Elden Ring Previews
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Following the recent gameplay preview for FromSoftware's upcoming action-RPG Elden Ring we can check out a series of hands-on previews that can give us a good idea for what to expect from this upcoming Dark Souls successor. But before we get there, there's also this PlayStation Blog article listing both new and familiar gameplay elements we'll encounter while playing Elden Ring. Let's start with the familiar:
Familiar Souls-style gameplay elements
Before jumping into the new, here are some of the fundamental Souls gameplay elements you can look forward to in Elden Ring:
Tough Bosses – From the hammer-flinging Grave Warden to the energy blades flung by Margit the Fell Omen, the boss battles on offer pack a level of challenge Souls fans have come to savor. Entrancing attack animations dovetail into devastating attacks, guiding you to study their movement and react to survive these fights.
Common enemies hit hard – Greed and laziness will be punished. Don’t underestimate common ghouls or random horse-mounted foes in the field. They will end you if you drop your guard.
Backstabs and parries – Block, roll, parry, and backstab your way through combat. Hard-earned muscle memory from past From Software games will come in handy.
Combat and Targeting – The bread and butter of dealing light and heavy attacks feels similar, yet with a subtle smoothness layered onto the overall gameplay. Locking on to enemies and cycling between targets mid-combat feels simple and intuitive.
Leveling Up – Collect Runes (a.k.a experience points) by defeating enemies and use them to level up at “Sites of Grace” discovered in the world (similar to bonfires in Souls titles). You’ll drop Runes when defeated, so be sure to make recollecting dropped caches a priority.
Then there's PC Gamer's preview:
Elden Ring's open world is absolutely going to be its most controversial design choice, and from what I played in the Network Test, I think it dilutes what makes the Souls games special: their intricate, interconnected level design. I've got a whole separate article on Elden Ring's open world design, so this is the cliff notes version.
The openness does mesh well with the more flexible RPG character building I mentioned earlier: It's genuinely really cool to play a huge game like this and know exactly where you should go on the map to grab a particular weapon or ability or armor set right from the outset. But so far, from what I've seen, there's a lot of open ground that you'll just quickly ride past. There are a lot of crafting ingredients scattered around that kinda just feel like they're there because that's what you put in open world games, and the environment would be too barren if you didn't have them. And we've lost that dense, interconnected world design of Souls at its best.
IGN:
Elden Ring very much represents a return to the Souls style, which is most evident in its dark fantasy setting but also rings true in its gameplay and mechanics as well. It brings back the split Estus Flask system from Dark Souls 3, allowing you to choose to prioritize either health restoratives or mana restoratives by distributing your flasks as you see fit.
Combat is slower and much more methodical than Sekiro and Bloodborne, with often fairly lengthy start-up and recovery times on most of your attacks and heals, forcing you to pick your spots and choose the right moments to attack, defend, and take a sip of a flask.
In case it isn't clear yet, I absolutely loved my time with Elden Ring - there are enough tweaks and touches to make this feel like a fresh take on the Souls formula, not least the absolutely stunning open world you're free to explore. But the game still manages to feel reassuringly familiar to this Soulsborne fan, while adding enough optional features to help new players feel empowered to give Elden Ring a try. This was a very generous helping of what the full game can offer, and despite sinking so many hours into it, I still came away hungry for more. There might not be a better sign of its quality than that.
Two of the biggest traversal mechanics added into Elden Ring allow players to bend the knee for the first time in the Souls series. Of course, what comes next is the natural progression of being able to jump, something that From Software has been adverse to for many years because of how intricately designed their levels can be. Those labyrinths can sometimes be evaded by a careful roll or fall from a precarious precipice but never before in a proper Souls game have players been able to get that upward hop added to their limited moveset. Now, I know that this was something that I praised Hellpoint for and I am absolutely looking forward to seeing how Elden Ring will allow players that extra verticality to find secrets littered throughout the world. Oh, and that horse companion of yours can also jump too.
Now, we all know how Estus flasks work by this point. Health and mana potions that you can refill at any checkpoint, right? The Flask of Wondrous Physick is the answer to having a replenishable, customizable consumable to go along with these existing flasks. The Flask of Wondrous Physick refills at any checkpoint and is modular – you can mix different crystal tears into it to create a blend that works for your playstyle. In the demo, I found three different types of tears. One replenished mana, one buffed stamina, and one made the flask explode violently. You can mix two tears into the flask at once to create different effects, and I would imagine the full selection of tears in the main game is immense. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see us acquiring more flasks throughout the playthrough for multiple quaffs per checkpoint or the ability to mix more tears into them.
