Elden Ring recaptures magic of video game discovery

By Cameron Rasmusson
Reader Contributor

Most video game enthusiasts have a moment in their deep past where they became hooked on the medium. 

For me, it was the original The Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Playing the landmark title as a small child, I felt a sense of wonder, discovery and adventure that I had never encountered before. The game’s stubborn refusal to provide you any direction, instead plopping your charming Link sprite in an open world with nothing but a cave, a sword and an old man’s warning to guide you, instilled the adventure game with a prevailing air of mystery.

About 30 years later, I’ve played many brilliant games, but never one that recaptured that perfect sense of awed fascination — until this year with the release of Elden Ring.

Elden Ring carries with it an impressive legacy of its own. Developed by FromSoftware under the direction of the now-legendary Hidetaka Miyazaki, Elden Ring is the culmination of over a decade of game design, each title iterating on and refining what made its predecessor special. It began in 2009 with the release of Demon’s Souls on Playstation 3. But it wasn’t until 2011’s Dark Souls where the so-called Soulsborne subgenre of action RPGS — a portmanteau of the Souls and Bloodborne games — that the formula refined and defined itself. 

A screenshot of Elden Ring. Courtesy photo.

The Soulsborne formula has been imitated countless times but mastered by few apart from FromSoftware, the original pioneers. Its details vary from title to title, but a couple constants persist. 

Constant one: Prepare to die. Death is merciless and frequent in a Soulsborne title due to devious traps, difficult enemies and terrifying boss encounters. What’s more, death usually carries serious consequences. Typically, it means losing all the resources you’ve painstakingly harvested to upgrade your character and purchase essential items. 

Constant two: Persistence is rewarded. The difficulty of a Soulsborne game may seem intimidating at first, but it’s typically tempered by mercy. Yes, you lose your resources when you die, but if you set out from the nearest checkpoint and reach the site of your demise, you can touch your bloodstain to reclaim them (die again before that, and they’re gone for good). Likewise, a boss that seemed impossible becomes manageable once you learn its attack patterns. An ambush that wiped you out becomes trivial once you learn how to tactically engage the enemy. A trap that caught you by surprise is easily avoided with foreknowledge. Is a particular boss or location just too difficult? Well, you can always upgrade your character, find new equipment and spells, or improve your existing equipment to even the odds.

Those constants apply to Elden Ring, but what makes it an unparalleled achievement is the introduction of a vast, open world. Known as The Lands Between, the world is subdivided into several regions with their own unique art direction, dungeons, bosses and areas of interest. Like The Legend of Zelda so many years ago, Elden Ring offers you little direction through that world apart from occasional golden rays pointing you toward key locations. Instead, it’s up to you to wander your way into your own micro-adventures — perhaps exploring a dusty crypt containing hidden treasure, or fighting through a haunted castle to face a demigod, or stumbling upon a forlorn non-player character who can explain more of the world’s tragic history. The only limiting factor is whether you’re powerful and skilled enough to face the challenges that await you.

FromSoftware is known for creating stories with rich, detailed histories and mythologies — and then giving the player almost none of that information directly. Instead, it’s up to the player to piece together as much context as they can through environmental clues, item descriptions and cryptic dialogue spoken by the world’s few living inhabitants. This time around, the FromSoftware team received support from fantasy writer George R.R. Martin of A Song of Ice and Fire fame, who built a rich mythology for the player to explore. 

For all the thoughtful game design, though, it’s the emotions of Elden Ring that truly stick with a player. Like most FromSoftware games, a deep sense of melancholy pervades Elden Ring as the player explores a beautiful-yet-faded world bereft of gentleness. It’s a deeply lonely experience, even when summoning other players to help you on your way. Interspersed with that melancholy are moments of terror and panic as you fight to survive and progress. And then there’s the sheer elation of overcoming those intense challenges.

Any artistic work that makes a deep emotional impression is bound to create a lasting memory. And in the world of video games, few titles do it better than Elden Ring.