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I’ve been trying to fight it all year.
When I was playing Elden Ring in February, I knew immediately that it would be treated as a given when the Game of the Year season began. While I loved FromSoftware’s open-world fantasy epic, I had quite a few gripes with it that I felt were overlooked in its immediate hype cycle. I encouraged the Digital Trends team to stay open until 2022 rather than assume it had to be #1 on our December list. Such an attitude would do a disservice to the wealth of excellent games that would surprise us upon launch, from Neon White to Vampire Survivors. As the year reached its final quarter, the staff even began to come together Immortalitywho was one place away from the throne.
Elden Ring Review | A nearly perfect open world adventure!
Yet here we are all those months later, and Elden Ring it really is our game of the year. And while I’ve been quietly dreading this moment for months, I can’t agree with the end result now that it’s here. His power is just that undeniable.
Collective mythology
Elden RingThe February launch sparked a massive social moment usually reserved only for long-running IPs or Nintendo’s most popular mascots. Despite FromSoftware’s reputation for creating inaccessible games that only appealed to die-hard fans, something about Elden Ring it was appealing even to outsiders who were too nervous to get into games like Dark Souls earlier.
I know because I was one of those people.
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I’ve always had a hard time getting into the Souls series. I was desperately trying to dig Bloodborne years, but I was frustrated by its difficulty. I finished the rage quitting after only a few bosses, but I never felt good about it. While I couldn’t get to grips with its action, I was mesmerized by its amazing art design and wanted to just play a version of it that allowed me to sightsee in a less high-stakes way.
Elden Ring is the answer to that prayer. By putting the Souls formula into the context of a true open-world game with unlimited freedom, FromSoftware has found a brilliant way to cater to more players beyond its dedicated fan base. Those who simply want to see a richly detailed fantasy world can spend dozens of hours wandering aimlessly. I’m confident you could play it, never fight a single boss, and still walk away from it with the beautiful landscapes of Limgrave etched in your memory for decades. It’s a Souls game that emphasizes discovery over conquest.
Such an approach seems to have immediately resonated with the wider player base. For a good month or two, social media was abuzz with conversations surrounding the game. Players took to sites like Twitter to share the amazing gear they found, comical world interactions, hidden secrets, and even perfect scenery. It was comprehensive at its peak as no two war stories seemed to be the same. There was seemingly no bottom, which meant that any individual player could be the first to discover something in The Lands Between.
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This feeling was much more common in the early days of gaming, but it’s something that has disappeared in the internet era. As you jump into something like Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you will find every detail about it meticulously plotted in every corner of the internet. You’re unlikely to experience a single original moment during your adventure unless you stumble upon some bizarre bug that gives you a day of viral fame.
Elden Ring, on the other hand, felt like completely uncharted territory for the first few months. At the time, Digital Trends contributor De’Angelo Epps noted that the fervor surrounding the game felt like a throwback to the days of online forums, where dedicated players traded their secrets with each other on message boards. “It takes me back to a time when it was just me, my brothers, sisters and cousins - and minimal internet use,” he wrote. “All we needed to find the secrets in games was our research curiosity and a rare gaming magazine.”
That’s what it ultimately does Elden Ring so undeniable. On the one hand, it’s a completely individual experience as no two players will likely experience it the same way. On the other hand, it’s a huge community project that encourages players to pass these stories on to each other, charting the collective history of The Lands Between. Every video is a historical document. Every tweet is a fairy tale floating around the Caelid pub (well, if only the Caelid had pubs).
I suspect there are games that launched this year that will be more influential in the long run. Although I expect to see Elden Ring clones for a few years, the game itself is built on titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when it comes to his access to freedom. But in the end we won’t remember Elden Ring for its specific design innovations. Instead, it will be remembered for a timeless mythology created entirely by players — both fans of the series and brave newcomers curious enough to step into The Lands Between.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn