Like the Elden Ring itself, the souls like genre has been shattered – by the very studio that created it. Yet, in taking those shards – pieces of Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro – and forging Elden Ring, FromSoftware has managed to create something that feels entirely new yet familiar.
This isn’t ‘Dark Souls but open world’. Wide-open spaces are used in a way that changes how you undertake your journey, and a wealth of combat, gear, and customisation options makes experimenting with the way you play just as freeing as the ability to choose which physical direction you take.
Going hands-on with the game ourselves, we easily spend upwards of ten hours in the opening area alone, constantly enticed by new things to find. We’ve got approximately half of the first area to play around with, and six regions are promised in the full game the idea of effectively 2 times the number of things to see, do, and find is almost overwhelming.
But what’s here is not just the sort of fluff you find in some open worlds (for example, as beautiful as some of the expansive English countryside is in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, there are only so many actual points of discovery within it). In Elden Ring, there’s a teasing secret over the crest of every hill.
SECRET KEEPERS
Esta historia es de la edición February 2022 de PLAY Magazine UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición February 2022 de PLAY Magazine UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Visions Of Mana
Tree-t yourself to this mana-fold return
Tracking Monster Hunter's future
Ahead of Monster Hunter Wilds next year, two story-focused spinoffs come to PlayStation
As Dusk Falls
In this robbery, no-one gets away clean
Freedom Planet 2
Not so much beating Sonic at his own game’ as evolving it
Planet Zoo: Console Edition
Radio the keepers, its about to get wild
Asphalt: Legends Unite
Quietly purring the engine, Gameloft has been making rather good arcade racers since 2004.
Synduality: Echo Of Ada
Nonsensical name, enjoyable game
MultiVersus
Welcome to the slam
System Shock
Nightdive Studios' swanky, ground-up remake of 1994's genre-launching classic System Shock is finally heading to PlayStation which should make you very excited if you have any interest in crawling through vents or bonking cyborg mutants on the head with blunt objects.
Punch Nazis
Twin-superhero adventure Marvel 1943: Rise Of Hydra looks totally Unreal