Elden Ring

 PC
User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 5812 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3,862 out of 5812
  2. Mixed: 414 out of 5812
  3. Negative: 1,536 out of 5812

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  1. plato1123
    Apr 29, 2022
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ok the goood about this game...

    1) beautiful and diverse open world
    2) integrate fighting style

    Needs improvement:
    1) The fighting style is great but the reaction and timing from your opponents is completely arbitrary, meaning you have to die from every boss 3 times to know his time. It becomes clear pretty quick it's not based on skill or hand-eye coordination but how many times you've died to that exact f'ing boss. That is the cancer of the dark souls series, the fighting is cool but there's no consistency AT ALL. Oh this boss has a magic insta-move that kills you instantly, oh you didn't know about that?

    2) the thing the dark souls a-holes do where you lose your experience if you don't run to where you died... is f'ing stupid and is intended to make you churn up the same scenery over and over again. It's a dumb stunt and yes it makes your blood pressure boil on the spot but it inhibits your overall satisfaction of the game(s)

    Overall they did a lot of things right, this is better than Dark Souls which was addictive but then you were like ... why did I play that f'ing game for 8 hrs, what is wrong with me    … Expand
  2. oklapie
    Mar 26, 2022
    6
    Great game with lots of potential, the first 30 hours of this game were amazing, but largely over hyped. 50 hours in, and the game falls apart. After beating certain story bosses, the difficulty level scales dramatically and largely invalidates any work you've put into building your character. Boss design repeats itself over and over. The PC performance issues don't seem like they're goingGreat game with lots of potential, the first 30 hours of this game were amazing, but largely over hyped. 50 hours in, and the game falls apart. After beating certain story bosses, the difficulty level scales dramatically and largely invalidates any work you've put into building your character. Boss design repeats itself over and over. The PC performance issues don't seem like they're going to be addressed either.… Expand
  3. FedorBondarchuk
    Jun 19, 2022
    6
    Dark souls with a hourse and jump buttom, same combat, same cheap game design. But there is empty open world which is basicaly a huge landscape with nothing. there is no plot like in previous From software games deep meaning of what is going on in the game exists only on internet forums and fandom . Games terrible UI and clunky unresponsible controlls make it frustrating, playing 6thDark souls with a hourse and jump buttom, same combat, same cheap game design. But there is empty open world which is basicaly a huge landscape with nothing. there is no plot like in previous From software games deep meaning of what is going on in the game exists only on internet forums and fandom . Games terrible UI and clunky unresponsible controlls make it frustrating, playing 6th installment of dark souls not giving me that much joy overcoming the same game design ideas that i overcome 5 games earlyer. On top of this game runs like crap on pc (rtx 2070/r73800x) with frame rate dipping below 60 no matter ettings i used. I believe critics if you can say so are really biased and the big name of Miyadzaki sold them this game and thats not right you need to be objective as a journalist you need to tell people the truth about the product that they are buing.… Expand
  4. MadMaxxieXD
    May 12, 2022
    6
    The majority of the game is very fun and addictive but, and this is a huge but, the boss design and balancing is insanely bad, certain bosses are made to be roadblacks that must be faced, there are some that actually punish you for not cheesing them, there are loads that are way too aggressive so they literally leave no room to get an attack in and some builds will have no way to counterThe majority of the game is very fun and addictive but, and this is a huge but, the boss design and balancing is insanely bad, certain bosses are made to be roadblacks that must be faced, there are some that actually punish you for not cheesing them, there are loads that are way too aggressive so they literally leave no room to get an attack in and some builds will have no way to counter them until after they somehow beat the boss. There are a lot of places where you will, without warning, end up teleported and stuck, unable to level up, reallocate flasks, upgrade anything, so you can end up losing your save if you get sent in unprepared which goes against exploration because there is no way of knowing when or if you're strong enough without entering and then you can't leave. There is a lot of that and it really ruins the experience and flies in the face of the "dust yourself off and try again" appeal of these games when a lot of bosses actually have nothing to do with skill, if you have the wrong build, you just may not be able to react fast enough to do anything without being killed as a result, you went caster? Tough luck, you literally have no time to charge your spells. You went tanky with a shield? Tough luck, this boss does a room length piercing attack that will stagger through the best gear available until after them and then they go into a one shot combo before you can control your character again and they patched out one early material could have let you upgrade one gear piece, like your shield, so you wouldn't stagger, could dodge the combo and then punish but instead we have this because boss design and balancing sucks. The fact even diehard players went after the material because without that upgraded piece, some builds could not beat the boss blocking them from progessing the story and accessing other areas, or at least would require such perfect play, it's beyond what even a Souls style game can realistically ask. In summary, the good is very good but the bad will make this game literally unbeatable for a lot of people.… Expand
  5. dafunkk
    Feb 28, 2022
    6
    If you've never played a Souls game, PLEASE do not start with this one. Every other game in the series is a better place to start, I worry that for someone who starts with this game, they'll miss out on the rest of the series because hey, this is the newest one so it MUST be the best. It's not, it's near the bottom of this great series. Maybe at the bottom entirely.

    So... another Souls    If you've never played a Souls game, PLEASE do not start with this one. Every other game in the series is a better place to start, I worry that for someone who starts with this game, they'll miss out on the rest of the series because hey, this is the newest one so it MUST be the best. It's not, it's near the bottom of this great series. Maybe at the bottom entirely.

    So... another Souls game. Not saying that's a bad thing. The combat is fair and challenging, the presentation is solid, the graphics are... alright, certainly not 2022 stuff (unless this is just a bad PC port... which now that I look over the reviews, it sounds like I got off light, it just looks old and blah, it's not stuttering *anywhere* near as bad as many are experiencing)

    This is not a bad game, 7/10 is not a bad score. It's alright... but I'd wait for it to be on sale for like $20... While it retains many of the elements that made prior Souls games great, what it cuts out was essentially the heart and what it adds in simply doesn't work. The open world is boring, the enemy placement is lame, I didn't feel any sense of wonder or world building that even comes close to the rest of this series. The game feels rushed and more like From was told to make a game they didn't really want to make.

    As a huge fan of Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne... I'm not disappointed per say... but I'm certainly not wowed either. I don't care for how open the game is, it really ruins what makes these games great. I don't care for the setting, take Bloodborne for example, the setting was the best thing about it. I don't care for the random hodgepodge haphazard placement of enemies, it honestly feels like an early 2000s MMO when you look at how things are laid out...I certainly would put this near the bottom, maybe just above DS2, in terms of souls games. That being said, 7/10 doesn't mean this is a bad game and DS2 isn't bad either. It's just not anywhere near their best work, which I'd recommend 10x over this title.

    Again, not horrible but it's not worth $60 and From Software clearly didn't put much effort into this port. Sigh... maybe I am disappointed, writing this really made me feel that way.

    6/10, skip it. 7 is too high of a score for how much of a fall from grace this is, especially with how bad the port is for PC.    … Expand
  6. Redden44
    Feb 26, 2022
    6
    It's a good game and a decent open world attempt, but it's completely ruined by a horrible, poor, lazy and inexcusable port that made me regret spending 80 euro for it.

    The setting is intriguing, but while some enemies are cool and interesting, many are just unimaginative, extremely repetitive and boring, e.g. undead with lance, undead with sword&shield, undead with axe, etc.    It's a good game and a decent open world attempt, but it's completely ruined by a horrible, poor, lazy and inexcusable port that made me regret spending 80 euro for it.

    The setting is intriguing, but while some enemies are cool and interesting, many are just unimaginative, extremely repetitive and boring, e.g. undead with lance, undead with sword&shield, undead with axe, etc.

    Graphics is previous generation and the performance are abysmal with frame rate drops, stuttering and freezes.

    Sound effects are fine while music ranges from average to good; I bought the deluxe edition to get the 67 soundtracks but honestly I can't remember a single track I'd like to listen to again...disappointing.

    UI is made fro consoles... it's old, lazy and awful to use with mouse&keyboard.
    You can't use your mouse to interact with it.
    It is inconsistent, sometimes you use Enter other E, sometimes Esc others Q...who decided to waste one of the most comfortable button (Q) to use it just for closing a menu!?
    You open a menu with a button but you can't close it with the same button, you have to move you hand and reach another uncomfortable one. Why? Who knows...
    You can't rebind many controls, so you're stuck with a poor layout.

    You can add markers on the map but there are less than 10 icons and you can't add text, a very poor and lazy system.
    When you mouse over a location the tooltip doesn't pop out, you have to move a target icon with WASD over the location.

    When buying items you can't compare stats with what you're using...I have no words for this...it's just pathetic for a 2022 AAA 80 euro game...pathetic.
    While you can accept quests from the very few NPCs you find around, there is no quest log to remind you of anything you're supposed to do.
    In order to quit you have to open a menu, select an option, switch to the right window, select quit, return to the title screen, watch the titles, press any key, scroll the menu, select quit again...tedious.

    Controls are crap, some of them you can change others not and the default layout makes you think that whoever made it has never played a PC game before.
    To use quick items you have to hold E and press the Arrows letting the mouse go...instead of simply pushing comfortable buttons like 1-5 or QERFTGZXCV.
    Sprint and dodge are on the same button instead of Shift and At, this will lead to often dodgeroll instead of sprinting or you having to release the sprint and push it again in order to dodgeroll.
    You have to manually select Mouse&Keyboard prompts inside the Audio Menu (why!?), otherwise the game shows you XBox Controller shortcuts, even though you don't have a controller.
    It records commands while you're character is stuck in an animation and when the animations ends it fires them one after another...
    Can't climb which has become a standard in many Open World games.
    The trailers let you believe you get a flying horse of some sort, but the reality is that there are only a bunch of jumping pads positioned here and there.

    Camera is terrible and when you turn it, it keeps trembling and stuttering cause the script is fighting your command trying to constantly reposition the camera and giving you headache; sometimes it goes completely crazy and keeps turning in circles for no reason.

    AI sometimes is good others poor, for instance enemies can see you trough walls and attack you without checking the line of sight, e.g. archers keep firing at you even though you're are behind a wall.

    Combat doesn't have fixed rules, they keep changing so they can kill you easily.
    Some enemies get staggered when you hit them or block their attacks, others don't, and keep hitting you like nothing happened.
    Sometimes you can avoid a frontal attack by dodging towards the side or the back of an enemy, others the enemy while already in an attack animation, suddenly performs a 360° turn and hits you anyway.
    Projectiles like arrows, bolts, ballista shots, etc are guided missiles that turns midair following and hitting you even if you've moved sideways or dodged them.
    If while attacking your weapon hits a wall you get staggered, but when and enemy does it nothing happens, theirs animation isn't interrupted like yours.
    Spells are completely unbalanced and 95% of them are useless cause they deal much less damage then the basic one, making you think they didn't even test this game properly.
    They said you could play as an archer, but you simply can't cause you have to craft arrows and in order to do that you have to grind materials wasting more arrows, not
    to mention that sometimes you're going to die for hours while fighting a boss, which means you're going to waste thousand of arrows.
    A simple solution would have been letting you craft quivers with infinite arrows and enchant them to cast fire/poison/magic arrows, etc. Too complicated for these devs I guess.

    As I said, it's a horrible, poor, lazy and inexcusable port.    … Expand
  7. ukszupuk
    Mar 2, 2022
    6
    Gone is the natural progression that was characteristic to previous DS titles. I don't fancy giant empty spaces between the bits of content that are left of it. Horseback combat is chaotic and awful. Game looks ok, but engine locked at 16:9 60FPS is a faux pas.
  8. Sepherim
    Mar 31, 2022
    6
    Elden Ring es un juego entretenido, pero no una obra maestra. Resumidamente, es Dark Souls 4 con un mundo más abierto. Si esperabas una historia como la que prometieron, con JRR Martin involucrado, olvídalo, es la misma historia, el mismo worldbuilding y la misma forma de contarlo que en DS3. Si esperabas un mundo abierto lleno de cosas, olvidalo también, es un mundo abierto lleno deElden Ring es un juego entretenido, pero no una obra maestra. Resumidamente, es Dark Souls 4 con un mundo más abierto. Si esperabas una historia como la que prometieron, con JRR Martin involucrado, olvídalo, es la misma historia, el mismo worldbuilding y la misma forma de contarlo que en DS3. Si esperabas un mundo abierto lleno de cosas, olvidalo también, es un mundo abierto lleno de combates pero poco más; ocasionalmente un minipuzzle, o algún NPC con el que hablar, pero igual que en los mapas de DS, y un mundo abierto que especialmente en zonas interiores y a partir de la mitad del juego rápidamente pasa a cerrarse cada vez más. El combate es el mismo de siempre, con la adición de caballo que funciona igual que en Mount and Blade. La progresión es la misma de siempre. Los enemigos se repiten un montón en diferentes zonas, incluidos los bosses. Y ya.

    Gráficamente el juego es muy bonito... al principio. Luego la ejecución sigue siendo excelente pero los modelados se repiten de zonas anteriores e incluso las zonas nuevas se sienten rápidamente "ya vistas antes" porque podrían perfectamente ser zonas de Arnor Londo o cualquier otro lugar de DS. No en vano uno de los comentarios que más veo en la gente es "esto se siente familiar". El sonido tiene un valor decente pero me ha decepcionado especialmente una banda sonora que encuentro muy anodina, carente de temas memorables. La IA es más bien tirando a mala, tanto en amigos como en enemigos. Y el juego tiene un montón de bugs, desde el pobre optimizado que lleva a caídas de FPS, a glitches gráficos con la iluminación, a enemigos que atacan a través de paredes y finalmente salidas a escritorio.

