“Demo Disk” – Elden Ring – Network Test (2021) [PS5]

Demo Disk is a series of first impressions posts for new releases and quick opinions.

I had the absolute fortune of being chosen to participate in the Elden Ring closed network test. Many were not able to play it, and I humbly salute you. It was supposed to be a way for FromSoftware to check if their servers were up to snuff for online play, but testers were treated to a sizeable portion of the game—I got to play 10 hours of it! Here are my thoughts on that experience.

Firstly, if you’re not aware, Elden Ring is sort of a spiritual successor of FromSoftware’s other games, and sort of mashes them all together, then builds on them with new and interesting ideas. Brief words can’t quite do them justice, but in essence, they’re dark fantasy action RPGs with a heavy emphasis on challenging combat, extraordinarily well-crafted level design, and deep, lore-rich stories. Elden Ring continues FromSoftware’s winning streak, but gives us the pleasure of experiencing their unique brand of game through an open-world lens! And it’s much better than I would have thought. And you should buy it when it comes out.

This will, in my prediction, be FromSoftware’s best game, and their most accessible. If you haven’t yet tried any of their previous titles, or you couldn’t quite get into them, I think Elden Ring will be your ideal entry point. The gameplay is top-notch, and the new sense of exploration and adventure you get from the open-world is the best I’ve seen in the genre. Don’t worry about continuity, as this is an entirely unique story, written in part by George R.R. Martin!

Now, I’m going to try my hardest not to mention Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, or any of the Soulsborne/Souls-like kin out there. I know a lot of people still haven’t played them, so I’m going to write this review as if none of you beautiful readers have played them. Hopefully it’ll allow me to see the game through a fresh perspective, instead of an annoyingly comparative one. Let’s get into it.

Elden Ring‘s gameplay is its shining crown, its chef’s kiss, its main attraction. As is tradition, your first 20 or so hours will be spent creating a character, then selecting a preset build based loosely on typical fantasy classes. Each class offers a different outfit and predilection toward one or two of the game’s combat skills: Strength (slow, heavy weapons), Dexterity (faster weapons), Intelligence (magical ranged projectiles), and Faith (healing and fire sorceries). Regardless of what you choose, you can eventually try them all out, and anything you pick will be viable and a total blast to play. I chose the Prophet class, entirely because he was wearing a wheel around his neck, which I thought was cool as hell. He also had a bowl cut. I wasn’t prepared for how awesome a Faith character is to play. I’ll get to that in a bit.

I don’t know if the intro in this demo will be the same once the full game is out, but the beginning served as a great way to introduce the mechanics and mood of the game. I began my adventure in a tomb, as if I’d been necromanced back from the dead. My character certainly looked like he had been dead since at least last Christmas, what with his raggedy robes and bowl cut.

I made my way through the Tutorial Tomb™, and took a stab at the combat, which is unparalleled in how fluid and satisfying it is. There’s something in how FromSoftware tunes their gameplay that feels so tight and precise. To put it simply, it’s all about dodge-rolling and guarding when needed, and then taking the right opportunity to strike. If you’ve played Monster Hunter, you’ll have a decent understanding of the flow of battle. It’s a perfect balance of patience, skill, strategy, and preparation, all while maintaining your composure under duress. There’s great feeling of satisfaction from besting these difficult challenges, which are by no means meant to frustrate you, but to teach you and to better you.

Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s best iteration of combat yet, as there are so many options available that you’re guaranteed to find your playstyle—whether it’s stunlocking dudes with a giant sword bigger than a person, blasting folks with fireballs, or pelting guys with stuff you picked up off the ground. My Prophet character could heal himself, sure, but he could also spray a mist of powerful dragonfire, or produce a shockwave to keep surrounding enemies at a distance. Through his special Weapon Art, he could summon a bolt of lightning. You’ll also be able to conjure helpful NPCs into battle to help deal damage or divide crowds of foes, which is a massive boon to those who need an ease-up on the game’s challenging difficulty. There are no difficulty options as is customary for how specific these games are with their design, but the game gives you alternate ways to alleviate the challenge somewhat. But combat isn’t all there is.

