I did not hear anything. I was not feeling anything. It was like being in Elden Ring Runes a space. All the texture, all the personality that the door once held in its creaking joints was gone, replaced with a whispery smoothness that hid its existence instead of providing flavor to the world.

This is Elden Ring with no learning curve. It's a process which has FromSoftware essentially throw players into the deep end and encourage them to swim to ensure safety. Perhaps the user interface could be a bit more specific? I suppose so. Can the developers make a concerted effort to further enhance the combat mechanics, moving past the confusion of the previous versions? Sure, anything is possible. Personally, however, I wouldn't desire a game that runs as every other game.

It helps to get a surprising amount of pleasure from Elden's repetitive die-retry loop Naturally, and it's refreshing to be able to see FromSoftware persistently adhere to its decades-old conventions. Akin to a project that rejects modern sensibilities such as high-definition graphics as well as faster frame rates in order to achieve the desired aesthetic, Elden Ring wouldn't be an appropriate successor to the Souls lineage in the event that it didn't graciously ask players to alter their behavior to its eccentricities rather than it being the opposite.

But, let's be clear: Elden Ring isn't what It and the predecessors are claimed to be by ardent fans as well as detractors. The newopen-world system appears to be an intentional choice made by FromSoftware to extend a fig leaf to buy Elden Ring Runes folks who had a blast playing previous Souls games, many of which were more linear as Elden Ring.