Elden Ring was originally announced during Microsoft’s 2019 Xbox showcase as the next game from FromSoftware, the studio that single-handedly created the souls-like genre. Beyond that pedigree, Elden Ring has an additional element that makes it a highly anticipated title: a narrative created by A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin.
“Collaborating with George R.R. Martin to create the Elden Ring mythos has been a genuinely delightful experience and a source of wonderful inspiration,” said FromSoftware President Hidetaka Miyazaki at the time of the announcement.
Then Miyazaki and the studio went radio silent for two years.
With Elden Ring’s Summer Game Fest reveal, it’s clear that the much-anticipated game will bring the heat to its open-world peers. The game’s debut trailer tosses a gauntlet at the competition by showcasing FromSoftware’s excellent craft combined with an all-new, open-world environment—a first for the studio. This could represent FromSoftware once again changing the game, and it could be a much-needed fix for a stagnant genre.
A Tarnished, Beautiful World
Elden Ring’s trailer showcases a game that’s not aesthetically dissimilar from FromSoftware’s previous works, such as Bloodborne and Dark Souls. In this world, the Lands Between, you play as The Tarnished, a seemingly unique being who can wield the eponymous Elden Ring. You wander the landscape and fight fiendish monsters to become an Elden Lord.
It’s also clear that FromSoftware is expanding its horizons. In the game’s original press release, the studio promised its “largest game to date.” True to that, Elden Ring’s trailer features an open world, with vast expanses to explore. The studio normally crafts huge worlds, but they tend to be ones that loop and bend back upon themselves. The levels are typically massive labyrinths of decaying architecture and ancient evil that twist into intriguing shapes for you to explore. Exploration is tentative and slow, because everything wants to kill you.
Elden Ring appears to carry FromSoftware’s familiar murderous intent, but in a different format. It’s a similar world as the Dark Souls games, but much larger and crafted for greater movement. The Tarnished can jump distances, or summon a horse-like creature to ride across the world. Jumping didn’t enter FromSoftware’s modern games until Sekiro, and none offered an alternate mode of transportation. The trailer even shows the horse double-jumping, and leaping up the side of a tall cliff.
Open, But Bereft of Life
Open-world games are the current zeitgeist. Publishers and developers throw vast amounts of money into creating sprawling environments. Games like Grand Theft Auto V, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Horizon Zero Dawn promise miles of game world and hours of play.
The problem? Filling those worlds. Many studios resort to the infamous “Ubisoft towers” format, cluttering your world map with a mess of icons and collectibles. Yet, they’re devoid of life. The worlds are filled with characters that don’t react to your presence, barren environments that don’t change, or even colorful worlds that don’t feel cohesive and believable. They’re more theme park than real world, closer to games rather than their promised, immersive experiences.
2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild surprised everyone because it dared to be different. It featured towers, but those were really just vantage points from which you could take in the landscape. Breath of the Wild created a sense of wanderlust; if you could see something in the distance, you could go there. It just took time and perseverance.
For all its features, Breath of the Wild has a key fault, though. When you arrive at your location, you enter one of the game’s many shrines, or dungeons built inside huge, mechanical beasts. These shrines and dungeons lack the life, wonder, and sense of purpose that fill past Legend of Zelda games. The older titles have memorable dungeon locations, such as the Forest Temple, the Snowpeak Ruins, the Sandship, or the Forsaken Fortress. For the most part, Breath of the Wild doesn’t, and that’s something FromSoftware should be keen to avoid with Elden Ring.
A Sense of Place
FromSoftware has a knack for crafting memorable locations. Bloodborne and the Dark Souls games bleed a sense of place. For example, Dark Souls II’s Tower of Flame features bright spires and torn bridges, while the vista on the way to Drangleic Castle looks like it was carved out of shadow. Bloodborne’s Yharnam is a city that has long forgotten that it was a city. Instead, it stands as a monument to hubris, with homes and streets without people. Only raving monsters fill the void.
FromSoftware’s locations etch themselves on your soul through a combination of beautiful aesthetics, cracking level design, and repetition, because you’ll die a lot. In fact, the gleaming tree that towers above the dead world in the Elden Ring trailer opening is already a testament to how FromSoftware creates memorable environments. An open world paired with FromSoftware’s masterful levels? That sounds like an absolute winner.
An Open-World Evolution Is Coming
Elden Ring’s release will likely be joined by Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild sequel. Breath of the Wild 2 is a question mark: We don’t know when it’s coming out, or the type of game that Nintendo is crafting. Nintendo tends to use follow-ups to paper over cracks that appeared in the previous game, so Breath of the Wild 2 should have far more memorable dungeons. It’s entirely possible the game will drop in back-to-back fashion, as many rumors suggest that Breath of the Wild 2 will launch in the first quarter of 2022. Regardless, 2022 could see a open-world game rebirth, with Elden Ring leading the pack.
Elden Ring is currently dated for a January 21, 2022 release on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S/X, and Xbox One.
