Elden Ring looks different

 Souls of the wild

If you could only imagine it... well then your views would be redundant because we don't have to spend wistful nights dreaming of a new future for the Souls franchise, on account of the way that FromSoftware were kind enough to drop Elden Ring gameplay right there for all to see. (Now weren't that nice of them?) Yes, I didn't ever expect to receive an honest to goodness gameplay-centric walkthrough video out of the guys who make Dark Souls, and the fact that they've promised even more coverage down the line is where I draw my believability angle. There will be another trailer and some more screenshots at most, is my guess, this is the biggest info blowout we can expect until our grand launch date. But that is by no means a total condemnation, because From were amazingly forthcoming about what we can expect from this Souls game that will be unlike any other Souls game before it, whilst simultaneously being annoyingly vague in some departments, because when you develop a brand you have to stick to it.

I suppose in a sense their candour is only sensible given that they themselves are exploring vastly new territory with this sort of open world game mixed in with the Souls formula, so they're being upfront with how this is a learning process for everyone. (We're learning how this sort of game can even exist, they're learning how to even make it) And the unknown fascination stems from the apparent incompatibility between what Souls games are and what Open World games propose. Souls games are snippets of a whole dark universe, wrapped into curated scenic dives into distended bastilles, fetid swamps and wind-swept mountains. Souls games wrap their vast spiralling world into legends imbued into items and weapons, painting a living history far grander then what they can ever feasibly show. Open World games are designed to make you want to touch everything, go everywhere, prowl the crevices and edge the ravines of these worlds you know about. Souls games tell you the world, Open World games bring it to you; and those may sound like they go hand in hand but that could not be further from the truth.

Still, here we are with an Open World Souls Games and already the old formula we love has had to make some concessions. Primarily, there's now a map coded into the game with full 'Breath of Wild' pins functionality, betraying just how much wilderness you're expected to traverse here. (Although I'll bet the main dungeons don't get any interior maps, that's just a hunch I get from knowing these games well enough.) Fall damage has been greatly tweaked to allow you to jump decent distances without a scratch, which pairs well with the new jumping mechanic which adds a lot of verticality to exploration. Dark Souls III was already experimenting with levels where straightforward footpaths gave way to complicated multi-layered explorative treks, but if we're to believe our narrator, Elden Ring will take this even further to the point where some key dungeons will have multiple paths to trek through them. (Snap, this is feeling like an Immersive Sim in here!)

Exploration is aided by our horse friend which is summonable from a wisp in the air, and From pulled no punches in letting us see an extended Drake bout atop the horse. Both melee weapons and magic spells are accessible for use atop the horse, and the level of mobility provided by the horse gives you something of an equal footing with winged dragons, which means From no longer need to come up with convoluted reasons why a small squishy human is capable of dodging these powerful agile beings of embodied grace and inevitable destruction. (Dodging between the legs of a dragon feels so stupid nowadays, why doesn't the thing just sit on me and be done?) Additionally, those special glowing fonts that allow our beast-horse to leap several feet in the air were called out specifically as a method to make traversal 'stress free', which I found to be an interesting statement. Isn't stress a natural part of conflict? And if they've specifically added shortcuts through the world because they think it's stressful to traverse, doesn't that just make it seem like the team doesn't value free-roam exploration as a vertical of the gameplay, which is odd, as one would have to ask why you would make an open world game in the first place if that was the case. (Maybe I'm reading into that too deeply.)

One of the aspects of this games which has me the most curious are these new open world events that we appear to be seeing, watching the player ride past a moving caravan without the guards spotting and trying to skin them alive was surreal to say the least. It almost paints the picture that this is a world still in some form of working order, which is entirely different to every other Souls game which all depict the atrophy after or just before decay. I wonder how the Souls team have worked to make these encounters in anyway interesting, and wonder how many of these caravans I'll have to pillage before I start avoiding them like the plague because they're more trouble then they're worth. Yes, I don't have the highest of hopes for the open world stuff, I've played a Far Cry game before. (But, as with anything I'm dubious on, I'd love to be proven wrong.)

And now I need to harp on jumping some more, because oh-my-god this feels so wrong but in the best possible way. Ignoring the strange animation which makes the player look like the earth itself is propelling away from them, the ability to jump in a Souls game doesn't compute in my little peanut mind. I mean sure, Sekiro had players launch themselves through the air, but that was an entirely different style of Souls like, fast and agile in it's very heart. Elden Ring feels like Dark Souls, in it's influence, design and even in it's colour palette sometimes. But jumping up to ledges to explore, launching at drakes for quick heavy strikes, and jumping down a large drops, feels like we're playing a different game here. I almost want to see this functionality patched into past Dark Souls games and see if  then The Bed of Chaos can finally elevate itself above the worst boss in the entire franchise.

But you know what I think looks fantastic without any additional caveats? The Magic. Magic in Souls has always been this sliding scale of trash to brilliant depending on how much time, and levels, you spend on it. And in fact, many believe magic to be something of a sell-out strat for how it can be used at a distance, has the potential to do stupid damage and most enemies aren't coded to deal with it. I can't say anything for whether balancing is better this time around, but visually these spells look more intense then we've ever seen before. Summoning huge clouds of blue glittering magic hail or calling 4 spectral skeletons to slash a victim from every angle makes magic spells looks cooler then ever. In fact, we even got to see one character using a dragon breath attack and then see it's presumed origin from the demigod boss battle later on; showing how this time around player versions of spells will look as impressive as the boss ones we scour them from. (Although it'll undoubtedly do worse damage)

I still hold concerns on the game though, namely how I'm not really feeling the sense that this is Dark Souls game from the open world. It feels, like I touched on above, like a Far Cry title and doesn't seem to earn it's size just of yet, and I think the team should really look to great titles like Breath of the Wild for a blueprint of the things such a world space needs to go that extra mile. The spirits system wasn't much touched on either, so we don't know how in depth the ability to collect AI ghost companions will be. PVP was confirmed, but not shown, so the extent of that will be a question going forward. (Will invasions be everywhere? How will you limit invasion hosts to a single area of this open world map during such an attack?) And there's stealth, which looks questionable, if-not-bad. But overall I still hold faith in Elden Ring to push forward the Souls brand to a significant degree, whether that push is in the right direction... well, the jury's still out on that.