    Por todo ello, no es mal juego si, como a mi, te gustan los Dark Souls, pero no es una obra maestra, y representa un paso atrás después de todas las innovaciones que From había introducido en Sekiro. Y, además de la falta de pulido, hay que señalar que el juego se siente sin terminar, con questlines que quedan en el aire y un cierre creciente fruto de "tener que terminarlo". Un 6.

    PD: Como nota final, una cosa muy personal, que puede que al resto no le ocurra. Como siempre, quería jugar un personaje de armadura pesada, escudo y espada larga, un clásico en mi. La mejor espada larga para un personaje con una build de fuerza la encontré nada más salir del tutorial... y ahora todo el juego con la misma espada. La mejor armadura la conseguí antes de la mitad del juego y antes de eso encontré el escudo. Desde entonces, el mismo equipo, todo el rato, lo cual se vuelve cansino. Le quita toda la gracia a obtener nuevo loot cuando sabes que va a ser peor, llega un punto en que ya ni lo miras. Y es un error de diseño que se produzca así, cortando toda la progresión en equipo de una build que puede ser genérica pero no debería ser olvidada tantísimo como para que la mejor espada se consiga con 1 hora de juego y luego ya no quede más que refinarla. Y no me importa por cuestión de stats, sino por la sensación que da de repetición y pérdida, que hace que solo busque loot para conseguir los talismanes. Una decepción a mayores para el juego, aunque como digo, muy personal.    … Expand
  9. corsyus
    Feb 27, 2022
    6
    I wont go into the obvious PC issues that have already been mentioned numerous times. I'm sure most of these will be patched eventually.

    If you like Dark Souls games, which I do enjoy, then Elden Ring is like Dark Souls on steroids.. It borrows soo much from the Dark Souls series, I'm thinking they should of named it Dark Souls IV. That's where my issue with the game comes in. I do like    I wont go into the obvious PC issues that have already been mentioned numerous times. I'm sure most of these will be patched eventually.

    If you like Dark Souls games, which I do enjoy, then Elden Ring is like Dark Souls on steroids.. It borrows soo much from the Dark Souls series, I'm thinking they should of named it Dark Souls IV. That's where my issue with the game comes in. I do like the Dark Souls series, however with George R.R. Martin writing for this game, I was expecting a story rich adventure, in the world of a new franchise. Elden Ring does not feel like that new franchise offering a new experience which I had high hopes for. It's an ok game, but doesn't offer anything original.

    If you want to play Dark Souls 4 then you'll love Elden Ring. If you are expecting an original experience to immerse yourself in the writings of George R.R. Martin. Then I recommend passing on this game, or wait for a sale.    … Expand
  10. alxcr
    May 15, 2023
    6
    Overall a good experience worth the pricetag, but personally a disapointment for a longtime fromsoftware fan. After the release of Bloodborne and Sekiro, as well as some comments from Miyazaki stating that the studio would expand it's portfolio beyond Dark Souls, people like me were naturally expecting new and innovative gameplay. Instead the game meets you with the same familiar combatOverall a good experience worth the pricetag, but personally a disapointment for a longtime fromsoftware fan. After the release of Bloodborne and Sekiro, as well as some comments from Miyazaki stating that the studio would expand it's portfolio beyond Dark Souls, people like me were naturally expecting new and innovative gameplay. Instead the game meets you with the same familiar combat system from Dark Souls but in an open world with brighter colours. This has no right to be a new IP, it is even less discernible than Bloodborne is to Dark Souls. On top of this, the trendy open world coupled with a myriad of accessibility features (spirit summons, OP magic, OP status effect, OP poise, OP weapons, OP shields and just generally OP and broken min-maxing builds due to poor balancing, a hidden pause button, mixing flask physique, a horse to escape fights, fast travel, as well as the usual ways to help yourself avoid challenge like player summons, helpful items etc etc et al) yeah well that just isn't it. People used to say if you used 'x' or 'y' you didn't really beat the game, now there is a whole alphabet of crutches that you can use simultaneously that anyone who tries to brag like this just comes across as newcomer and a clown. Elden Ring is, for all intents and purposes, baby's first souls game. Clearly an attempt to cater to non-fans of their games, which works to make money but hurts your reputation with those loyal players. And here is where things cascade. The large amount of resources spent in developing this open world, that would have preferably been spent on 2 or 3 smaller, better designed games, result in lazy game design in other areas, e.g. reused assets, many identical bossfights, dungeons on par with ubisoft's outposts, an unnecessary crafting system, poor balancing, bosses designed around glass cannon builds that amount to: *lazer them in 3 seconds or be lazered within 3 seconds* and not methodical back and forth rhythm combat, and level design that starts off well but falls head first down a cliff of frontloaded and barren areas. All of these factors, especially the copy pasting of bosses and minibosses, leave a bad memory of the experience, and due it it being a massive open world game, I just do not want to replay it because I know most of my time will be wasted traversing the vistas. On a more subjective note, I did not like the tone of this game as much as any of the previous installments, I get what they are going for but its too 'vanilla fantasy' for me and the art direction is a little mute and washed out with the erdtree being an eyesore that casts the dreaded 'piss filter' throughout many areas of the map. Multiplayer leaves much to be desired in the way of covenants, seemless co-op and oldschool invasions, open world isnt effectively utilised at all and adding the arenas was a good call but the gamemodes are not well made. They did a good job expanding magic and making it interesting I'll give them that, although it is completely broken and OP. In conclusion, I never expected a huge and impossible game from Fromsoftware. The long wait and enormous hype generated did not even meet the usual quality standards that they are known for with their previous games. Instead our patience was rewarded with this huge hype chasing flavour of the month title that rests on the laurels of it's predecessors. Very unnecessary, never underestimate a company's greed.… Expand
  11. Kiko95
    Feb 5, 2023
    6
    E' come giocare ad una versione open world di Dark Souls 3. Mi piace? Non proprio.

    La mappa è fin troppo piena di zone inutilmente vaste in cui si ripetono sempre gli stessi 2/3 tipi di nemici. Zone che puntualmente supero velocemente col cavallo perché mi fanno passare la voglia già solo a vederle (come il lago intorno all'accademia di Raya Lucaria o la zona enorme della marcescenza).    E' come giocare ad una versione open world di Dark Souls 3. Mi piace? Non proprio.

    La mappa è fin troppo piena di zone inutilmente vaste in cui si ripetono sempre gli stessi 2/3 tipi di nemici. Zone che puntualmente supero velocemente col cavallo perché mi fanno passare la voglia già solo a vederle (come il lago intorno all'accademia di Raya Lucaria o la zona enorme della marcescenza). Ovviamente c'è qualche piccolo punto di interesse più importante ogni tanto ma avrei preferito una mappa più piccola e più pregna di roba interessante.

    Ogni tanto trovo delle catacombe e, ahimé, anche queste non mi piacciono. Sembrano una versione più cheap dei Chalice Dungeon, e quella era la meccanica più noiosa di Bloodborne per me, con zone che erano estremamente simili e con mini boss che venivano riciclati più e più volte, qui è lo stesso, seppur le aree siano più piccole. E c'è anche la stessa identica meccanica del trovare l'ennesima leva che sbloccherà l'ennesima porta che porterà ad un altro boss probabilmente riciclato.

    Il gioco da il meglio di sè, a mio parere, in zone più lineari come il castello di Godrick e l'accademia di Raya Lucaria, con il consueto buon level design di From Software e boss unici memorabili. Ma la maggior parte del gioco è putroppo costituita dall'open world, un open world che poteva essere fatto meglio, ripeto, con una mappa più piccola ma meglio studiata, per incentivare di più l'esplorazione di ogni singolo angolo.

    Il sistema di combattimento è simile a quello di Dark Souls 3, nel bene e nel male, con qualche aggiunta ovviamente. E' bello dover studiare bene ogni mossa e cercare di personalizzare il proprio stile di gioco ma, purtroppo, sono rimaste le orribili hit boxes dei giochi passati e soprattutto l'ingestibile telecamera che qui, più che in qualunque altro souls, mi ha fatto morire più e più volte. Perché? Perché il numero di nemici ENORMI che qui si affrontano è più alto che in passato, ma la telecamera resta troppo ravvicinata e in troppi contesti fa quel che le pare, per non parlare del solito sistema di lock on che a volte prende nemici più lontani di quello che hai di fronte, oppure, invece di agganciare un nemico, ti resetta semplicemente la visuale facendoti perdere l'orientamento. inoltre ho notato la presenza di più nemici, anche non boss, che bishottano rispetto a Dark Souls 3, il quale era certamente più bilanciato in tal senso, anche nelle imboscate.

    Tecnicamente il gioco è traballante, non ben ottimizzato. In più, per quanto i dettagli rispetto al passato siano aumentati, il titolo sa comunque di vecchio, forse perché doveva girare sin dal principio anche su macchine di vecchia generazione.

    In definitiva sarà probabilmente il secondo souls di From Software che non finirò (il primo fu Dark Souls 2). In alternativa, se dovessi finirlo, passerà comunque molto tempo, perché purtroppo non mi sta tenendo incollato al pc come mi aspettavo. Peccato.    … Expand
  12. BloodPainter
    Mar 3, 2022
    6
    Looking at purely from an artistic standpoint, the game is really cool. However this has to be one of the worst pc ports I have ever seen. Optimization is just non existent and it has some very noticeable pop in. Game really needs to get optimized stat.
  13. scyre
    Mar 9, 2022
    6
    Honestly an overhyped RPG only because of it's developers reputation from the dark souls games. It got a good open world and interesting developments for your character but lacks a good story line (which is the core of an RPG) and the movement response is mediocre at best. You could say, it works as designed but for me it sounds like an excuse to make a combat response more accurate. AlsoHonestly an overhyped RPG only because of it's developers reputation from the dark souls games. It got a good open world and interesting developments for your character but lacks a good story line (which is the core of an RPG) and the movement response is mediocre at best. You could say, it works as designed but for me it sounds like an excuse to make a combat response more accurate. Also it's full of bugs & exploits, dunno where those rating coming from.… Expand
  14. ArchangelEST
    Mar 6, 2022
    6
    Not a terrible game, but has a lot of issues.

    The PC port is one of the worst of all time. There is no proper keyboard and mouse support, there are random locked keybindings for menu navigation. All the prompts are using controller buttons. A lot of people report stuttering and crashes. The game looks at least 5 years dated if not 10 years. Poor animations as if I'm playing "Risen"    Not a terrible game, but has a lot of issues.

    The PC port is one of the worst of all time. There is no proper keyboard and mouse support, there are random locked keybindings for menu navigation. All the prompts are using controller buttons. A lot of people report stuttering and crashes.

    The game looks at least 5 years dated if not 10 years. Poor animations as if I'm playing "Risen" or something. And the performance is similarly not in line with its looks. Comparing it to the recent Sony ports for example is like night and day. Games like HZD or God of War really showcases how little effort Elden Ring devs put in towards making the game look good and run well on PC.

    The open world aspect of the game suffers from issues that plague most open world games. There's a lot to explore and a lot of stuff to find but most of it is meaningless filler. 90% of the loot you find does not feel rewarding for the time and effort you invest into finding it.

    The story and narrative is a mess. It's as if someone wrote a book and then put all the pages through a randomizer. There's some kind of a story, but it's basically intentionally vague and confusing so that you wouldn't even bother trying to understand it and would simply go and fight monsters.

    And as for the fighting - enemy AI is dumber than dirt, as if often the case with fantasy games. When it comes to creating non-human enemies, developers default to "they see you and they will chase you" coding. That's all there is. No tactics, no nothing.

    Bosses are fun to fight, but at the end of the day, they all boil down to the exact same thing. You learn their limited move set and then you can beat them to death with a club while being butt naked and not even taking a single point of damage. There are no crazy tactics and cool strategies to beat bosses.

    You can pretty much run through the whole game naked and weaponless if you could memorize every boss mechanic.

    Personally, I find that it takes out a lot of incentive to explore and try to improve your character, because even with good gear, a lot of the bosses still have moves that decimate you. So no matter what, you still kinda have to learn how to beat them. So more gear and xp just makes enemies faster to kill. Which is different from a lot of other games where you kinda have to level and gear up because the enemies are literally not possible to beat otherwise.

    The developers also clearly ran out of ideas a quarter of the way through the game. As whole areas and boss fights end up being copy-pasted and refurbished. The scenery might change a little, the enemies might be differently coloured, but they're same as before.

    This again isn't new to most open world games, but it does add more evidence to why Elden Ring doesn't really do much anything that's "next gen" or creative.

    All in all, I would recommend most people to check out the game, if only to be aware of what's one of the most hyped up games of all time. But get ready to refund the game, because odds are, you will not be particularly impressed by it. If the game even runs on your PC at all.

