OP
VGC - 5/5
Eurogamer - EssentialElden Ring is a fantastic game that can still deliver the unmatched thrill of defeating a tough boss after an hours-long battle. Those who worship at the church of Souls-like will find a game that's basically everything they ever wanted. There are more bosses than ever, more areas to explore, and so much lore to find that the digital archaeologists of the Souls community will be kept busy for years.
Console Creatures - RecommendedAll that said, Elden Ring remains a glorious game, one that established fans are going to savour for some time to come, and one that may just welcome new fans into the FromSoft fold. Sumptuous visual design, dark and detailed lore and a vast-but-intricate open world are reason enough to venture out into the Lands Between. Add to that FromSoftware's unforgiving and unforgettable gameplay loop and this is something truly special.
Game Informer - 10/10Elden Ring is unabashedly a FromSoft title and without a doubt was worth the wait. It provides a challenge; it gives us a vivid world that feels like a dream and challenges us at every turn.
GGRecon - 9/10Elden Ring challenged me, captivated me, and enchanted me, an unyielding deluge of discovery and artistic vision unbound. Elden Ring represents a truly amazing combination of various game elements that all come together to create something fascinating, special, and unforgettable. Elden Ring isn't just the best game this year; it's one of the best games ever made.
Metro GameCentral - 9/10It may sound reductive, but Elden Ring is a fourth mainline Dark Souls title in all but name. The game's open-world structure feels very organic - there aren't lists of activities with checkboxes that players need to cross off. The Lands Between is filled with visually stunning locations and deadly enemies to ensure that the perilous journey to become the Elden Lord is at least pretty to look at. While Elden Ring stumbles a bit in some areas, it still has all the hallmarks of what makes FromSoftware's games so enticing: it's fun, challenging, and rewarding.
VG247 - 5/5A masterful blend of Dark Souls and Zelda: Breath Of The Wild that makes high demands of its players and yet still remains surprisingly accessible and adaptable.
VentureBeat - 5/5What ultimately matters, however, is that Elden Ring succeeds at almost every goal it sets out to achieve. It's the culmination of years of refinement of FromSoftware's formula. Mechanically, and thematically, this is a game making a statement: that you can buck industry tendencies even as you adopt their trends.
The Guardian - 5/5My nitpicking aside, Elden Ring has absolutely given me more enjoyment than I've had with a game in a long while, and it has edged out the Demon's Souls remake for my favorite game on the PlayStation 5. It even looks almost as good as Demon's Souls, though I do understand why the developer had to reign in the level of detail just a bit because Elden Ring is many times larger and has much more visible on the screen at any given time.
GameSpot - 10/10Video games can be all kinds of different things, representing all manner of artistic ambitions. Most, however, share a common goal: to conjure a compelling fictional reality, filled with beckoning mysteries, enchanting secrets, and enriching opportunities to compete and collaborate. They aim to provide a liminal space in which a determined player can fix that which is broken, order that which is chaotic. By this definition, at least, Elden Ring is the finest video game yet made. Its final gift is the assurance that, whatever monsters lurk in a broken world, with perseverance and cooperation, they too can be overcome – all without losing the mystery and wonder that makes our existence beguiling, infuriating, and fascinating.
Destructoid - 10/10In a genre that has become wrought with bloated and over-designed games, Elden Ring is defiantly contrarian in almost every way. Its commitment to design by subtraction and to placing the responsibility of charting a path through its world entirely on the player makes it stand head and shoulders above other open-world titles. Elden Ring takes the shards of what came before and forges them into something that will go down in history as one of the all-time greats: a triumph in design and creativity, and an open-world game that distinguishes itself for what it doesn't do as much as what it does.
IGN - 10/10To say I was blown away by Elden Ring is an understatement. Sure it's still going to appear esoteric and unapproachable to a subset of people. There are things it could still do better in terms of onboarding, and it could do even more on the front of quality-of-life enhancements for returning Souls players.
But as an experience, it's one of the most wondrous and open-ended games I've played in years. It has so much to say from a design perspective that people will be talking about its choices for years on end, and playing it for longer.
Next Gen Base - Review In ProgressLike The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild before it, Elden Ring is one that we'll be looking back on as a game that moved a genre forward.
PC Gamer - 90/100Is Elden Ring game of the year material? Even at this early stage in the game I'd be remiss not to say "yes", sure. We've already seen Horizon Forbidden West, and Gran Turismo 7 is just round the corner. There's even the promise of Breath of the Wild 2 later in the year, but Elden Ring feels so familiar yet so fresh, a true evolution of what's come before and a game that is very likely to be in many people's top 10 lists come Christmas.
GameRant - 5/5An open world action RPG from FromSoftware that reaches new heights, but spends too much time in the familiar.
GamesRadar - 5/5However, when judged on its own merits, Elden Ring is a phenomenal game that will disappoint very few. It has most of the components that fans of the genre seek: a wondrous aesthetic, a feeling of mystery that invites exploration, skillfully designed and intimidating adversaries, and rich gameplay with a lot of replayability thanks to the various classes and builds. In the end, Elden Ring is more than just an open-world Dark Souls. It is strong in its own right, with tweaks to the classic Souls blueprint that create a refreshing new experience that still feels familiar.
MP1st - 10/10Elden Ring is both a refinement and evolution of the Dark Souls formula, presenting an expansive world that's as hostile as it is inviting. Despite the occasional excess, suffering has never been as much fun as this.
It's remarkable how well From has managed to expand to a truly open world while keeping their core gameplay intact as well as building on top of it in one massive and impressively polished package. Elden Ring is clearly the culmination of FromSoftware's past 13 years of experience and development philosophy of the souls franchise. Miyazaki and FromSoftware have crafted something so massive, special, wondrous and triumphant that it's unfathomable how they can top it. Easily FromSoftware's best game to date and a genuine masterpiece.
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