. This is what it should be: chaotic, hopeless, exhausting and exhilarating. This is the magic that games should have – without this flimsy, wand-waving, let’s have fun nonsense. Appropriate, life-draining, soul-harvesting magic. It all takes place against the backdrop of a world that’s barely alive as the soil it’s built on rots beneath your feet.
I didn’t come to Elden Ring to master the art of magic, but trading my battered blade for a sage’s hat and ancient staff was probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in a game. If you haven’t done so, I encourage you to.