CIRCLING THE DRAGONS

FromSoftware’s ELDEN RING is a fraught and fascinating balance between expansiveness and intrigue.

- Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

One mark of a great videogame is how clearly you remember it. A decade on from Dark Souls, there are still parts of its flame-cursed world I can readily map out on paper – their layouts, threats, and variables hammered into me by a combination of fabulous aesthetics, surgical perspectives, and brutal trial and error.

I already have a similarly crisp memory of parts of Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s blend of Souls dungeons and combat with an open world and day/night cycle reminiscent of Breath of the Wild. One of the first areas you’ll reach in the early Limgrave region is a crumbling encampment backed by candle-strewn hearses. Guards in red peer into campfires. Others roam the paths, accompanied by wolves. It’s a tidy little murder-maze with some familiar AI behaviours – as in Souls, the canines are fond of circling you before they pounce. Playing as an Enchanted Knight equipped with spear and staff, I do a bit of circling myself – creeping through bushes to different entrance points and felling sentries with Glintstone spells.

STAB LIBBING

One enemy makes it into melee range unscathed – a caped elite with midboss pretensions. It’s a straightforward duel to begin with: wait out his combos and don’t overextend my own, dividing my stamina carefully between attack and retreat. I experiment with Elden Ring’s fancy dedicated jump button, a small but decisive departure from