    I got my copy refunded on Steam without issue, so do make use of their generous refund policy to demo out the game.    … Expand
  15. kyleb2112
    Mar 3, 2022
    6
    This is currently sitting ABOVE God of War on the metacritic score. That would be the God of War with the fantastic graphics, story, combat, exploration, acting, and PC optimization. After playing Elden Ring for a few days now, I'm just here to point that out. Read the siliconera.com reviewer who gave it a 70. Apparently he's the only critic who escaped the FromSoft reality distortionThis is currently sitting ABOVE God of War on the metacritic score. That would be the God of War with the fantastic graphics, story, combat, exploration, acting, and PC optimization. After playing Elden Ring for a few days now, I'm just here to point that out. Read the siliconera.com reviewer who gave it a 70. Apparently he's the only critic who escaped the FromSoft reality distortion field. The graphics, the bad pc port, or the bugs ALONE should be putting any score above 80 out of reach for this game.… Expand
  16. BenFauWriter
    Apr 11, 2022
    6
    Don't expect an open world full of things, this is a soul game, so you'll die a lot and the "open world" will be full of tough monsters/knights to farm in order to level up. Unfortunately, you'll have to rely on guides to find what to do at the beginning. The game is good, but certainly not goty! Graphics are disappointing for ps5/xbox series x, there's a lot of bugs. Gameplay is archaic.Don't expect an open world full of things, this is a soul game, so you'll die a lot and the "open world" will be full of tough monsters/knights to farm in order to level up. Unfortunately, you'll have to rely on guides to find what to do at the beginning. The game is good, but certainly not goty! Graphics are disappointing for ps5/xbox series x, there's a lot of bugs. Gameplay is archaic. Fan of the Souls serie will love it, but again isn't for everyone and is certainly not as good as all the reviews says.… Expand
  17. lizzardsQueen13
    Jul 23, 2022
    6
    An open world game that is based on repeating bosses and also becomes tedious to investigate should never be a GOTY. It is entertaining? Yes. Is it one of the best FS games? No, definitely.
  18. jani7
    Mar 22, 2022
    6
    Absolutely dont understand who can give 10 points to this game. No story, stupid AI, almost nothing new or improved - friendly characters absolutely without any sense or action, you find them in some place and they say their two stupid sentences and stay there like idiots in same position till the end of the game. Enemies looks quite deaf, sneaking behind them in full gear is ridiculous. IAbsolutely dont understand who can give 10 points to this game. No story, stupid AI, almost nothing new or improved - friendly characters absolutely without any sense or action, you find them in some place and they say their two stupid sentences and stay there like idiots in same position till the end of the game. Enemies looks quite deaf, sneaking behind them in full gear is ridiculous. I dont see any new original thing in this game enemies are very nicely done but thats all, everything else was already here several times. Absolutely no reason to call this game of the year or give any higher score.… Expand
  19. Leoscar
    Mar 27, 2022
    6
    Painfully average game that doesn't meet the expectations. It is by no mean bad, but it was designed with quantity in mind instead of quality, and it shows.

    I'll get the technical issues out of the way now : Easy Anti Cheat is a massive joke that leeches performances like nothing while being useless to prevent cheating. Disabling the anti cheat is easy, greatly improves performances but    Painfully average game that doesn't meet the expectations. It is by no mean bad, but it was designed with quantity in mind instead of quality, and it shows.

    I'll get the technical issues out of the way now : Easy Anti Cheat is a massive joke that leeches performances like nothing while being useless to prevent cheating. Disabling the anti cheat is easy, greatly improves performances but prevents online play. Worth it if you ask me. The game simply doesn't run well on otherwise decent PCs.

    The combat is as low as it's been in all souls game. I did not play as a caster so I can't tell if it's better, but melee combat is so repetitive and unsatisfying for a few reasons : Elden Ring has Dark Souls 1's style of poise coupled with bosses that do nothing but spam force you into a reactive, passive playstyle where you only exploit the small opening to use one ash of war/charged attack/jump attack to go back to dodging.

    The world is also incredibly repetitive, once past the first area you'll have seen most of the structures, enemies and bosses. A lot of them are simply copypasted and it gets old fast.    … Expand
  20. hungphan1305
    Mar 9, 2022
    6
    2012 graphics + YOU DIED + blind fanboi = best game ever ???
    This is the most overrated game ever. if Ubisoft or EA release this game it would be 7/10 or 8/10 maximum
  21. StarkAgentos
    Feb 26, 2022
    6
    Поиграл всего 1 час. Игра мне в первое время даже понравилась, пока я не понял, что не могу просто добраться из точки а в точку б и почти никого не могу одолеть...
  22. CausticMisery
    Jan 28, 2023
    6
    The open-world formula does not improve the Souls-genre, and rather bogs it down.
  23. UmberLink
    Mar 22, 2022
    6
    It's fine if you like the current path FromSoft is going down. Otherwise not really

    Horrible PC port, locked to 60 fps, horrible performance issues, horrible graphical settings. Unacceptable for a supposed "10/10". These reviewers are embarassing themselves with these reviews and showing a complete lack of substance and credibility when they write these inane, pandering reviews. The    It's fine if you like the current path FromSoft is going down. Otherwise not really

    Horrible PC port, locked to 60 fps, horrible performance issues, horrible graphical settings. Unacceptable for a supposed "10/10". These reviewers are embarassing themselves with these reviews and showing a complete lack of substance and credibility when they write these inane, pandering reviews.

    The combat is what it is, the now well established degeneration of the souls de facto series. Roll and poke. The most major addition is the lazy abundance of delayed attacks, the only thing FS could think of to spice things up for veterans. No mechanical diversity, virtual all bosses are a variation on the same theme, with just a slight different attack skin on top.

    A far cry from an amazing game, let alone the perfect masterpiece people are deluding themselves into thinking it is.

    A solid 6    … Expand
  24. OUTbrain
    Mar 1, 2022
    6
    So much vasted potencial. This game is just for a few gamers with unlimited time and inclination to masochism.
    No pause, you cant crouch when opening chest and maaaany other bugs from 90ties.
  25. ArcZ7
    Sep 1, 2023
    6
    Want to start off saying that I have 24 hrs into the game. I tried multiple times to get into it but every time I quit as I am simply lost in the game. The core of the souls game simply does not translate well into an open world game. With previous games as in all dark souls and demon soul, we were given a relatively linear experience. With a game being linear you can easily make a storyWant to start off saying that I have 24 hrs into the game. I tried multiple times to get into it but every time I quit as I am simply lost in the game. The core of the souls game simply does not translate well into an open world game. With previous games as in all dark souls and demon soul, we were given a relatively linear experience. With a game being linear you can easily make a story that is more cryptic and you do not need to hold your players hand. Sadly from software has not changed anything in regards of their quest and story telling making me feel completely lost with no goals to try to reach.

    Characters telling you only parts of what you need to know works fine for a linear game, but when you have an open world and some character tells you to go north to find x thig then really that is as vague as it can get for open world. I am not asking for pointers or marker in the game but rather an option for characters to be more descriptive and precise on what they are talking about as wandering through the same areas over and over again gets boring pretty quickly when you cant figure out what to do next.

    The world has few unique locations, but a lot of times you will travel through empty fields, come across the same copy paste dungeon with slightly different bosses at the end and same enemy camps that will make you feel deja vu. My orientation in the game was completely broken as there has been very few landmarks through out the world to be able to navigate it properly.

    Overall I wish from software returned to their old game design and scrap the open world as they are definitely not able to put the souls mechanics with it.    … Expand
  26. Blacksad
    Feb 26, 2022
    6
    The design of the game is impeccable. However, the release is pretty shoddy. The game is nowhere near graphically intensive enough to run this poorly on high end hardware, and the stuttering is insufferable. I have a 3080, 58800x, and 32gb RAM, yet this clunker often struggles to hit 60 fps. Cyberpunk 2077 ran smoother, had much higher end graphics, and also had an open world. That, pairedThe design of the game is impeccable. However, the release is pretty shoddy. The game is nowhere near graphically intensive enough to run this poorly on high end hardware, and the stuttering is insufferable. I have a 3080, 58800x, and 32gb RAM, yet this clunker often struggles to hit 60 fps. Cyberpunk 2077 ran smoother, had much higher end graphics, and also had an open world. That, paired with the 60fps cap and the ham fisted lack of Ultrawide support kind of ruins this. It's even more annoying because the game is rendering everything behind the black bars on Ultrawide as has been illustrated by many people, yet you have no option to remove them and they're entirely cosmetic. Just poor decision making and planning.… Expand
  27. Santiersnoob
    Feb 27, 2022
    6
    Combat is excellent and bosses are fun to learn. There are a bit more default attack moves which allow for more ways to approach every fight, not to mention the open world giving you more angles. Cooperative is very fun given there's an immediate boss/objective before us.
    Unfortunately the pacing isn't as good as the more linear Souls games due to some bad open world designs and how    Combat is excellent and bosses are fun to learn. There are a bit more default attack moves which allow for more ways to approach every fight, not to mention the open world giving you more angles. Cooperative is very fun given there's an immediate boss/objective before us.
    Unfortunately the pacing isn't as good as the more linear Souls games due to some bad open world designs and how gathering materials has bloated the map. Crafting and gathering is just not good. I'd rather more materials be dropped from enemies instead of being gathered on the ground.
    Sadly the open world adds considerably less content than the space it takes up and the introduction area doesn't do it any favors. The rewards for exploring aren't comparable to the effort it took to find and get there unless it's to progress the main story. If there's no point of returning to an area why allocate such huge space for it? This is without mentioning you cannot use mounts in co-op. The pace becomes incredibly slow at many times.
    Luckily many of the enemies are engaging and rewarding to defeat. It makes you wonder why there is so much space between you and the actual fun.    … Expand
  28. He1n
    Mar 4, 2022
    6
    Stutters with stupid stunt lock combos that they put in for every single enemy this is not a game that really thinks of what kind of enemies should have what kind of attack it seems like fromsoft just put in a bunch of those combos to make sure the game is harder
  29. Kaetoo
    Mar 7, 2022
    6
    Let's start for de beginning, the game is a dark souls 4, the history resembles dark souls 1, a ring shatter is like the flame. The tarnished is like the guy with the fourth flame.
    The grafics is amezing even in the low settings and bla bla bla.
    Gameplay sucks, it's literally just difficult fight, nothing else, none sidequest remarcable. The map is big which can look really cool at the    Let's start for de beginning, the game is a dark souls 4, the history resembles dark souls 1, a ring shatter is like the flame. The tarnished is like the guy with the fourth flame.
    The grafics is amezing even in the low settings and bla bla bla.
    Gameplay sucks, it's literally just difficult fight, nothing else, none sidequest remarcable.
    The map is big which can look really cool at the start. But even the boss look the same. There is litteraly 6 or 7 enemy who is a knight. the gradon the same the only difference is the element of them. and the map has not much to offer.    … Expand
  30. BobJosh
    Mar 8, 2022
    6
    I have to say that this is a really good game overall, but it's a very bad soulslike game, and as a longtime fromsoft fan, I expected a soulslike rather than a traditional open world RPG, which is the reason for my low score.

    THE BAD: Fromsoft made the game more accessible, but that killed what made their previous games memorable. The adrenaline rush you felt after killing harder    I have to say that this is a really good game overall, but it's a very bad soulslike game, and as a longtime fromsoft fan, I expected a soulslike rather than a traditional open world RPG, which is the reason for my low score.

    THE BAD:
    Fromsoft made the game more accessible, but that killed what made their previous games memorable. The adrenaline rush you felt after killing harder bosses/mini bosses and overcoming challenges was amazing. But in Elden ring I felt no such accomplishment at all, I didn't feel challenged at all. No boss or miniboss took me more than 5 tries, and i did not use summon nor sorcerer builds. Of course the game could've been challenging, if I level up less, upgrade my weapons less, don't use ashes of war but... if I have to actively avoid using the games mechanics to make the game challenging then that is just simply bad design. Previous fromsoft games had a natural progression to them, unless you went out of your way to farm you did not overlevel. Also there were quite a few bosses in ds3 that had high magic res and gave mages a tough time to balance things out, ER does not have such things.

    There are some other minor issues as well, lot's of overused minibosses, repetitive catacombs, mounted combat is boring. Bosses are not fun, all the delayed attacks ruin the flow of the fights that ds3/sekiro/bloodborne had. Lot's of downtine between action, not so action packed as previous titles.

    THE GOOD:
    Visually amazing world, combat is improved, ashes of wars and spells are fun to use, boss mechanics and visuals are also really cool.

    Overall: IMO they should've sticked to the non open world format, the open world hurt the game more than it added, but it could be fixed with some balancing/tuning. Multiply the healthbar of every enemy by 1.5-2x, I think that's easier to do than nerfing everything.    … Expand
  31. Shopper02
    Mar 9, 2022
    6
    I REALLY wish I could give this game a positive review, that being said, the User Experience is awful on PC. When you've died on horse combat for the millionth time because your game started chugging down to 5 FPS, that creates a big issue for me. If you're going to play this, play it on console. I can't enjoy this game until the FPS issue is fixed. This game relies on stability far too much.
  32. StarrySky3
    Mar 10, 2022
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Out of the 70 or so bosses i have fought, only a handful of them were memorable for being enjoyable. I really struggle to think of too many others. There are a number of threads that explain the grievances of this games boss design as well as general design far better than I can. The amount of reskinned, duo, infinitely aggressive bosses that I’ve trudged through never gave me the same satisfaction as a title such as DS1 or bloodborne. The godskin duo boss is a shining example of a problem. Also Fire Giant? Apart from the fight (I use melee) being “I hope I can track him down In time to land a hit” is not exactly exhilarating for such a late game boss. It just feels like delayed attack, AoE attacks, repeated. Also, the amount of dragon fights, Jesus Christ. My biggest complaint is repetition. The dungeons, ruins, a good amount of bosses, and some story points all feel like I’ve they’ve been beating me over the head with them. I have a number of complaints and praises about this game and as someone who’s near 100%’ed all of FROMs previous titles I don’t believe it’s a skill issue. I just feel a little disappointed.… Expand
  33. LPLO
    Mar 11, 2022
    6
    It's 2022. It's stupid to keep a control scheme that physically makes dodge come out slower by few frames. It's stupid to set the horse reborn prompt at no. It's stupid to punish the player for beating a stronger boss early by giving smithing stones that aren't even usable until you go back into earlier areas to find other mines. It's stupid to throw the great combat mechanic out theIt's 2022. It's stupid to keep a control scheme that physically makes dodge come out slower by few frames. It's stupid to set the horse reborn prompt at no. It's stupid to punish the player for beating a stronger boss early by giving smithing stones that aren't even usable until you go back into earlier areas to find other mines. It's stupid to throw the great combat mechanic out the window to just slap a bunch of lazy duo, trio bosses.

