peak Hidetaka Miyazaki experience!

FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is more than just the studio's most ambitious title—it's a landmark in open-world game design. Seamlessly blending the punishing difficulty of the Souls formula with a massive, mysterious landscape, Elden Ring manages to be both relentlessly challenging and irresistibly inviting.

The Lands Between is hauntingly gorgeous—its golden trees, ruined cathedrals, and rotting swamps all bursting with cryptic lore. George R.R. Martin’s world-building fingerprints are faint but felt, mostly in the game’s ancient dynasties and mythical lineage. Still, it’s Miyazaki’s cryptic narrative style that dominates, forcing players to piece together the plot through environmental clues, item descriptions, and half-whispered dialogue. It’s storytelling through exploration, not exposition.

The addition of a jump button and the spectral steed, Torrent, revolutionize exploration and combat. For the first time in a FromSoftware title, players have real freedom to retreat, regroup, or ride into battle. Yet this freedom doesn’t dilute the tension; Elden Ring remains brutal. Every dungeon, boss, and even casual encounter can end your run in a heartbeat. But it rarely feels unfair—just unforgiving.

Combat builds on the refined mechanics of Dark Souls 3, but offers more flexibility than ever. Whether you’re a heavy-hitting brute, an elusive spellcaster, or a stealthy archer, the game accommodates you. The sheer number of weapons, spells, and Ashes of War allow for deep customization, and the game encourages experimentation rather than punishing it.

The game isn’t perfect. Some late-game areas feel like a spike in difficulty designed more to frustrate than challenge. Also, the reliance on repeated bosses can diminish the sense of discovery in some regions. And while the performance has improved since launch, occasional stutters and pop-in still linger on certain platforms.

Despite minor flaws, Elden Ring is a triumph—an open-world game that respects player intelligence, rewards curiosity, and refuses to hold your hand. It’s not just a great Souls game; it’s one of the most important titles of the decade.

Rating: 9/10

Elden Ring is an open-world masterpiece where you, a Tarnished of little renown but infinite respawns, are tasked with becoming the Elden Lord. It's basically Dark Souls, but with a horse, a map the size of a small country, and the nagging suspicion that everything is trying to kill you in increasingly creative and horrifying ways.

The world that FromSoftware has crafted here is, in a word, bonkers. It's a sprawling, fantastical landscape filled with crumbling castles, spooky swamps, and golden fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Every corner of this world tells a story, usually one involving some ancient tragedy and a lot of very angry demigods. You'll stumble upon hidden dungeons, encounter bizarre creatures, and piece together the lore like a cosmic jigsaw puzzle – a puzzle where all the pieces are covered in blood and eldritch runes.

And the atmosphere? Thick. Oppressive. Gloriously unsettling. Elden Ring is a masterclass in environmental storytelling. One minute you're riding through a sun-drenched meadow, the next you're creeping through a pitch-black catacomb filled with skeletons who definitely skipped leg day. The sense of scale is immense, the music is hauntingly beautiful, and the overall vibe is one of majestic decay.

But let's be honest, the real star of the show is the gameplay. Elden Ring's combat is challenging, demanding, and utterly exhilarating. You will die. A lot. But with each death comes knowledge, and eventually, you'll transform from a lowly Tarnished into a sword-wielding, spell-slinging, dodge-rolling god. The sheer variety of weapons, spells, and skills is staggering, allowing you to customize your Tarnished to fit your playstyle. Whether you want to be a hulking knight in shining armor, a stealthy assassin, or a magic-wielding sorcerer, Elden Ring has you covered.

FromSoftware has taken the core tenets of the Souls series – the challenging difficulty, the intricate combat, the cryptic storytelling – and combined them with the freedom of an open world. It's a stroke of genius, a sprawling epic that manages to be both punishing and profoundly rewarding. Just be prepared to lose a few hundred hours of your life, and maybe a few controllers.