Elden Ring – The Fantasy Video Game You’re Going To Want To Play

When it comes to playing open-world games, the ability to go as far as the eye can see is a huge draw for many due to the almost limitless playtime that’s offered. What matters nowadays is that players can travel to every forest, mountain, stream, and swamp that is seen or come across, while enjoying the beautifully rendered scenery which can often almost appear real as you traverse them.

While Skyrim was the initial force behind this shift in how games are explored, and Dark Souls expanded on it, Elden Ring is aiming to be the crème de la crème version, and we can’t wait! Not to mention that George RR Martin (of Game of Thrones fame) has helped with the characters in Elden Ring, and having the mastermind, who brought us this decade’s greatest fantasy, weighing in on how the relationships and characters of Elden Ring evolve is incredibly exciting.

Gameplay

From what we’ve seen so far, the world of Elden Ring is a beautiful, dark and surreal setting, with brooding clouds, desolate landscapes dotted with ruins, and a character who can create lightning strikes (not different from that of powerful Jedis and Sith), while summoning an ethereal blade for some brutal melee combat.

The land being traversed is called ‘The Lands Between’ and it comes complete with terrifying monsters and intriguing characters. FromSoftware is really aiming to deliver a compelling, livable world, and it appears that they have achieved that.

The gameplay is slick and tactical, but takes a minimalistic visual approach, only putting a health bar and equipment bar on-screen to highlight the more cinematic element of the game. To say that it’s a culminative work of its creator Hidetaka Miyazaki of FromSoftware is an understatement.

World Building

Unlike other FromSoftware games which have an almost thriller atmosphere with unexpected and deadly surprises, more often than not, the world of Elden Ring comes with a vast sense of spaciousness that your character and its companionable horse get to explore. While you do have to be constantly aware of your surroundings and ready to parry an incoming attack from a beast or enemy, you’re less likely to resent dying in Elden Ring as opposed to other FromSoftware releases.

As most avid gamers know (and loathe), in most games when you die, you have to spend ages returning to the point of your demise and have numerous fights along the way. In Elden Ring, however, you don’t have this resigned sense of defeat since you can scoot about the map unencumbered – and this on its own is a huge plus for players who have felt daunted by the studio’s previous games.

Likewise, while most games have a final boss in each level that you need to defeat, in Elden Ring you can choose to avoid game bosses for as long as you want and head off in a new direction to explore other places and meet new characters until your bravery returns and you’re ready for another swing at the big baddies.

Your spectral steed is an ideal companion and it’s easy to get absorbed in exploring the beautiful landscape alone, since each ridge, bush and cave comes with a sense of excitement as to what treasure, creature or foe you could uncover. It sounds as immersive as the playlive.co.za games you find online.

Conclusion

In Elden Ring, the storyline penned by Martin is set to immerse players in the characters and lore, and this, combined with the beautiful world you’re able to explore, will undoubtedly bump up Elden Ring on most players’ must-have lists for 2022..

While its release is still a few months out (25 February 2022), avid fantasy fans will want to mark their calenders (and the subsequent months to follow) when Elden Ring unleashes onto the gaming world.