Once you’ve escaped the dark and dank crypt and crept out of that dimly lit hole, you’re greeted with an honestly sensory-overloading panorama of the wide open world of Elden Ring: The Lands Between. It’s a gorgeous setting, and it’s all waiting for you to explore every inch of its beautiful landscape. Ruined structures line the distance, suggesting a storied, post-calamitous past for this land, one that will take copious slathers of lore-sleuthing and foe-slicing to uncover. That’s my favourite part.

But this isn’t such a ruined country that it’s bereft of life or color. Life and color take center stage, in fact, with serene sunlight pouring through the openings in the painterly veil of clouds, the omnipresent glow of the distant world-tree bathing the land in a euphoric golden radiance. We see lush forests and grasslands, boundless ocean, swamp, castle, dungeon, everything that a good—no, great—setting needs.

The bane of the usual open-world game is repetitive gameplay, but Elden Ring makes sure to have no two encounters ever be alike. From a gameplay perspective, the open world is absolutely teeming with things to do. On one of the roads, I found a caravan being tugged forward by two slave-driven giants, a congregation of armed men in tow. I picked off the guards, took down the colossal drivers, and opened their trove to find an awesome looking set of armour, which also proved to have the best stats.

You’ll organically happen upon dungeons rife with strange creatures and interesting treasures, of which I found many, even just in this short demo. The bosses are sights to behold. I’ll keep my other discoveries close to my chest, because everything I found was surprising and engaging, and I don’t want to tarnish your excitement for when you get to play it.

There’s another brand new mechanic, and that’s jumping. It doesn’t seem like much compared to other games that have had a jump button for years, but there’s potential for some exciting changes with its addition. It just needs to be used right. It gives us the ability, of course, to hop up and down ledges, allowing for greater diversity in level design. We can get more vertical areas, which we can reach via platforms, and we can get to new horizontal locations by jumping across gaps. It just makes an open world a bit more exciting.

But for all these great new additions, possibly the best one is being able to ride a horse. Torrent, the game’s spirit horse-bull hybrid companion, gives us one of the best iterations of horse-riding and mounted combat that I’ve seen to date. At a whistle, he instantly appears right under you. His movements are nearly as responsive as your player themselves. His double jump ensures that you won’t get caught on any terrain, and makes riding him actually vital to exploration besides just being faster. Combat on Torrent is smooth and extremely powerful in many situations (especially say, in slaying a giant, or a dragon).

Torrent basically fixes everything wrong with horses in every other game that I’ve played, where you’d sacrifice control for speed. In other games, I’d end up opting to be on foot so as to not deal with the annoyance, but Elden Ring doesn’t force us to make that sacrifice. I still trudged my way through The Lands Between without Torrent for a lot of my game time, but only so I could take my time and fully soak in the uniquely beautiful world that FromSoftware has crafted.

I can’t say much about the story, because the network test doesn’t give us very much to work with. FromSoftware have always been masters of burying narrative in scarce dialogue and cryptic item descriptions, instead of exposition-dumping cutscenes. It works well. There’s added enjoyment from piecing together the puzzle of the story and characters’ motivations, while also letting players just enjoy the engaging gameplay without worrying about the why. I fit somewhere between those two camps: I’ll loosely try to put together what I can of the story, but I’m mostly there to slay demons and dragons and stuff. I’m very excited to see how Elden Ring‘s story will play out in the end, seeing as a highly accomplished author has had a hand in its writing.

The sound design and music of Elden Ring are just what it needs. There’s not much music happening in the background, except for the occasional angelic drone of low strings, which is surreal and beautiful. We’re mostly left in silence, to be attentive to the sounds of our surroundings: leaves, grass, water, or the moans and grunts of enemies. It’s only during the intense battles against bosses that we hear oppressive choirs, soaring string sections, and cacophonous percussion. They really serve to put you in panic mode, to show you just how menacing and mythical some of these creatures are.

From the little I got to play, without hyperbole, I can tell that it’s going to be one of the greatest games of all time. Again, if you’ve not played a FromSoftware game, Elden Ring is going to be the most player-friendly one out there, once it comes out on February 25th, 2022. I hope I’ll see you in The Lands Between!

shhwonk, in his natural habitat, is commonly found brandishing his weapon of choice: his 8-string guitar. He is fascinated with studying video games through a critical and artistic lens, and aims to find the joy and positivity in everything he writes about. He is a video game music composer and producer with a love for progressive rock, metal, and chiptune.