    With all that said, yeah it's a fun souls game. Just saying it's a completely lazily created open world mess.    … Expand
  34. 0Everlast0
    Mar 14, 2022
    6
    It's an ok game. But it barely works.
    It keeps on stuttering and freezing, sometimes it doesn't even start remaining on a white screen forever. This situation makes some enemies impossible to beat, just because the game crumbles on itself when you are near them.
    The fighting system is annoying and unfair for the player, to make an example: if you manage to knock an enemy to the ground it    It's an ok game. But it barely works.
    It keeps on stuttering and freezing, sometimes it doesn't even start remaining on a white screen forever. This situation makes some enemies impossible to beat, just because the game crumbles on itself when you are near them.
    The fighting system is annoying and unfair for the player, to make an example: if you manage to knock an enemy to the ground it becomes invincible and you can't attack them. You would guess that the same goes for you, but no. If you get knocked down you receive a combo that kills you.
    The major bosses almost instakill you after one hit. The magic system is overpowered, and doing a parry is almost pointless because the combo that you can do after the parry, does the same damage that you would do with a charged attack. To make everything worse it's extremely hard to do because you can't understand when the enemies hit you. ( this is especially true for the major bosses ). Also, there are a lot of attacks that aren't parry-able, and there is no prompt or indication that they can't be parried. The mechanic of blocking the attacks is really interesting because you can follow it with a combo. But it is doable only on small enemies because after a boss combo you don't have enough stamina left to attack, and instead receive an attack in your face.
    The game feels generally old and every animation, every weapon, every combo has a feel of "already seen".
    If you go to an advanced area and beat an enemy that would have killed you in two hits, you receive the same exp that you would get beating the same enemy in his weaker version, in the starting zone. It is completely mental because advancing in the game, you need progressively more exp to level up, but the enemies give you always the same amount, even the harder ones.
    The game gives you the illusion to have the possibility to fuse a lot of styles, magics, weapons, armors, and abilities. But in reality, the only sensible ones reduce to a number countable with your fingers. This is especially true for armors, which are incredibly useless to one another, with really small chances between them and just a couple of them being really useful. I didn't understand the weight mechanic... between "medium-weight" and "light-weight" changes literally nothing. Moving speed is the same, attack speed is the same, you roll in the same way...
    The soundtrack is ok, nothing special. I've played dozens of hours and I can't recall even one track... so yeah, they work, but nothing memorable.
    The "new" mechanics are also annoying. The jump is utterly pointless because in the open world you can jump essentially nowhere, resolving in the end always using your mount jump. In a "closed" environment instead, it just becomes a way to give you anxiety and frustration. It opens new possibilities to explore the environment and have smart shortcuts, but the majority of them are on a freefall down, which in this game means INSTANT death. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that you respawn at the last checkpoint, and even if you manage to survive all the enemies on the road to get where you died, you could just slip down one of the platforms and LOSE ALL THE EXP you have collected to that moment. ( which could be a lot since going further in the game, you start to require something like 25.000 runes to level up ONE level; and the enemies give you around 150 runes average ).
    This could be acceptable if the jump mechanic was implemented decently in the game. But that isn't the case, the jump is hard to calibrate and sometimes unpredictable.

    I would recommend this game if you like exploration and BIG boss battles. Those are two points in which this game excels, It doesn't even seem the same game. Weird is... the game usually stutters less on the big bosses compared to the small ones. Also, being the Big B.s big you can challenge them also on your mount. Which is super satisfying. The exploration is always interesting and pretty much diverse even tho the story is comparable to a headache and is really confused.

    Overall it isn't a bad game. but not a good one either.
    It has its very good things, but sadly it also has HUGE negative and annoying things.

    P.S. during frame drops, enemies are literally invisible.    … Expand
  35. jinisgamer
    Mar 24, 2022
    6
    After 140 hours of gameplay, this is clearly rushed and unfinished game. Dont even get me start with reuse enemy and boss.
  36. v_for_vlammenos
    Mar 27, 2022
    6
    Ok, this is a review that i never wanted to write but here we go.

    Fist the good: the world looks amazing, locations and enemies are diverse and boy oh boy, this game is HUGE! The secrets are everywhere, weapons are cool and there is tons of quality of life improvements. World building is up there with the best they ever produced. There are a lot of moments that i caught myself looking    Ok, this is a review that i never wanted to write but here we go.

    Fist the good: the world looks amazing, locations and enemies are diverse and boy oh boy, this game is HUGE! The secrets are everywhere, weapons are cool and there is tons of quality of life improvements.
    World building is up there with the best they ever produced. There are a lot of moments that i caught myself looking at my screen with my eyes wide open, gaping mouth and a genuine feeling of awe.
    This game really nails down the exploration experience!

    Now the negative which are without doubt not a lot, but are - for me at least- borderline game breaking: Game runs like absolute crap on my 3070, 32Gb Ram, 10700K rig. I run every other title on the market on max settings, no problem, but I'm getting constant stutters on this one. The one thing that a From game cannot have is **** performance, as everything can kill you in the blink of an eye.
    It's been a month already that the game is out and it's as if the problem is not even addressed anymore in the updates so at this point i'm starting to doubt that they'll ever fix it. I also have a base PS4 and I find the thought that i should have bought the game there as it'd have much more stable performance to be at least infuriating.
    And that brings us to the second issue: Balancing is shockingly bad. Almost every weapon is OP.
    Almost every enemy can 1 shot you, there are dogs that can literally 1 shoot you in this game, I wouldn't be so salty if we are talking about bosses but plain old mobs doing so much damage while you have the best armor and a ton of vigor, that's just bad balancing.

    This game needed a bit more time in the oven i think and it's a shame because a lot of people were counting the days for it to be released and i was one of them. It can be a 10/10 but right now, its definitely not there.

    From Software, all i will say is, i really thought you were better than this.    … Expand
  37. AyoubOughchim
    May 2, 2022
    6
    Let me start by saying that I platinumed all previous SoulsBorne games, and I really wanted to like this game. The first areas are great, you can explore, there are dungeons, bosses and secrets, but it gets stale really quick unfortunately. The first area is by far the most interesting part of the open world, after that it takes a huge dip in quality (late game areas almost made meLet me start by saying that I platinumed all previous SoulsBorne games, and I really wanted to like this game. The first areas are great, you can explore, there are dungeons, bosses and secrets, but it gets stale really quick unfortunately. The first area is by far the most interesting part of the open world, after that it takes a huge dip in quality (late game areas almost made me uninstall the game, and not because of difficulty but for lack of interest) I know bare and depressing atmosphere is their thing, but it doesn't work in an open world setting, the combat is great and varied with the addition of weapons arts, but it seriously lacks balance; it's extremely easy to make an OP build that renders most bosses a joke. the lore is legit dark souls copy pasted. yeah I know that may not be a bad thing for some, but when they said they are done with dark souls and wanted to create something new, I thought they meant it.. And finally, and what really triggered me was the side quests, the system in the previous games was always stupid, as you couple easily fail a questline simply by doing something before talking to some NPC you didn't even notice, although that was more or less tolerable as the game was somewhat linear, but stick with the same quest system in a huge open world where you are MEANT to explore new areas in no particular order is beyond silly. Overall, I think this was a failure and it's better they avoid open world games in the future if they can't actually fill their world with something interesting, not going to even address the optimization...… Expand
  38. Midian00
    Jun 10, 2022
    6
    3 months after the launch and the game hasn't been properly patched. Not even close. That's just sad & disappointing.
    I'm will try to make it short and understandable:
    1. The game is build on the same engine as DS3 which was released in 2016. Game should not run with glitches, frame drops and crashes. But it does. 2. Fromsoft always had problems with camera but this time they managed    3 months after the launch and the game hasn't been properly patched. Not even close. That's just sad & disappointing.
    I'm will try to make it short and understandable:

    1. The game is build on the same engine as DS3 which was released in 2016. Game should not run with glitches, frame drops and crashes. But it does.
    2. Fromsoft always had problems with camera but this time they managed to make it worse. (mind-blowing talent). In ER when you lock-on to enemy and turn camera your lock-on will switch to whatever it wants EVEN THOUGH AUTO-LOCK-ON IS OFF. Sometimes this garbage can lock-on to enemies behind the walls. Sometimes it straight out will refuse to lock-on to a target that is in front of your face.
    3. Fromsoft made huge world but had no idea how to fill it. So they just started copy-pasting enemies and bosses. Especially bosses. Some of them you can kill more than 5 times. If you think that bosses change somehow - no. Their HP and DMG just get an increase.
    4. Exploration becomes really tedious and boring. Because you either get no rewards for it or reward is absolute garbage. Repetitive dungeons with repetitive bosses.
    5. Starting areas almost have no armor and no weapons. Only after 40-50 hours I started getting weaponry for my stats. Huge specific area was riddled with it. By that time I settled for specific weapon and had no desire to try new ones, nor I had upgrade materials to invest in new toys.
    6. End game is an epitome of UNBALANCE. Your stats mean ****
    Copy-pasted enemies from start-game locations which can kill you in three hits with bloated health. Absolutely bs bosses with endless combo attacks which can kill you in 2-3 hits with several phases.

    Fromsoft definitely **** the bed with this one. I still have hopes that all these issues will be resolved in coming year. If not - it's gonna be the worst soulsborne game to date. DS2 will be removed from its throne.
    This review comes from a person who spent more than 1k hours between ds1, ds3 and BB. Cheers.    … Expand
  39. Ibiracip
    Nov 27, 2022
    6
    Bons jeux mais sans plus le jeux on trouve un donjon on entre on tue tout le monde on récupère ça récompense et on continue
  40. AlanW41
    Dec 23, 2022
    6
    Game is amazing how ever 21:9 Monitor are not supported just lol , bad port to PC
  41. Nabers
    May 5, 2023
    6
    There is an incredible level of detail and depth in Elden Ring's world-building, gameplay mechanics, and overall design.

    The gameplay itself is challenging and rewarding with a mix of melee combat, magic, and exploration. The world is filled with a rich variety of environments, from sprawling fields to dark and foreboding dungeons. Overall, though... it's good, but nothing I would    There is an incredible level of detail and depth in Elden Ring's world-building, gameplay mechanics, and overall design.

    The gameplay itself is challenging and rewarding with a mix of melee combat, magic, and exploration.

    The world is filled with a rich variety of environments, from sprawling fields to dark and foreboding dungeons.

    Overall, though... it's good, but nothing I would play over a longer period of time.    … Expand
  42. Blaze8
    Jun 20, 2023
    6
    Il y a un niveau élevé de détail et de profondeur dans la construction du monde, les mécaniques de jeu et la conception générale. Le monde est rempli d'une grande variété d'environnements, des vastes champs aux donjons sombres et inquiétants. Globalement, cependant... c'est juste un bon jeu, mais pas excellent.
  43. leaveit
    Mar 3, 2022
    5
    The greatest innovations of this iteration of Demon's Souls are mechanics from the decade prior to Demon's Souls. Jumping, horses, open worlds. Wow, why didn't we think of that before? Like pretty much every FROM game since around the DaS 2/BB era you can quickly use this game as a proverbial dipstick or smell test to see how susceptible someone is to media hype in video games. It's not aThe greatest innovations of this iteration of Demon's Souls are mechanics from the decade prior to Demon's Souls. Jumping, horses, open worlds. Wow, why didn't we think of that before? Like pretty much every FROM game since around the DaS 2/BB era you can quickly use this game as a proverbial dipstick or smell test to see how susceptible someone is to media hype in video games. It's not a new franchise, it's not a bold new direction, it's just red guys hitting you from 10 feet away and luring you into enemies again. This is like calling Quake 2 fresh because you have an inventory like in Hexen. There's no reason anyone should care. EDIT: Ok, bad analogy, it's actually like if Quake came out every 2 years between 1996 and 2009, and each time it had that room in Gloom Keep where you grab the gold key and the shambler pops out, only this time in 2009 everyone's saying that the shambler's "art design" is incredible and it's probably the best game they've ever played.… Expand
  44. cucconet74
    Apr 23, 2022
    5
    Non vale quello che costa. l'ho abbandonato dopo 10 ore di gioco a causa di meccaniche di gioco non all'altezza e di una grafica inadeguata per un gioco del 2022
  45. donanja
    Feb 27, 2022
    5
    - Formulaic storytelling that feels extremely derivative. It was acceptable to a point with the previous titles, but with Elden Ring, it feels like it's gone past that and now it just feels cheap and lazy.
    - This game is a galore of reused assets, animations, and everything in between. There seems to be very little to this game that's wholly unique; almost everything you see has been    - Formulaic storytelling that feels extremely derivative. It was acceptable to a point with the previous titles, but with Elden Ring, it feels like it's gone past that and now it just feels cheap and lazy.
    - This game is a galore of reused assets, animations, and everything in between. There seems to be very little to this game that's wholly unique; almost everything you see has been ripped shamelessly from Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne and changed slightly (if even that).
    - No benefit to the addition of an open world. It serves no purpose to enrich the gameplay and in fact hurts the game as FromSoftware has had great level design in past games which can't be accomplished as well with an open world game. Furthermore, the world feels extremely empty and dead as there are ridiculously vast amounts of lands filled with nothing.
    - Crafting adds unnecessary bloat to a game that doesn't really need it and mounted combat trivializes the vast majority of fights, which is probably because the overworked developers didn't have time to design any of the fights against it.

