User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 5812 Ratings

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  1. Jul 21, 2023
    10
    So rare to see games with such a level of quality and detail these days. Top tier open world rpg design. GOTY.
  2. Mar 23, 2022
    6
    Feels like a "Souls-like" instead of an actual Souls game. Late Patch that adds NPCs and Quest shows game was not even out of beta on launch. Reading critic reviews make it quite clear they never made it past the 20 hour mark before publishing as the game's issues take a massive spike after the first area. Most non-story bosses are repeated ad nauseum (fight, refight, refight, now fightFeels like a "Souls-like" instead of an actual Souls game. Late Patch that adds NPCs and Quest shows game was not even out of beta on launch. Reading critic reviews make it quite clear they never made it past the 20 hour mark before publishing as the game's issues take a massive spike after the first area. Most non-story bosses are repeated ad nauseum (fight, refight, refight, now fight two at once). Some story bosses were even reskinned as later story bosses! Feels incredibly lazy.

    Hitboxes and enemy range is still horrible. Enemy attacks and projectiles go through all solid walls. Boss AIs just stop attacking every now and then, breaking the fight and turning it into a cakewalk. Has happened 3 times since I got to the capital, easily 50 hours into the game.

    Homing spells are nigh-impossible to dodge, specifically on horseback. Normal enemy magic does 70-80% of health with 50 VIT. Combat consistently feels like you're cheesing everything or getting 2 shotted. Combat design is the worst since Dark Souls II--which is exactly what this game feels like.

    Story - Fromsoft/10

    World - 10/10

    Combat Design - 3/10

    Fanbase - 0/10

    This game actively put me off fromsoft games unless they're directed by Kazuhiro Hamatani. Patch released weeks into launch fixed a ton of hitboxes and poise issues, but they still feel terrible. Does not feel like they actually play-tested combat. Game feels terrible to play after Bloodborne and Sekiro--almost actively hostile towards the player.

    Also the fans throwing slurs at you for even bringing up issues that were addressed in the patch is hilarious. A fan base that refuses to have an actual discussion about the game instead of slavishly worshipping everything Miyazaki produces.
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  3. Apr 22, 2022
    9
    I'm changing my review here. I gave it 7 and a pretty crappy review because I was frustrated and irritated by it's game play. It's definitely hard and takes getting used to. But if you do get into it (like I finally did) you will find it's full of wonder and interesting things. Combat is great and the enemies are very unique. Can't stop playing now.
  4. Mar 4, 2022
    10
    Ultimate adventure game. Git gud or get filtered.

    .......................
  5. Nov 28, 2022
    4
    Another souls game I tried to get into. Its' strong points is a interesting story. Weak points is everything else, especially considering how many soullike games are out there. The control scheme is weird, and I don't see why I have to go through this. When I can play any action rpg on hard mode, and go through the exact same pain, but have more fun.
  6. Dec 25, 2022
    9
    From Software was never worng in anything. I f a game can produce the amount this one does on youtube, you gotta know its good.
  7. Jul 22, 2022
    9
    Except for some annoying features, this game is a mindblowing journey that kept me addicted for 150 straight hours. Froms collected all their lore and gameplay specifics in this one huge piece of art, but I think this time they didn't beat Dark Souls 1 in atmosphere and story, neither the did beat Sekiro in gameplay sharpness and fluidity.
    P.S. Thanks Let me solo her dude, it was fun to
    Except for some annoying features, this game is a mindblowing journey that kept me addicted for 150 straight hours. Froms collected all their lore and gameplay specifics in this one huge piece of art, but I think this time they didn't beat Dark Souls 1 in atmosphere and story, neither the did beat Sekiro in gameplay sharpness and fluidity.
    P.S. Thanks Let me solo her dude, it was fun to sit there and see you dancing with the red head butterfly.
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  8. Sep 8, 2022
    0
    Good-looking and detailed enemies placed in a empty half-cooked world with basically zero content.

