elden ringThe open world of is huge and full of details. It takes time and patience to walk from one place of grace to another. Thankfully, the world is perfectly manageable with torrent the horse summoner. The noble steed makes elden ring both more and less dangerous, all in the name of promoting freedom, exploration and stupidity. Riding torrent is knowing peace, albeit brief; You can travel to seemingly unreachable places, only to be killed by the myriad of higher tier enemies you’ll find there. It’s incredible.
Torrent has made playing a FromSoftware game much more accessible for a beginner like me. Handling is intuitive, with movements as responsive as operating my character normally, and easy ways to accelerate or dismount. I can canter and kite like a little freak. I feel safer attacking the big ones because I know if all else fails I can often mount my horse and escape. (I even outran you, Tree Sentinel.) I can also dash through dense enemy territory to get to other parts of the map. Every escape, just in time, is a little thrill.
Repeatedly dying at the foot of an enemy no longer feels like a knockback. Torrent can take me anywhere, and the open world is full of (terrifying) wonders. Instead, every fight feels like a choice, and I’ve chosen to stick with it. If I leave Torrent to stir up some shit then I commit. Getting good in combat doesn’t feel like an obligation, but rather a concrete decision to improve a skill or try a tactic. These experiments add up to an improvement; the beautiful exterior of all my fooling around.
And torrent activated my absolutely lowest impulses and most messy dreams. I’m happy with any creature that approaches – just to see what happens. I can run fast enough to avoid death; I could be forgotten. The latter is fine, because these deaths are almost always funny. And I don’t mind losing runes, I can always farm them if I need to.
Also, it never takes me long to get anywhere thanks to Torrent’s faithful walk. Torrent is so fast that I often end up in unfamiliar regions, full of enemies who immediately pounce on me. Each repetition is a chance to find another cave, pass or hideout. There’s also Torrent’s double jump, the real secret of exploration – great for scaling or sneaking into cliffs.
Every time You Died pops up on my screen, I don’t suffer. But should Torrent be killed, I absolutely mourn. I have no agenda other than ruthlessness and exploration and a desire to fight anyone who catches my eye. When the first boss and I finally meet, might they have reason to fear me? Probably not. But a girl and her horse can dream.