    In conclusion, Elden Ring proves that FromSoftware is no longer the innovative game developer from a few years ago that was afraid to take risks and give us something fresh and new. Elden Ring is an exact, formulaic repeat of every Souls game that came after Dark Souls 2 that feels mediocre at best. This isn't Elden Ring, this is Souls 2K22.    … Expand
  46. bmfalex
    Mar 8, 2022
    5
    Bad PC port, bad quest designs and a lot of copy paste dungeons. Overall the game is good, good open world and fun to play.
  47. Devez
    Mar 7, 2022
    5
    How Fromsoft can't do a proper pc port after 3 souls game and sekiro is one of the great mysteries of this world. Even though I can see that the game is good from my playtime so far, how can I give this more than a 5 when I'm getting killed because I can't see wtf is happening during some battles? And no it's not a "git good" problem, I've finished all dark souls games and sekiro, it's anHow Fromsoft can't do a proper pc port after 3 souls game and sekiro is one of the great mysteries of this world. Even though I can see that the game is good from my playtime so far, how can I give this more than a 5 when I'm getting killed because I can't see wtf is happening during some battles? And no it's not a "git good" problem, I've finished all dark souls games and sekiro, it's an optimization problem and Fromsoft clearly not giving a **** about pc gamers. The only 2 games where my pc started farting furiously as soon as they loaded are cyberpunk 2077 and elden ring and if you've heard anything about cyberpunk that alone says a lot. Even with all options turned down to the lowest possible I get 20-40 fps on 1080p in open world and these drop even more on boss fights. Not to mention the occasional stuttering which sometimes turns into death warrant. It's shameful asking full price for a game at this state and even releasing it at this state in the first place. Have we all just accepted that we'll be beta testing games from now on?… Expand
  48. TomasLacerda
    Mar 5, 2022
    5
    - This game is grossly overrated
    - It's Dark Souls 3 reskined and changed copy Souls to Runes
    - It feels a easier than the previous series
    - The world feels empty and shallow

    + It's a Dark Souls game, it's fun.
  49. Surma
    Apr 30, 2022
    5
    I love the souls genre but this game does very little to innovate on it. Most of the enemy moves are recycled old material (but it's not really the issue), same comes with most spell animations.

    Cool new thing you can use the spirit bottle thing to offer momentary distraction, but most of the time that's all they can do. The biggest issue I have with this game that it's crashed in    I love the souls genre but this game does very little to innovate on it. Most of the enemy moves are recycled old material (but it's not really the issue), same comes with most spell animations.

    Cool new thing you can use the spirit bottle thing to offer momentary distraction, but most of the time that's all they can do.

    The biggest issue I have with this game that it's crashed in just yesterday more times than Cyberpunk did for me during 200 hours of playing it (on PC).

    I don't get how people like TheActMan can blindly praise game like this and then act like Cyberpunk was so unstable it took only 5 minutes before game crashed. And it wouldn't be that bad if the app just crashed, but it jams my entire computer and I lose everything I had running on background.

    But hey, apparently everyone decided that ELDEN RING is awesome and there's nothing terrible in it, after all it's a game where they didn't deliver more than they promised.

    Without crashing it would be a solid 7.5 buy in sale. The problem is also with community who blindly accepts everything as long they own previous title. I went to mention about the problems in open world game like this. Everything is isolated from one another outside of 2-3 pieces of collectibles to open an elevator or a door.

    But don't get me wrong, this game would be awesome 10/10 game to anyone who really-really digs into the game and it's environments and has done all throughout study of all the quests and item locations, because god damn, you're not just accidentally going to find that Lightning Spear spell in this gigantic open world, which I might add is quite crucial to Faith build.

    I also didn't enjoy travelling to the one Nexus location to do pretty much everything, especially when that nexus location had to always be located in the bottom of the map. There are some great ideas but some are just poorly thought out. And then there's the 10 different crafting items just to upgrade a single item to +10 as opposed to 2-3 items in past titles. And most of the crafting just feels like wasted potential.

    I'm pretty sure ELDEN RING 2 is going to solve a lot of these issues, but like I said, without bugs 7.5, with crashes... well this score.    … Expand
  50. ganisberke
    Mar 23, 2022
    5
    Elden Ring is a totally average game. Don't believe the trolls and the toxic community talk. Many people consider From Software to be the originator of the Souls genre. It actually has its origins in Nihon Falcom. Therefore, according to them, Miyazaki is a messiah. However, Miyazaki and the Souls team is still making the same mistakes.

    Objective problems: -Hitboxes are not good.    Elden Ring is a totally average game. Don't believe the trolls and the toxic community talk. Many people consider From Software to be the originator of the Souls genre. It actually has its origins in Nihon Falcom. Therefore, according to them, Miyazaki is a messiah. However, Miyazaki and the Souls team is still making the same mistakes.

    Objective problems:

    -Hitboxes are not good. There are times when it reminds me of the DS2.
    -Boss designs are very unbalanced. They didn't really work well with many bosses.
    -The game gets too repetitive. Open world exploration is nice, but it gets boring quickly.
    -There seems to be a lot of items, but in the end, a few items are the most useful. The game forces you for make to broken builds. Because some boss designs require it. All builds look alike. For example, more than half of even PvP uses blood builds.
    -Optimization is still not fixed and every update is getting worse.
    -Spells are powerful. Playing spell builds are more advantageous in many ways.
    -Camera angles are not good. It really causes trouble. When the number of enemies is high, you cannot control field of view.
    -Lore quality is definitely a controversial topic. However, it has the same lore in other Souls games. Only their names have changed. George R. R. Martin is just PR work.
    -Enemies are just based on nonstop spawn attacks with endless stamina as like most of bosses.
    -Many of the bosses repeat themselves. Most bosses are either the same or reskin version.
    -The hit feeling is not good. Especially the bosses don't even react properly to your attacks.
    -It has a toxic and cancerous player base.
    -Artificial intelligence problems. A real disaster.
    -It is a headache for some attacks in the game to pass through objects.

    Conclusion:

    This game is not a masterpiece. Not on a new ip. It's just Dark Souls 4 with open world.    … Expand
  51. JimmieReview
    Mar 1, 2022
    5
    First time I play a "souls like" game.

    I like: Graphics are great, the monsters, the world - it all looks amazing. Lore - the story and atmosphere is appealing. I don't like: Its very difficult and you cant change the difficulty setting anywhere (I know some people will defend that, but to me this is either willfully to discourage casual players from playing the game or just lazy    First time I play a "souls like" game.

    I like:
    Graphics are great, the monsters, the world - it all looks amazing.
    Lore - the story and atmosphere is appealing.

    I don't like:
    Its very difficult and you cant change the difficulty setting anywhere (I know some people will defend that, but to me this is either willfully to discourage casual players from playing the game or just lazy cause it takes more time and energy to change how hard the game should be).

    The combat is clunky (probably subjective), I defiently did'nt like that there is no type of lock-on system. So you feel like you are aiming right at your target but then instead you end up taking a swing right next to the enemy. The whole combat system feels clunky, other similiar games have done it way better.

    Its got some serious performance issues on PC. As it stands now, its not really playable. This might be something they fix later on.

    The game does'nt have a pause button - even though its a singleplayer experience. The stupidity here just blows my mind.

    The game seems quite repetetive and like it has'nt really evolved much from its predecessor.

    All in all, I feel like I gave this game a fair shake but ultimately its just to hard and frustrating to be fun. It dose'nt help that the combat system is poor as well. If these things were fixed as well as the performance issues, it might be a more enjoyable experience.
    Unless you feed off of frustration and are willing to put up with a janky combat system, I would recommend you stay away.    … Expand
  52. PhatMonkey
    Mar 25, 2022
    5
    I have absolutely no idea how this game got such high review scores, I understand we now live in a world of craziness but this is next level alternate reality, WTF PEOPLE?

    The graphics are ok, there is UW support but the developer has made a conscious decision to block it by adding black bars which sometimes load in shortly after the game starts The voice acting is hilarious and to    I have absolutely no idea how this game got such high review scores, I understand we now live in a world of craziness but this is next level alternate reality, WTF PEOPLE?

    The graphics are ok, there is UW support but the developer has made a conscious decision to block it by adding black bars which sometimes load in shortly after the game starts

    The voice acting is hilarious and to be honest it gives the game some unintended personality because it has none any where else. As a character speaks it is as if at the same time he / she is chomping away at a bowl of cornflakes like an old N64 game

    Everything including your own character moves like a robot with the jump option being an afterthought as it has no animation before jumping and on landing, it is funny though so I will give it that

    The menu screen is like something from a Sinclair Spectrum 48k before most of u were born and looks dam right ugly

    The performance is terrible, the frame rate is locked, characters outside of your view stutter around the environment which is more noticeable if you use the mod that remove the black bars

    The missions if u can call them that is boring the game is boring, it looks boring, it seems the developers were bored making it. I could go on and on but what is the point when so many people have given it such high scores, it makes no sense in this reality, it does not.

    No wonder other companies that I wont mention have posted shocking responses to this games success and I am pretty sure like me they are searching for the portal so we can get back to our own parallel universe where peoples expectations are slightly higher where unpolished games like this farce gets a 5/10

    UNINSTALLED

    RANT OVER....
    PEACE LOL    … Expand
  53. NAYKEN
    Dec 21, 2022
    5
    It's a very delayed review because my monitor broke, but I see that fanboys and those who write reviews with money have raised this fiasco game to the level of unrivaled. Anyway, let's move on to our real unbiased review. Let's start with the mechanics as always, there is no innovation in mechanics, standard soul games, jumping is added and has almost no effect on the game. Open world wasIt's a very delayed review because my monitor broke, but I see that fanboys and those who write reviews with money have raised this fiasco game to the level of unrivaled. Anyway, let's move on to our real unbiased review. Let's start with the mechanics as always, there is no innovation in mechanics, standard soul games, jumping is added and has almost no effect on the game. Open world was added to the game, but mechanically is there such a thing, the answer is no. The game is very big, there are incredibly many castles and dungeons you can visit, but they are all flat and empty inside. Let's start with the castles, when you start the game, you look around and see the incredible map and you start exploring, traveling and wandering around in castles that last a maximum of half an hour, yes, you did not hear wrong, the time you spend in castles is half an hour, including Lyndell! All of those incredibly designed castles are just images, empty castles with no design inside, filled with creatures and left. When I look at the old souls games, designs like DS 1 Anor Londo, DS 2 Drangleic castle are bigger and more detailed than all the castles in the Elden ring game combined. Ds 2 had this success despite being a half-open world, Elden ring is a huge empty world full of creatures. The only good thing about it is that it looks great artistically. I have explained the chapter and map designs together with the mechanics. Now let's look at the small innovations and whether they have an effect on the game. Let's start with the mount, we have a horse-like mount in the game, this mount allows us to travel around the whole world, we can do combat and boss fights in some places and it has no mechanical effect on the game. The things we do with the mount are very limited, don't expect something like Zelda or Shadow of the colossus. When I say Shadow of the colossus, they said that they were inspired by Shadow of the colossus before the game came out, there is nothing about it in the game. Since jumping was added, the platform was expected, which it should have been, but they didn't put it, the jumping mechanics look ridiculous even next to the games 30 years ago. Let's talk about dungeons, there are dungeon designs that are so terrible that they compete with Skyrim. You enter hundreds of dungeons throughout the game and except for a few, they are all similar designs. We have come to the end of our review and unfortunately Elden ring is not a good game at all. The same mechanics, open world game mechanics and design are not reflected in the game, nothing good except for the improved spells. Elden ring is the biggest fiasco of this year. 57/100 if we come to the score… Expand
  54. FreddyRama
    Mar 20, 2022
    5
    Played for 85 hours - never gets easier and story is so convoluted - not very enjoable. But a beautiful open-world if you like action / console-like games.
  55. wakara
    Apr 29, 2022
    5
    Once again I fell for the corrupt reviews of journalists who put this game 10/10. Scripted quests and dialogues break, NPCs disappear, there is no balance. You can play normally only as a magician, a pure warrior sucks. Pumping so insignificantly strengthens the character that it could not be added. Worst open world I've ever seen: 1) 90% of game time is horseback riding, 2) repetitiveOnce again I fell for the corrupt reviews of journalists who put this game 10/10. Scripted quests and dialogues break, NPCs disappear, there is no balance. You can play normally only as a magician, a pure warrior sucks. Pumping so insignificantly strengthens the character that it could not be added. Worst open world I've ever seen: 1) 90% of game time is horseback riding, 2) repetitive assets of enemies, buildings, etc., 3) just not fun to explore.… Expand
  56. Tsargorn
    May 7, 2022
    5
    Despite my love for such games, I, surprisingly, disappointed.
    Basically all the problems come from open world....
    Prehistoric dungeon design, inconsistent enemies type and group, open fields of pure nothing and lack of motivation lead to the fact that after some time you just started skipping most of the battles, and simply run out of interest. In the end: lack of sense of    Despite my love for such games, I, surprisingly, disappointed.
    Basically all the problems come from open world....
    Prehistoric dungeon design, inconsistent enemies type and group,
    open fields of pure nothing and lack of motivation lead to the fact
    that after some time you just started skipping most of the battles,
    and simply run out of interest.
    In the end: lack of sense of progression and direction just killed whole mood.
    And that's all without reminding about souls-like storytelling, which is very subjective.