    Enemies cheat since they can read your inputs, and your time and patience gets severely wasted with checkpoints so far away and respawning enemies and bosses with absolutely zero drop-rates. Its a mess and its bad. The "story" is barebones at best and never picks up any speed or even
    Good-looking and detailed enemies placed in a empty half-cooked world with basically zero content.

    Enemies cheat since they can read your inputs, and your time and patience gets severely wasted with checkpoints so far away and respawning enemies and bosses with absolutely zero drop-rates.

    Its a mess and its bad.

    The "story" is barebones at best and never picks up any speed or even builds any signs of sensical story-arc. The dialogues - as scarse as they are - are often nonsensical and lacking any kind of information or lore.

    The world is filled with nothing but mini-bosses. Its empty and void. You can explore just to find maybe some more mini-bosses (some of them get recycled a lot!), but their drop-rates are insulting so you'll ask yourself why even bother? Why even bother backtracking half the time or killing the same enemies over and over again
    in a pretty comical way (no dismemberment, every fight is more or less the same, you have practically zero wiggle-room or alternative ways of disposing your foes)?

    The leveldesign is interesting at times, but then other times its extremely bad. Empty rooms with nothing to do, misplaced use-triggers, huge ruins to explore with lifeless backtracking or missing checkpoints.

    To add insult to injury many keys can't get rebind (!) and the whole layout is for controllers by default!
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  9. Apr 6, 2023
    8
    Gameplay : 8
    Graphics : 8
    Story : 7
    Sound : 8
    **********************************************************************************
    Overall : 8 (not finished)
  10. 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
  11. Dec 5, 2022
    1
    Game stutters far to much even after patches. Happens the most during fights and around every few minutes. Would recommend waiting for issues to be resolved before buying unless you want to play on the hardest difficulty available...
  12. Aug 22, 2022
    8
    Without talking about the amazing story... essentially the main problem is that when you start this game for the first time, even as a long term veteran souls player, you are bad, very bad. After 5 hours you understand that this isn't Dark Souls 3 and you start enjoying it.
  13. Dec 2, 2022
    10
    Best souls Game ever.
    Amazing open world, extreme huge world ever seen in a game, Astonishing Bossesn
    Graphics are extremely solid,
    Incredible environment,
    Despite performance issues even in high end.hardware, still the crown is for Elden ring
  14. Feb 8, 2023
    9
    It's really hard for a game to get a 10/10... Elden Ring does everything right but I really feel like the armor designs are lacking as well as a lot of weapon designs, I also feel like there could be a wider variety of moves and combos for each class type (side note: classes are pointless). Maybe I'm just a noob to the genre but its important to remember that this review is subjective andIt's really hard for a game to get a 10/10... Elden Ring does everything right but I really feel like the armor designs are lacking as well as a lot of weapon designs, I also feel like there could be a wider variety of moves and combos for each class type (side note: classes are pointless). Maybe I'm just a noob to the genre but its important to remember that this review is subjective and someone else might love the designs and class system because as a whole the game works perfectly and I believe that these cons that I mentioned are all intentional from the developer, it just comes down to a matter of preference. For my first souls game I loved it! Trust me this game is amazing and all negative reviews should be ignored Expand
  15. Sep 28, 2022
    8
    I didn't like any of the soul games but this one is an exception because it gives players options to summons and find good gears when they are stuck with a hard boss. This alone makes the game so much more enjoyable for me.
  16. Mar 1, 2022
    10
    It’s crazy too see so many people giving this game 0/10 because of some minor technical issues, I understand the 60fps frame cap is an issue for some people but I don’t get giving it a 0/10 because of that, honestly it’s a 9/10 but doesn’t deserve the hate it’s getting so I have to give a 10 to bring back the score a bit.

    Combats great, lots of weapons choices and more customisation than
    It’s crazy too see so many people giving this game 0/10 because of some minor technical issues, I understand the 60fps frame cap is an issue for some people but I don’t get giving it a 0/10 because of that, honestly it’s a 9/10 but doesn’t deserve the hate it’s getting so I have to give a 10 to bring back the score a bit.

