I ran into my first Elden ring catch. It was meant to look like a treasure chest safely embedded in a low-level area of FromSoftware’s latest action RPG, but it took me on a whirlwind journey through some of the nastier parts of the game’s crumbling world.
I was in mine for several hours Elden ring Play through exploring the lands surrounding a lake named after the dragon Agheel in the game’s Limgrave region. I knew from early previews that if I ventured too far into the shallow waters of the lake, a boss fight against the giant Wyrm would begin, so I slinked around on foot rather than using the galloping gait of my noble steed Torrent. Eventually I discovered the dragon burned ruinsin which a group of torch-wielding villains chanted Agheel’s name and slowly approached.
Defeating these enemies was a breeze, even after not noticing their giant canine companions until it was too late. I took on the fight like so many did in those early hours Elden ring: Get as close as possible without raising suspicion, summon some spectral wolves to do my bidding, and annihilate my enemies from long range with my spear and fire summons whenever an opening presents itself. It’s not glamorous but it gets the job done and more importantly keeps me as safe as possible.
After killing Agheel’s Superfans, I began scouring the ramshackle structures for prey, all the while keeping an eye on the horizon in case the dragon heeded the calls of its admiring audience. I didn’t find anything of value until I saw it. A treasure chest whose narrow gap between the lid and body shines in the light. It almost called me, begging me to open it. I am committed. This was a rare opportunity for me so early Elden ringand I would not let excessive caution keep me from my prize.
In retrospect, I probably should have become one small more careful.
Like most souls Fans will know by now that FromSoftware likes to place traps in treasure chests. Sometimes the treasure chests alive. They’re called mimics and they’re huge assholes if they catch you off guard. But that wasn’t an imitation. A mimic I could handle without breaking a sweat and there would still be some sort of treasure to look forward to after defeating her. No, that was something completely different. When I opened the chest, I found myself enveloped in a dense purple mist, a warning message indicating I was being teleported against my will.
All my wolf friends could do was watch as I was magically spirited away.
A surprisingly long loading screen later, I found myself in a small cabin. A region notification pop-up indicated that I was in a place called Sellia Crystal Tunnel. I saw a rugged humanoid wielding a staff walking past the entrance to the building and immediately crouched to hide my presence. Stepping out into my cavernous surroundings, I noticed similar men using magical tools to sever veins of multicolored ore in the floor and walls. On the roof of the shack I had just exited stood a strange, beetle-like creature with several arms, watching the workers like a foreman or overseer.
Stupidly, I thought maybe I could talk to this centipede person and tried to jump onto the platform she was on. I missed. It saw me and immediately fired a round of deadly barbs that decimated my health bar so completely that a second off-camera salvo was enough to finish me off in the blink of an eye. “Well, that’s the end of it,” I thought to myself, assuming that this death would work like my many others Elden ring and sends me back to my last checkpoint. My heart sank as I awoke in the exact same spot, to the familiar sounds of the miners echoing through the cave.
The embargo igamesnews agreed in exchange for an early Elden ring Code means I can’t show you anything from my harrowing journey through the Sellia Crystal Tunnel. Not that it’s overly interesting, although it’s a beautiful area if you can ignore all the bugs trying to kill you. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time to enjoy my surroundings. Over the course of dozens of attempts, I’d run through the cave system in search of an exit, with the game informing me each time I visited the map that I wouldn’t be able to fast travel to safety until I found a way out . And while I was able to loot some pretty good treasures along the way, the whole experience frustrated me to no end. Not in a bad way of course, just like FromSoftware games so often do.
I was reminded of it all the time bloodborne, particularly the point where his world comes under siege by creatures known as snatchers. These large, hooded figures appear after defeating the blood-hungry beast, and if they kill you, imprison you in an area that, much like the Sellia Crystal Tunnel, is far beyond your abilities at this point in the story. Both scenarios are really just ways for their respective games to be big jerks. But I have to admit, it’s quite fun to get a little taste of high-level dungeons and pick up some items sooner than normally possible. Also, I can now teleport to the Sellia Crystal Tunnel and surrounding regions at any time, allowing me quick access to all of their valuable treasures when I’m finally able to deal with the dangers they pose.
Elden ring is the seventh from FromSoftware souls-like since the official establishment of the pseudo-genre in 2009 demons souls. By now, those of us who’ve played every game the company’s sadistic developers have put out during that time are getting used to their shenanigans. This treasure chest, as simple as it sounds on paper, is a necessary evolution of the familiar soulsnonsense in style. Toxic swamps? Sure, yeah, whatever. Collapsing bridges? I’m over it copycat? Booorrring. But this teleporting treasure chest has an air of old-school villains about it. Classic RPGs have been doing these kinds of stunts all along, and it’s cool to see a studio so obviously influenced by the harsh, player-crushing experiences of early PC games return to the well for something familiar and new.