    Ps I really miss carefully designed classic levels.
    Ps ps let's forget about the widespread reuse of materials by developers... or not...    … Expand
  57. sin_naoi
    Mar 6, 2022
    5
    Good looking. (Full sopp). Nothing else. Some reviewers dare comparing it to Witcher 3... those are 2 different levels though. Elden Ring has zero character developed, no relatable stories.....well no stories at all. Forced myself to play 10 whole hours thinking that I must be missing something...but no... I quit...
  58. sinhue_anaya
    Mar 6, 2022
    5
    Sinceramente no me parece la gran cosa como lo pinta la prensa, siempre he jugado los dark souls y la verdad el que más me ha gustado fue sekiro, elden ring me parece más de lo mismo comparado con sus antecesores, la única diferencia es que tiene un mundo abierto pero sin evolución, el personaje es muy torpe para explorar tanto, no escala, no puedes descolgarte con una capa para planear ySinceramente no me parece la gran cosa como lo pinta la prensa, siempre he jugado los dark souls y la verdad el que más me ha gustado fue sekiro, elden ring me parece más de lo mismo comparado con sus antecesores, la única diferencia es que tiene un mundo abierto pero sin evolución, el personaje es muy torpe para explorar tanto, no escala, no puedes descolgarte con una capa para planear y realmente poder explorar sin limitaciones, debes ir por donde ellos te digan para llegar a la zona deseada. En ese aspecto Zelda Breth of the Wild se siente más completo.

    Aunque es interesante explorar, a veces me da mucha flojera intentar llegar a algún lugar, no creo que sea un juego para todos, si tienes poco tiempo para jugar, te sentirás abrumado por su mundo tan grande.

    Lo único que se me hizo extraño es que no pudieras jugarlo a más de 60fps, cuando la mayoría de los AAA ya cuentan con esa característica para pc, otro problema fue el control que no era detectado por el juego aunque me parece que ya se corrigió, al menos no he sentido que tuviera muchos errores en la jugabilidad como me pasó con Horizon forbidden west, que sigo con problemas en el juego a pesar de que lo tengo actualizado a la versión 1.06, ya mejor deje de jugarlo para esperar a que arreglen sus tonterías.    … Expand
  59. D4Damager
    Mar 2, 2022
    5
    Interface and controls on PC (Kb-Mouse) is a pain in the ass. Really they didn't even manage to adopt it for PC.
    "B, A, Y, RB and LB" WHAT THE HELL it means? Had to google for explanation. I though TES V had a bad interface now it seams to me perfect! To call Torrent I have to hold "E" button and press "2" and I have no idea how to change it - unbelievable! World Map ... took me a while    Interface and controls on PC (Kb-Mouse) is a pain in the ass. Really they didn't even manage to adopt it for PC.
    "B, A, Y, RB and LB" WHAT THE HELL it means? Had to google for explanation. I though TES V had a bad interface now it seams to me perfect! To call Torrent I have to hold "E" button and press "2" and I have no idea how to change it - unbelievable! World Map ... took me a while to figure out how to fast travel and you cannot navigate it using mouse!

    World itself, game design and all the rest is perfect! Really FromSoftware you have to do something about it it's 2022!    … Expand
  60. MadMN9
    Feb 26, 2022
    5
    From Software with yet another solid entry. Many will say their best piece of work yet. But this experience is unfortunately plagued by stuttering issues and terrible optimization on PC. I’d give this game a pass for a bit until the issues are fixed. Will update the score once the game is fixed.
  61. Pasic007
    Mar 8, 2022
    5
    Crap on PC - deleted after 50 hours.
    I cant deal with PC ports and this is one of them. Cant change mouse speed or key bindings. Aiming in game is clunky as f.
  62. sulaco426
    Mar 13, 2022
    5
    Its just darksouls with an uninspired, empty and boring open world. One of the thing the soulsgames were known for is the almost brilliant level design and an open world like this destroys it. it looks nice, there are some nice POI and dungeons, but its downgrade to the series of those fromsoftware games.
  63. Wankeye
    Jul 22, 2022
    5
    Absolutely amazing. A true gem of a game. Never played a souls game before without rage quitting and never coming back. This drew me in and sucked hundreds of hours from me. Phenomenal experience all around.
  64. moirons
    Jul 2, 2022
    5
    This is how little you can trust online reviews: Publications who get paid by these game companies to gush over these games ranked it a 94. Users give it a 6.9 (probably a much more accurate evaluation). I stopped reading game reviews years ago because of this. Another example: WOW Shadowlands grabbed an 84. That game was a literal waltz into hell. It's one of the worst "big name games"This is how little you can trust online reviews: Publications who get paid by these game companies to gush over these games ranked it a 94. Users give it a 6.9 (probably a much more accurate evaluation). I stopped reading game reviews years ago because of this. Another example: WOW Shadowlands grabbed an 84. That game was a literal waltz into hell. It's one of the worst "big name games" I've ever played. Users correctly panned it at a 3.0, a much more accurate portrait.

    The internet is corporate. When you read online gaming publication reviews for something like Elden Ring, you're basically reading what the makers of Elden Ring thought of Elden Ring. Even some of the user reviews were paid, and you can tell this is so. So here is a real review:

    The graphics on this game are beautiful. The music is beautiful. You'll have some fantastic moments. Overall, though, the Gameplay is wooden, and it's a World of Warcraft fever dream where someone imagined what a 2022 Warcraft would look like. Some of the backgrounds are "2006 WOW scene re-imagined in 2022." This doesn't make it a bad game. Lots of people will like this. And just as many people will flip it off and not be able to finish it because it's a flashback. And some people get bored with those.

    If you want to read accurate reviews of any game, ignore 0. Ignore 10. And read every review listing it as something in-between. Some of the most classic games in history aren't a 10. And even some of the worst games in history still have some value to them, ranking above a 0. Just keep the golden rule in mind: Zeros are competitors. Tens are paid reviewers.

    - Sincerely, someone who gets offers for positive or negative reviews all the time and never, ever takes companies up on their offers    … Expand
  65. Blackworms
    Feb 27, 2022
    5
    One of the worst performances from an AAA game. Stutters like crazy, input delays, no Ultrawide support and 60FPS lock. The game and the world are amazing but if you cannot even provide the basic necessities, it shouldn't be rated 10/10. Particularly for the PC version the review scores are misleading.
  66. KOMC
    Feb 26, 2023
    5
    still no DLCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
  67. DuhZeez
    May 16, 2022
    5
    If you see a 10/10 they are definitely Fromsoft fanboys. This game is NOWHERE near 10/10, especially the PC version.

    The single player game is a 6 to 7/10 max and even that is generous. The constant crashing, the lower quality graphics(for 2022 the graphics should be a lot better than this), the need to google EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the game, and the reused assets(you will    If you see a 10/10 they are definitely Fromsoft fanboys. This game is NOWHERE near 10/10, especially the PC version.

    The single player game is a 6 to 7/10 max and even that is generous.

    The constant crashing, the lower quality graphics(for 2022 the graphics should be a lot better than this), the need to google EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the game, and the reused assets(you will fight the same boss over and over again after mid-game) is why I cannot give this higher than a 7.

    I am not a graphics nerd. I don't need it to be life like for me to enjoy it(heck I still go back and play Atari games sometimes), but the graphics, while good, are no where near the quality of even God of War which came out over 4 years ago. Look no further that the fact that this released(and still as of this date) with no widescreen mode. If you have a nice curved 3440 monitor than this game will only serve to piss you off with the HUGE black bars on the sides.

    It has a bad problem with crashing constantly. It seems to happen the most when I use the map. No fix yet as of writing this.

    The need of a google search bar integrated into this game is a huge fault. I don't need my hand to be held with my games, but when I can't understand what something does and there is NO repository for it in the game, then there is a huge problem. There is ZERO quest tracking, not nearly enough info on what things do, the amount they do and the time in which they do said thing and no journal to look at to remember what's been said/done. This adds nothing to the game and in fact detracts from it to the point that it makes the Devs look extremely lazy, to not add even the most basic of info on things, or they did it to pad the games play time.

    The reuse of assets gets really bad after midgame, the same boss you fought earlier WILL make an appearance, it's not if they will, it's when.

    The multiplayer is straight garbage and is why I gave a 5/10 instead of a 7.

    The multiplayer, Hooo boy, where to begin...
    First, this is NOT a co-op game. It's a PvP game with co-op elements. You don't get to just hop in with a friend, Oh no, you have to furl a finger and wave some mist around first, and if your friend has beaten the boss of the area it's a no go, you can't join them. Also be prepared to get invaded by a guy who is maxed out on everything and is in new game + #16 with OP weapons and skills and 1 shots you, or someone lag switching and warping everywhere so your hits don't land but when they hit it's always a crit or backstab, or a straight up cheater who will invade just to corrupt your save so you have to start ALL over again. Sounds fun huh?

    Wanna play with just your friend and run around and have fun? Too bad! This is FROMSOFT BEEEE-OUCH! If I would have known how bad the horrible "co-op" mode is I would not have purchased the game.

    So no, this is FAR from GOTY and any 10/10 score. Take off the Fromsoft rose colored glasses and get a reality check if you think it is.

    Even with all this the single player mode is still pretty enjoyable, but these problems are, for some reason, completely overlooked because it's a "Fromsoft/Souls like" game by all these 10/10er's. Do you think they would overlook all this for anyone else? I seriously doubt it.

    I have an un-furled finger for you Fromsoft, wanna guess which one?    … Expand
  68. peipei765
    Mar 14, 2022
    5
    typical dark souls game with boring,tedious,empty open world.
    PC version runs like potato with drops to 30 fps and constant stuttering while it looks like ps4 early game.
  69. QAOSbringer
    Feb 25, 2023
    5
    Elden Ring was a real disappointment. It is advertised everywhere with 100/100 scores. Nowadays, everyone is playing it, everyone is praising it, and the praises won't even end on every YouTube channels and game review site. I bought it because it was called as "Skyrim + Breath of the Wild" many times. But the result is just frustration.
    It is obvious that it was made without thinking    Elden Ring was a real disappointment. It is advertised everywhere with 100/100 scores. Nowadays, everyone is playing it, everyone is praising it, and the praises won't even end on every YouTube channels and game review site. I bought it because it was called as "Skyrim + Breath of the Wild" many times. But the result is just frustration.
    It is obvious that it was made without thinking about the PC. It was designed exclusively with the PS4/PS5 in mind. Gameplay mechanics and combat dynamics did not go beyond the Demon's Souls game I played in 2009. There is no such thing as "Online Co-op". Putting this game under the tag "Online Co-op" is just scam.
    But hey, "who pays money gets the hype marketing".
    Yahtzee actually gave the best review: "it's a FromSoftware Dark Souls game, and therefore, good."
    It is just another Dark Souls game, nothing more.

    5: Below average - It may not appeal to everyone, but there are interesting ideas from time to time.    … Expand
  70. veckans
    Aug 2, 2023
    5
    Elden Ring is an OK game but what is all the hype about? Combat is fairly well done but simple, graphics are functional but nothing special at all. Adding the co-op mod to the game breathes new life into the game. Nothing about this game is new, it has been done numerous times before.

    I recommend it if you like co-op and use the mod, otherwise no.
  71. Gryzorz
    Feb 28, 2022
    5
    Ok so, I launch the game, I try to navigate menus and fail.
    I somehow get back to my character, and try to figure out what "R" means.
    I press R, drink something, then nothing. I begin to understand that the tips on the screen are not for me, a classic PC player with good old keyboard and mouse. I manage to push through tutorial, find how to jump and do other actions by several times    Ok so, I launch the game, I try to navigate menus and fail.
    I somehow get back to my character, and try to figure out what "R" means.
    I press R, drink something, then nothing.
    I begin to understand that the tips on the screen are not for me, a classic PC player with good old keyboard and mouse.
    I manage to push through tutorial, find how to jump and do other actions by several times going to the keyboard shortcuts.
    Then I'm asked to wield with both hands with a combination that is not present in the keyboard shortcuts, I had to go search online how to do that.
    Then I'm asked to do some other special attack on the poor undead fella.
    I try something, it looks like a regular "power attack", so I have no idea if that's what the "tutorial" was talking about, but the fella is dead now, and I don't know if I'll ever see a tutorial on how to perform this special attack again.
    I move on, another attack with undecipherable keys that are simply just not present on my setup.
    I do not even have a controller configured on my PC...
    Keys assignments are terrible, tutorial is terrible.
    It just made me want to stop playing. It was painful. I'm not supposed to feel pain from figuring out how to translate console messages to PC world for a game released for PC.
    Edit: before sending the review, I went back to explore the full content of options, and yes, you CAN set the screen tutorials to display the keyboard&mouse version.
    Why was the game setup with controller by default even when I have no controller at all is a mystery to me, but it definitely ruined my inital contact with the game, feeling unwelcome, a relic from the past that had to "move on" to controllers.
    I'm not saying that's the intent, I'm just saying that's how I felt.
    I understood nothing at all the intro scenes, except there are gazillons of names and concepts being thrown at you that make absolutely no sense.
    I usually LOVE slow pace narrative, but this is just SLOW to make it look epic, but there is nothing epic about it.
    You land in the world with a character assigned to a class that tells you nothing about it.
    It really feels like different teams designing different elements of the game and no one was ever in charge of making sense of the whole package, the user experience.
    Maybe if I had reached that point where I understand all mechanics, I would enjoy them, but I'm not supposed to suffer that much from the start, and the small details that are off are triggering my alarms, and as an old player, I tend to trust them now. If there is smoke...    … Expand
  72. RazielFair
    Feb 28, 2022
    5
    Game is a masterpiece, but it's a terrific port for PC, for frame rate but especially for not showing the key binds for keyboard and mouse, you have to figure out the controls just trying. From software has been very lazy.
  73. sonicfan69
    Apr 8, 2022
    5
    Let's focus on the positives first:
    - Awesome world design, absolutely incredible open world
    - Soundtrack is great as always - Character and boss designs are great visually speaking - So many builds and customization options So how does a game with this much good in it fall so flat? Laziness, really. The game is lazily put together in so many aspects. It feels like they just threw    Let's focus on the positives first:
    - Awesome world design, absolutely incredible open world
    - Soundtrack is great as always
    - Character and boss designs are great visually speaking
    - So many builds and customization options

    So how does a game with this much good in it fall so flat?
    Laziness, really. The game is lazily put together in so many aspects. It feels like they just threw proper level scaling and actually difficulty out of the window for the late game. Featuring bosses with undodgeable kill combos, ridiculous damage, bad hitboxes, and unfair design all around. For every amazing moment there is in the early game, there is like 5 bad moments in the late game. So many late game bosses would be so cool if they weren't infuriatingly unfair and badly designed.