    Combats great, lots of weapons choices and more customisation than any game in the series before it.

    the world is massive and beautiful, absolutely nailed the art direction of the game again.

    Bosses are certainly the most interesting and difficult the series has had to offer.

    There are negatives, some people are having mild performance issues, small amounts stuttering in certain areas, the frame rate is locked to 60, and there’s no widescreen support (this one annoys me a little).
    The games hard, duh, its a souls game, I think a lot of the review bombing is due to its difficulty and pc gamers incessant obsession with frame rates, as if you need anymore than 60 in a non competitive title like this.
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  17. Jul 26, 2022
    10
    Buy a decent PC and stop whining about your 5 year old bucket cant play ER. Giving a game like ER 0 just shows how big a moron you are.

    The game is the perfect evolution from Souls-borne and Sekiro and manage to create a true open world experience while maintaining almost the same difficulty (yes, DS fan-boys disagrees) and allowing "new comers" to use spirits for the hard boss-fights.
    Buy a decent PC and stop whining about your 5 year old bucket cant play ER. Giving a game like ER 0 just shows how big a moron you are.

    The game is the perfect evolution from Souls-borne and Sekiro and manage to create a true open world experience while maintaining almost the same difficulty (yes, DS fan-boys disagrees) and allowing "new comers" to use spirits for the hard boss-fights. The quests and the complexity in the game is as usual top notch and obscure and I love it. It is easily a 10/10 game.

    It is a masterpiece and you will only find out if you put the time and effort into it :)
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  18. Mar 28, 2022
    9
    120 hrs in I have to say that this game is amazing. So much to explore and so many interesting monster designs. There is a steep learning curve if you are not familiar with 'Dark Souls' type games but totally worth it if you just push through. There are a lot of guides online to help as well. I did not experience any of the stuttering issues that some of the older reviews in here reported.
  19. May 29, 2023
    8
    Rating: 8/10

    Elden Ring is an awesome game and has really polished what the Soulsborne games have offered to players, a difficult adventure, with less handholding than most games, a solid combat system, and a promise that you can beat the challenge if you practice. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, from the more fleshed out story with cinematics and more NPC dialogue than I remember in
    Rating: 8/10

    Elden Ring is an awesome game and has really polished what the Soulsborne games have offered to players, a difficult adventure, with less handholding than most games, a solid combat system, and a promise that you can beat the challenge if you practice. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, from the more fleshed out story with cinematics and more NPC dialogue than I remember in Dark Souls 1 & 2 (the Souls games I have played) and the more user friendly design explaining various gameplay mechanics to players and the freedom of the open world to level up & come back to challenges later.

    I didn't love some of the enemies and thought some were pretty annoying, like the big dogs, big crows, the enemies with a bunch of arms, and some others. In general though, the game had a decent variety of enemies though I feel like Dark Souls 1 especially had more variety and more interesting enemies. Fighting the 6th dragon of a different element was a little boring at one point. The standout bosses for me, like Malenia, Dragonlord Placidusax, Radagon, and Morgott were pretty freaking fun. Using the Mimic Tear summon was my clutch to not bang my head against Malenia & Lord Mohg after 20 tries and I still had fun using it, as a last resort.

    I didn't really love one mechanic that got me killed a lot, the long amount of time you are on the ground after getting knocked off your horse. That enemies can hit you during the beginning parts of the long animation was cheap I felt and I thought the knockdown duration should be the same as not being on your horse. Just a personal frustration.

    I thought the music wasn't as good as Dark Souls 1 & 3 and I couldn't really remember any theme after trying to think of one. The art style though is great and the graphics are amazing. Just looking up at the Erdtree and admiring it's grandeur always put a smirk on my face :D

    I love that physical & magic combat is so well mixed in Elden Ring compared to all other Soulsborne games. That you can use infusions & whetblades to give your weapons scaling with Intelligence & Faith opens up so many options for combat, I thought it was brilliant!

