With a leaked gameplay trailer making the rounds, it seems that FromSoftware’s upcoming action-RPG Elden Ring is coming along quite well. With the pandemic in full swing, there’s no real telling when it will come out, but fans are hoping to hear more details this summer. Namco has been rumored to have a digital presentation titled “Bandai Namco Next” in the works, and fans may finally get a true glimpse at the elusive Dark Souls successor there. At least, fans are assuming that it will be something like Dark Souls.
In truth, there is a lot of uncertainty as to how the developer's comments on structural changes to the game will ultimately impact its development and release state. The leaked trailer suggests that the end result will resemble Dark Souls, but Elden Ring’s wide-open fields, horseback riding, and seemingly improved stealth and jumping guarantees that it can’t be the exact same. It’s a bold new venture for FromSoftware, and fans are anxiously waiting to see how it turns out. However, there’s a good chance Elden Ring will keep a lot of elements from the Dark Souls trilogy, and that is very much to its benefit.
Elden Ring's Aesthetic
First and most importantly, this game is being made in the same engine that produced Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro. Since it’s seemingly going back to a fantastical apocalypse aesthetic, there’s a good chance it will continue to look like a modern FromSoftware game. That means big, impressive landmarks and buildings, lots of cool armor sets that represent different fantasy cultures, and horrific, shambling monsters contrasted with model (and often giant) knights. FromSoftware is arguably the best in the industry at representing a dark fantasy aesthetic in a 3D game, and it continues to flex its art design muscles even in the leaked early build footage.
It must be reiterated how FromSoftware’s masterful art design extends not only to beautiful vistas and disgusting garbage heaps, but also to its characters. Elden Ring looks to bring back many of the more standard fantasy designs that defined Dark Souls, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
Any Souls fan knows the joyful feeling of picking up an oversized wizard hat, or a set of impossibly bulky armor cleaved directly from ancient stone and monstrous bone. Not to mention, the feeling of rising against an intimidating enemy is multiplied when that enemy is also massive (often inexplicably so for some human foes) and wretched-looking. It seems like this brilliance in visual design is intact in Elden Ring, and it’s only to the game’s benefit.
Elden Ring's Setting
No FromSoftware dark fantasy setting is complete without the narrative stylings of a world in its death throes. Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin, along with the veteran Dark Souls developers, wouldn’t have it any other way in Elden Ring. While no firm story details are known yet, it can be assumed that the land the game takes place in was ravaged by both natural and supernatural forces, and the grave misdeeds of its leaders.
Plenty of places will be utterly corrupted and ridden with maddened soldiers and twisted monsters who may have once been men. And of course, amongst all the chaos will occasionally emerge thieves and criminals who are much more competent and dangerous than their low stature suggests.
It is in this world of magic, mayhem, and a maddening mixture of both that Dark Souls shines brightest. Finding a friendly NPC in the midst of it all produces a sense of relief not unlike finding a new bonfire and making tangible progress in the game. The feeling of climbing or descending to the furthest forgotten reaches of the world and discovering a friendly dragon after fighting other dragons both real, fake, alive, and dead, inspires a sense of wonder and achievement, even if not much useful is actually gained from the experience. The dual sense of wonder and horror present in Dark Souls’ setting needs to be maintained for Elden Ring to truly impress.
Elden Ring's Gameplay
The final, and most obvious, thing that Elden Ring should inherit from Dark Souls is its general gameplay. As has been mentioned, Elden Ring is going to be a very different game structurally compared to the Dark Souls games. Traversal across larger, and possibly more vertical, areas is now possible thanks to the new design direction and mechanics that are likely in Elden Ring.
However, the old Demons’ Souls standard of rolling around and striking enemies with a staggering variety of weapons and spells needs to be kept. FromSoftware has been tuning its combat and encounter design in this type of game for years, and there’s no reason to throw it all away now. The satisfying interplay of defense and counterattacks endemic to the Souls-like genre ought to be kept.
It would also be great if Elden Ring could iterate on Dark Souls’ multiplayer. Players have plenty of great memories fighting bosses, challenging areas, and even repelling other players across the Dark Souls trilogy. Adjusting multiplayer to work with Elden Ring’s more sprawling areas will be somewhat difficult, but as long as there is a way to keep up with the host (which should be possible with a mixture of distinct areas, fog walls, and invader horse-riding), then invaders and allies can return to wage wars on bigger battlefields than ever before.
Dark Souls has garnered plenty of fame in the gaming industry for the years it’s been around. While some may feel that the term “Souls-like” is being thrown around far too much recently, the fact remains that its world and gameplay defined a winning formula. Elden Ring will be a fresh take on Souls, but its core tenets will probably stick around to complete the experience. Since FromSoftware is already the developer behind Dark Souls, Elden Ring is in the right hands to earn its place as Dark Souls’ spiritual successor.
Elden Ring is currently in development.