    Beyond that, the difficulty at large, which in the early game felt carefully and expertly crafted, becomes unfair as well in the late game. The same reasons as highlighted above but apply it to basically every enemy that they introduce in the late game.

    In all honesty, if you want to play this game, you should really only play all of the earlygame and some of the midgame, as the rest will just make you hate it.

    Luckily, the issues as to why the late game is bad are all fixable, the ideas behind the enemies themselves do not get worse, they are just horribly unbalanced and unfair. A few balance patches can really save this game.

    So for now, it is a 5 out of 10, it is still a really good game, but it truly feels like it only lives up to half of its potential due to the laziness in balancing the late game. Hopeful to see that fixed soon.    … Expand
  74. ArthurYakovlev
    Apr 3, 2022
    5
    Dark Souls 3:Ctrl+C Ctrl+V edition. Extra textures pack. Plz buy our deluxe edition for 1 useless emote
  75. Kraiss
    Mar 25, 2022
    5
    The atmosphere is there like in the From Soft but I thought it was less "mythical" than in the previous titles. Mostly because there is a ton of mini-boss and because bosses' fight misses some greatness IMO. The last fight is epic but I was so bored by the game that I have overlooked it. I won't do a new game plus, IMO it's not worth it.

    The game balance is pretty **** bosses can be    The atmosphere is there like in the From Soft but I thought it was less "mythical" than in the previous titles. Mostly because there is a ton of mini-boss and because bosses' fight misses some greatness IMO. The last fight is epic but I was so bored by the game that I have overlooked it. I won't do a new game plus, IMO it's not worth it.

    The game balance is pretty **** bosses can be really hard and so easy it's boring. The game stutters A LOT because of an anti-cheat engine that does not prevent cheaters and people from exploiting bugs.

    I usually love From Soft games but for me, this one missed the target. I really really tried to like this game but in its current state I really don't.    … Expand
  76. Muhannad1991
    Jan 30, 2023
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Unfortunately, the amount of drumming this game is not normal. True, it is a fun game, but 10 out of 10. Why does it mean a system copied from Dark Soul, the only difference is that there is more interest in magic and a disaster that magic breaks the cell game, a casual game, the easiest part in the Souls series of the world, its shape is sweet, but interactive enough I arrived, it's sweet. It's not enough for a generation. This needs something like Zita. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and don't settle for an open world. And give me the story. It's definitely better than the good souls, but stay in a million questions. This lore system is for donkeys. Nothing, unfortunately, the writer of Game of Trans, where does this mean, but something that makes you laugh, he says, "Oh, ELDEN RING." Van Boy's rubbish will buy, stay away from technical problems, and give me a 5 out of 10 game that is better than Souls trash games, but it was supposed to be called Dark Souls 6, not ELDEN RING, unfortunately, the passion is zero with the game… Expand
  77. Jaymarz
    Feb 26, 2022
    5
    Missing ultrawide support and has too many stuttering and frame rate issues to be a great PC port. The game is good, but how are they going to fail at delivering ultrawide support and optimization?
  78. id3alistic
    Feb 27, 2022
    5
    From Software is ALMOST at Square Enix levels of terrible PC ports. The only reason they are higher than SE is because they didn't dare charge $70 like SE did for FF7R.

    60fps cap, terrible performance, and no ultrawide support. I'll be nice and give just a 5 though.
  79. MeltedBR
    Feb 28, 2022
    5
    60 fps lock
    no ultra-wide support
    clunky PC menu and keyboard layout Can't keep a perfectly stable 60 fps even on low settings 800x600 (thats when you know its gone too far) Graphics are the same as any other souls game (that just adds to the fact that this game should run on any potato with stable 60 fps and 100/200+ fps on modern machines) i'm glad the community isn't letting pure    60 fps lock
    no ultra-wide support
    clunky PC menu and keyboard layout
    Can't keep a perfectly stable 60 fps even on low settings 800x600 (thats when you know its gone too far)
    Graphics are the same as any other souls game (that just adds to the fact that this game should run on any potato with stable 60 fps and 100/200+ fps on modern machines)

    i'm glad the community isn't letting pure lazyness on PC ports get through like Critics do, this is a fast reaction time based game, smoothness is fundamental for a nice experience, if console players can't see the frame drops because they already playing on 25 fps with insane amout of motion blur that's not my problem. Souls game are the type of games to have "performance mode" run at 120hz and on PC have settings like Nvidia Reflex (like GOW did).

    Is it possible to play the game on PC and enjoy it? Yes, after 1.02.1 I'm playing the game normally but I can't make my mind around the fact that we could be getting a much more enjoyable experience, imagine paying 2K$ for a GPU just to get a game with mid-tier graphics lock you at 60 fps and still have drops lol    … Expand
  80. Gofy
    Feb 28, 2022
    5
    So basic issues with the game:
    Performance is horrible, even on a RTX 3090
    Game is locked at 60fps
    Game does not support ultrawide Keyboard and mouse menu navigation is counter intuitive and should be standardised There's a good game there somewhere, which is probably worth a 7, or 8 out of 10. It would still not be a perfect 10, but no game really is.
  81. X99MYKE
    Mar 2, 2022
    5
    I don't want to be too harsh and give it a 0 - As the majority of the 'game' itself is great. The scenery is good (or what we can see of it at 16:9....). I enjoy that its difficult, I enjoy the world is huge and can be explored. Gameplay wise I do think they could have done a FAR better job with a tutorial. Instead of just a golden beam which leads you to an unkillable enemy then fend forI don't want to be too harsh and give it a 0 - As the majority of the 'game' itself is great. The scenery is good (or what we can see of it at 16:9....). I enjoy that its difficult, I enjoy the world is huge and can be explored. Gameplay wise I do think they could have done a FAR better job with a tutorial. Instead of just a golden beam which leads you to an unkillable enemy then fend for yourself - Maybe the first few destinations should have been some of the key items and easy dungeons to settle people in. An in game journal would be a great benefit too.

    But gameplay aside there are the horrific negatives

    - No ultrawide support (or apparently.. its IN game, and you render at it, but artificial black bars cover it?) I cant for the life of me understand why they would do this. Open world games with scenery like this are the exact reason ultrawide exists!! if its some kind of 'fair play' between console and Pc gamers then its ridiculous. League of legends, one of the biggest most competitive games going allows Ultrawide, and that legit gives you an edge in that game.

    - No NVIDIA DLSS. A game with such wide open spaces and alot to render would benefit SO MUCH from DLSS. It literally doubles or triples peoples performance with no visible negatives.

    - FPS cap at 60 - So so poor. Console gamers find this bad framerate acceptable. PC Gamers do not. If its not 120+ It just feels clunky and broken.

    - No Native PS controller icons in game when using it (just shows Xbox). How can they even get this wrong when the game LITERALLY is released for PS4/5 aswell AND theyre the biggest sales by FAR over Xbox.

    -No FOV options. Game feels too close to character (ESPECIALLY WITH NO ULTRAWIDE!!!!)

    For now im using the mod (that took less than 24 hours to release btw!!!) to get ultrawide and FPS cap remove. Which means cant play online - which sucks because I enjoy the message, blood patches etc.

    Lets hope From Games take this info on board - since there are THOUSANDS of players wanting it. Its no good releasing a patch to fix these things months down the line when everyone has finished the game. I dont want to play through twice. I want to enjoy and play it NOW    … Expand
  82. Romano77
    Mar 3, 2022
    5
    Thank you Miyazaki! You made a Masterpiece! Mesmerizing landscapes and bosses! Mechanic is awesome! I made some changes settings in windows 10 and motherboard and it's running perfectly
  83. BearG
    Mar 4, 2022
    5
    Its alright I guess but definently not a 10/10, The main problem with this game is not dificulty (for me) but the absolute garbage game level design you have multiple areas where you are just underleveld and have to 'grind' souls in the open world to advance.

    Im not even sure what the main intended path is for the game it just seems all over the place. Also be prepared to use the    Its alright I guess but definently not a 10/10, The main problem with this game is not dificulty (for me) but the absolute garbage game level design you have multiple areas where you are just underleveld and have to 'grind' souls in the open world to advance.

    Im not even sure what the main intended path is for the game it just seems all over the place. Also be prepared to use the wiki/youtube guides a LOT Forgot a name the npc told you bring an item to? search the wiki. Want to find upgrade material? search the wiki. Want to fight 'hidden bosses'? search the wiki. For almost everything you do in this game you need a wiki or guide, A lot of places are not clear where to go and you get lost often (even with a map)

    The way to upgrade your weapons is complete garbage, You can only really lvl up 1 weapon to max or be prepared to find all the upgrade materials all over again.

    Open world? Yes I guess its nice but most of the games bests moments are not in the open world but rather in the closed dungeon/area sections.

    Boss design is alright in this game a lot of realy unfair fights and you also dont know if you just have to git gud or if you are underleveled.

    Story is just a **** show, you never know what the f is going on and the ending was just confusing not really satisfying for playing a game like 60+ hours

    Pc port is a f*cking joke and performance sucks on pc also the game looks nice I guess but not cyberpunk level of grahpics and yet it needs a beter specs.

    All in all I liked elden but to give this a 10/10 just goes to show how paid off these 'reviewers' are/ I dont really feel like a second playthrought because the game level design is so garbage I dont want to have to use the wiki for everything again.

    5/10    … Expand
  84. picklefrenzy
    Mar 6, 2022
    5
    The performance issues are almost gone, still an occasional stutter but nothing too bad. Love this game!
  85. Rainbow_Lotus
    Mar 6, 2022
    5
    This is my biggest video-game-disapointment ever.
    A dark souls game of extreme quality, that has been opened for the casual gamer. That was my expectation. Now, 30 hours of later, im deinstalling, and am not going to ever play this, nor buy any From Software game ever again...
    Honestly: I regret the 30 hours of frustration i had, and the hilarious amount i paid for it. It basically is    This is my biggest video-game-disapointment ever.
    A dark souls game of extreme quality, that has been opened for the casual gamer. That was my expectation. Now, 30 hours of later, im deinstalling, and am not going to ever play this, nor buy any From Software game ever again...

    Honestly: I regret the 30 hours of frustration i had, and the hilarious amount i paid for it.
    It basically is just a fighting simulator. There is nothing more in this game. Run around, fight difficult to impossible (for me) battles, grind endlessly, progress extremely slowly, and, from time to time, discover items that may or may not be useful for you.
    You will die a lot, lose all character progress regulairly, and generally, have no idea what this game is actually about. The story is non-existent, the world is extremely lifeless, and just filled with enemies that wait only or you, and the storyline will come to an end pretty fast, because you will just not be able to beat the bosses. At least, if you are a casual gamer iike me.
    Which forces you to battle easy opponents forever, as rewards and character developement are hardly more than a cosmetic feature.

    Of course there are ways to exploit the game, but as soon as i need youtube in a tab to achieve any chance of progression, a game has failed for me.

    My last experience in this game, after exploring the whole starting region desperately, was a sorceress who finally enabled me to learn new spells. Which gave me hope, that the torture had come to an end.
    And guess what: Those spells are far weaker than the weak ones, that you start with. Its a slap in the face, and im sure, that its an intended one.
    This is Elden Ring in a nutshell...    … Expand
  86. atom511
    Mar 7, 2022
    5
    The selling point for me was the "story by George RR Martin" - however, after playing for about 8-10 hours there does not appear to be much of a story.

    The game initially would not run on my PC. I had to google Reddit forums for tricks on how to do so. Game controls were mapped to an Xbox controller. Had to Google reddit forums on how to switch to PC. I made it to one mini-boss    The selling point for me was the "story by George RR Martin" - however, after playing for about 8-10 hours there does not appear to be much of a story.

    The game initially would not run on my PC. I had to google Reddit forums for tricks on how to do so.

    Game controls were mapped to an Xbox controller. Had to Google reddit forums on how to switch to PC.

    I made it to one mini-boss that was punishingly difficult far beyond any ability to enjoy the challenge. Good game design is not just enemies that pummel you mercilessly over and over again.

    I remember buying Skyrim on release day, and it was infinitely more enjoyable than Elden Ring.