    Lastly, the open world was fun for the most part but did seem a bit empty near the end, with little reason for me to explore once I got my best weapons fully upgraded & was above Level 140. I explored pretty much everywhere just to see, but I think the developers had a hard time putting valuable rewards for exploration at a certain point, when I kept finding the highest level smithing stones when I already had 5 of each type (normal & somber). The areas stayed engaging for the most part & very pretty to wonder through, but I wish the enemy variety stayed evolving to discover new enemies & some story or lore rewards were given in the late game for exploration.

    Overall, this feels like the most polished version of Soulsborne to introduce to new players of this series of games. I highly recommend trying the game and enjoying the combat experience & world.
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  20. Mar 5, 2022
    10
    The game graphics are amazing and its a game you'll never get bored off new monsters every corner all different a new challenge
  21. Nov 8, 2022
    10
    I started playing with my friends at launch but we quickly lost interest in the game which weird because all of us are big soulsborne fans.
    However I recently found myself bored during quarantine and tried it again and was shocked.
    Now I don't get why we dropped the game. I played trough it three times now and got one of my mates to finish it as well. I believe what turned us off the
    I started playing with my friends at launch but we quickly lost interest in the game which weird because all of us are big soulsborne fans.
    However I recently found myself bored during quarantine and tried it again and was shocked.
    Now I don't get why we dropped the game. I played trough it three times now and got one of my mates to finish it as well.
    I believe what turned us off the first time was the open world aspect but now it is one of the strongest points in my opinion.
    I particularly enjoyed the bosses in the later half of the game, when **** really starts picking up.
    I get that some people are annoyed at the amount of recycled bosses and areas, and I get it. But I also dont mind it, as it makes sense in the context of the world of Elden Ring.
    The music is awesome, the amount of variety is great and the combat system is once again top notch.
    I gotta admit however that the PvP (Which was the most enjoyable thing in past souls games to me) is really not my cup of tea. The netcode is bad to a point where some weapons are almost unusable in PvP (I played with rogiers rapier for almost the entire game but its not made for PvP)
    The open world and the fact that torrent becomes unavailable in PvP means people can hide in almost unreachable places, which makes Invasions incredibly frustrating and a few more minor issues stopped me from PvPing altogether.
    However overall it is one of the best games Fromsoft ever made and an absolute recommendation from me. Especially to people who are new to Fromsoft games, as I found it very beginner friendly.
    Crafting seemed useless to me at first but proved to come in handy from time to time. Plus the fact that there are crafting materials everywhere made exploring the world feel more rewarding.
    Its definitely game of the year contender and one of the best single-player games of all time.
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  22. Aug 21, 2022
    10
    Elden Ring is the game of the year for me. Its incredible masterpiece. Crown of the souls games. I want more games like this or just dlcs. I recommend everyone who wanna meet a souls game, but didnt do yet and for sure must play for any souls fan.
  23. Nov 14, 2022
    10
    Absolutely brilliant game. Not the normal Dark Souls that I love, but it's damn close.
  24. Mar 6, 2022
    10
    A masterpiece in gaming that will never be forgotten. This is generation defining.
  25. Sep 1, 2023
    9
    The gameplay and world are outstanding.
    I personally found the ending underwhelming.
  26. Mar 23, 2022
    10
    The best game ever made. Skyrim or Zelda are not even close. Fromsoftware are the best
  27. 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.
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  28. Nov 23, 2022
    10
    At last... an open world game that doesn't hold your hand while ramming exposition down your throat and throwing a bunch of objectives at you. goat 11/10

    Gotta love the dad of war shills review bombing this game lol
  29. 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
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  30. 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
Metascore
94

Universal acclaim - based on 60 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 57 out of 60
  2. Negative: 0 out of 60
  1. 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.
  2. 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…
  3. 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.