    Give me Super Mario or Legend of Zelda any day over this nonsense.    … Expand
  87. carlos29319
    Mar 12, 2022
    5
    One of the best fromsoftware game I played so far. Also one of the best games period
  88. DoorFang
    Mar 31, 2022
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Not the smoothest PC game ever (there's a little stutter or hiccup when the game is loading areas in the background), but there's SO MUCH content, and it's done so well, and the game is so complete, and there's no MTX nonsense. Unfortunately, the Fire Giant boss is so poorly designed as a boss battle that it mars the whole experience. It's tedious and not fun in the slightest. It's like you're on this really fun road trip to somewhere cool, and then it comes screaming to a halt in a nasty crash, ending all the fun that could have been.… Expand
  89. BHTrix
    Mar 19, 2022
    5
    I honestly don't understand why people are writing raving reviews for this game.

    Let's start with the good before we move on to the bad and the horrendous that is "Elden Ring" - Gorgeous (bosses, world, art, etc.) - Huge - Mounted Combat (Casting is way better than the sword play though) - The game plays well - Lots of armors and weapons, that are cosmetically cool - Sound    I honestly don't understand why people are writing raving reviews for this game.

    Let's start with the good before we move on to the bad and the horrendous that is "Elden Ring"

    - Gorgeous (bosses, world, art, etc.)
    - Huge
    - Mounted Combat (Casting is way better than the sword play though)
    - The game plays well
    - Lots of armors and weapons, that are cosmetically cool
    - Sound design is really good

    Now the bad

    - Hyper aggressive Mobs that 2-3 shot you
    - Bend Curve for Stat Effectiveness but a Doubling Curve for monster health and difficulty, making end game extremely tedious and repetitive. Your char will shine midgame, but after that your increase in damage and survivability flatlines, while monster health triples.
    - Repetitive
    - Many, Many places, dungeons, etc. in the world are reused.
    - Depth of Field is confusing, the camera doesn't really have optimal rotation, you will often plunge to your death, and after you have you have to backtrack to your corpse, and hope that this time around you don't miss the jump, and if you do, lose all your runes... I mean... uff exhausting
    - The platforming and death from falling is absolutely horrendous.
    - Backtracking
    - The Combat just sucks, I'm sorry. It's fun in the first halve of the game, but when fights start to drag out to 5 minutes per normal mob up to 10-15 sometimes 20 minute boss fights that you have to restart if you make a few bad dodges, it just get's tedious. Not to mention you'll be using the same spells/combat arts most of the time, so it get's extremely tedious and repetitive.
    - Best way to play a lot of the game is just by running past and skipping everything.
    - Most spells suck.
    - Questlines are confusing at best, there's nothing to guide you to understand what the game expects of you, and sometimes if you missed a part of the quest and progressed too far, the quest dies.
    - Bugs.
    - Balance is ****

    This game is overhyped, and the user score reflects that.
    I would honestly stop trusting any critic reviews, they have no idea what they are talking about, and are most likely hyping the game for a paycheck

    I would avoid this game for a few more months, if not year, and grab it on a sale. It has some esthetic, and you'll get some fun out of it, and it will at points frustrate the **** out of you with poor gameplay design.

    I guess fun if you are a sadomasochist.    … Expand
  90. Vzinan
    Mar 21, 2022
    5
    Fantastic bosses and skillls, but poor interaction and disgusting monsters ruin the expolration. Luckily, side quests become integrity.
  91. hachemancour
    Mar 24, 2022
    5
    It's a very empty game. If you're interested exclusively in challenging hack and slash gameplay then you may enjoy it.

    If you're looking for a plot or narrative, or any sort of actual substance, you will not find it in Elden Ring. The open world feels devoid of life. You'll find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, but in different areas. You have to hunt for content    It's a very empty game. If you're interested exclusively in challenging hack and slash gameplay then you may enjoy it.

    If you're looking for a plot or narrative, or any sort of actual substance, you will not find it in Elden Ring. The open world feels devoid of life. You'll find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, but in different areas. You have to hunt for content outside of combat in a bad way. I just don't know what else to say, the game feels cadaverous. It's got no soul.    … Expand
  92. Unswqung
    Mar 25, 2022
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Just for perspective I completed the game and got 100% in the steam achievements.

    Started stellar and ended like a bloated mess. Halfway through the game the new additions and general pacing started to feel worse and worse (physicks were cool though), crafting turned into a waste of time which in turn negated the open world items to an extent. So many repeated bosses which discouraged me to even check dungeons anymore, so many fights felt like they were designed around ashes (which I would prefer to be treated more like DS summons), issues from previous games that weren't addressed, bosses that felt more at home in DBZ (one literally has an instant transmission).

    No triumph overcoming a challenge. And I felt that way the entire game. Everything was either a total romp or just felt ridiculous. Again the open world nature ruins the pacing and trivializes bosses or makes them impossible. Radahn? Dodge OHKO's. Rennala? I walked at her and hit r1 a bunch and she died. The final boss was primarily me running at them just to land one hit, then running 20 seconds again to do the same.

    Front loaded and I wonder if everyone giving it a 10 hasn't hit the capital yet. I felt it got significantly worse after Caelid and the Liurnia (sp?) area was where the warts started to show.

    The open world only cheapened the game, the boss design was substandard for the series, the previous problems in DS games were still apparent, new additions lost their luster the longer the game went, and it felt bloated the longer you played. 6/10 -1 for rough optimization but that will change eventually I am sure. I guess I got my money's worth but I would rather play DS1, DS3 or Sekiro. I felt nostalgic for DS2. At the end of the day a large portion of From games are about the challenge of overcoming a boss and the structure of this one completely undermined it. It never felt right the entire way through. Too many walkover bosses, too many flippy OHKO and AoE attacks (that still paradoxically didn't feel challenging?).

    Might be my least favourite From game. Pay attention if the glowing praise is coming from someone who has yet to finish, or only has ~30 hours. Because their 10/10 is probably accurate... but only for the portion they have played.    … Expand
  93. Kyhan
    Mar 27, 2022
    5
    An amazing game!
    One of the most complete game that's came out in years Literally can't stop playing
  94. Kerozen666
    Apr 1, 2022
    5
    It's a game that suffer from the same problem as it's predecessor. The art and overall world design is flawless (not counting the hostile part, that's for the next pat), there is nothing i can say on that, it's just wonderful. Where the problem is with the game, is the gameplay. Overall, the game end up being hard for the sake of being hard. The intricate story and the breathtakingIt's a game that suffer from the same problem as it's predecessor. The art and overall world design is flawless (not counting the hostile part, that's for the next pat), there is nothing i can say on that, it's just wonderful. Where the problem is with the game, is the gameplay. Overall, the game end up being hard for the sake of being hard. The intricate story and the breathtaking artstyle end up being painful to access as you have to face all the unceasing crap the game send your way.

    As with other game from the director, you can still screw yourself up from questline by doing things the games never indicate you should not, like attacking a bear in the area where they attack you (this cuts you out from a quest). This kind of situation can happen at any point, and considering the lenght of the game and how it save constantly, it is still impossible to correct the tiny mistake you make. But hey! it's still better than a game daring to hold your hand a bit, am i right?

    Also, it's been 13 years and there is still no pause (that isn't an exploit). that you are alone in your game or even fully offline, in 2022, if you need to use the bathroom, Mr Miyazaki say you need to wait

    The needlessly painful experience, the lack of basic game functions like pause and the obcession with being overly cryptic to the point of negatively impacting the gamew experience is why i cannot give more than a 5. The game is gorgeous, but it's not worth much when everytrhing else is pain    … Expand
  95. mckaing10277
    Apr 3, 2022
    5
    I enjoyed this game and spent around 45 hours playing, my problem is I have reached a point where I just can't progress. The bosses are too difficult. Also I can't stand a game where I need to have the game guide open in a seperate tab for like 95% of gameplay. Some of the things I have had to use guides for I'm sure I would have NEVER figured out without them. It's just not fun for meI enjoyed this game and spent around 45 hours playing, my problem is I have reached a point where I just can't progress. The bosses are too difficult. Also I can't stand a game where I need to have the game guide open in a seperate tab for like 95% of gameplay. Some of the things I have had to use guides for I'm sure I would have NEVER figured out without them. It's just not fun for me when a game is so difficult that it requires a play guide.

    Also I cant not stand the fact that it is open world AND there is no indicator of how difficult an enemy is before you attack it (it would be really nice if they showed the enemies' levels rather than just getting one shotted all the time). I really gave this game an honest try but I've decided it isn't worth any further investment.

    I'm probably going to try and play dark souls because it is linear progression.    … Expand
  96. Zero_89
    Jun 11, 2022
    5
    Average by the numbers dark souls like, not much new here besides the horse riding and the open world nature of the game which at times did make the whole experience a bit unfocused.
    Overall a decent game bogged down by poor performance and asset recycling that to my knowledge never got this egregiously transparent in any of the previous From software games
  97. WanderinMelmoth
    Aug 26, 2022
    5
    No, Elden Ring is NOT a masterpiece, it is "just" ok. Basically it's Dark Souls 3.5 with the only real "improvement" being an open world. What I like about the open world is that there are no quest markers, no Question Marks, no icon overkill on the map.
    Elden Ring still retains all the annoying souls mechanics, like resting at (insert souls resting point) restores enemies, getting killed    No, Elden Ring is NOT a masterpiece, it is "just" ok. Basically it's Dark Souls 3.5 with the only real "improvement" being an open world. What I like about the open world is that there are no quest markers, no Question Marks, no icon overkill on the map.
    Elden Ring still retains all the annoying souls mechanics, like resting at (insert souls resting point) restores enemies, getting killed drops (insert souls currency) with you getting one shot at retaining them and of course the ridiculous difficulty that manages to exclude a huge amount of gamers.
    It also is guilty of reusing assets and animations (graphics have not really been upgraded from DS3, sound effects remain 100% identical).
    Worst offender however are the controls: after all these games FromSoft is either incompetent or unwilling to make functioning keyboard & mouse controls. If you release a game on PC then you have no excuse whatsoever to make it unplayable on mouse & keyboard.    … Expand
  98. Krutonite
    Jun 11, 2022
    5
    Honestly, I don't understand it.
    The souls games just don't appeal to me. This is probably the best one of the bunch, and yet, it did not do anything for me. Nice world design and atmosphere though.
  99. Greenmeatybones
    Aug 1, 2022
    5
    Can't say much about this game that hasnt already been said; It isnt my type of game, personally, so I just didnt enjoy it. Played through the first hour, felt like I did nothing but die a few times. If you like soulsbourne games you will like this, if you dont, you wont like this. Its that simple
  100. Jormungandr01
    Apr 14, 2023
    5
    Amazing lore behind the game and good bosses but if you play the game blind you end up wandering around aimlessly and do **** all for 2 hours finding **** weapons and smithing stones that you already have hundreds of. Most dungeons are small with weak and **** enemies and minibosses that have been reused 3 or 4 times so that they can fill out a redundant number of 165 bosses. Also the goodAmazing lore behind the game and good bosses but if you play the game blind you end up wandering around aimlessly and do **** all for 2 hours finding **** weapons and smithing stones that you already have hundreds of. Most dungeons are small with weak and **** enemies and minibosses that have been reused 3 or 4 times so that they can fill out a redundant number of 165 bosses. Also the good bosses are "optional" and there is nothing in the game that ever tells you where they are, how to get to them or how to activate it. 80% of your playthrough the game feels soulless and has the personality of paint-stripper with a side of a boiled towel. Yum. Most hype train shills will tell you that nothing tells you anything because its a true open world masterpiece and that you are actually free to do what you want because there is no quest marker and no npcs that even slightly hint at the next destination and how the arrows pointing around at the graces is genius because it does absolutely ****all. Cope… Expand
Page:

Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Best PC Game of 2022
2
#2 Most Discussed PC Game of 2022

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
94

Universal acclaim - based on 60 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 60
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 60
  3. Negative: 0 out of 60
  1. Cubed3
    Aug 29, 2022
    70
    Elden Ring is an experience that will not be forgotten in a hurry. It's a tremendous, hulking, massive achievement but because it is tremendous, hulking and massive, it is one that comes with many caveats. The shelves in CeX and conversations with people who stopped playing at Stormveil castle can certainly attest to some of those caveats. Much like any FromSoftware title, it's not going to be for everybody, but paradoxically it is one of their hardest and one of their most accessible to date. It offers huge value in one package, and perhaps is a little too much value, only becoming clearer when nearing the endgame. Don't be mistaken by the criticism, though. This is a phenomenal achievement with a moment-to-moment that is incredibly engaging and immersive. No doubt it will be deserving of the end-of-year accolades it will inevitably receive. One pushes through Elden Ring as one pushes through life, with all the highs and the lows that it brings.
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  2. Riot Pixels
    Apr 28, 2022
    82
    Elden Ring is massive, sometimes to its detriment. A thorough walkthrough might take up more than 100 hours to complete, and at some point it becomes clear that From Software did not have enough manpower to produce that much unique content. Still, it remains incredibly addictive even after those 100 hours pass…
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  3. RPGamer
    Apr 14, 2022
    90
    It’s hard to review Elden Ring without being comparative; that’s because Elden Ring is an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one, and one can’t help but see how it’s built on what came before. Here is a massive undertaking of a game, not for the sake of chasing trends but as the natural progression of the style the company has been fostering for over a decade. It’s amazing how smoothly the transition to open world was and how much of the Souls identity is still present. In the short time since its release, it has already left a cultural mark, no doubt a result of the game’s increased approachability. Even after sifting past all the hype and grandiosity, there’s still an excellent game left and Elden Ring is a clear showcase of FromSoftware’s outstanding expertise in the field. Elden Ring really is just that good.
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