Elden Ring
As part of this year's Summer Game Fest, the publisher Bandai Namco and the developer studio From Software not only released an impressive gameplay trailer for Elden Ring, but also announced the specific release date for the action role-playing game. A little apart from this large-scale presentation, however, there was another interesting detail to be snapped up - namely with regard to the multiplayer part Offer multiplayer mode. This is designed for up to four players and should work via an online connection. However, From Software has so far not revealed any further details about this part of the action role-playing game, nor has it given information about possible PvP components. In previous games by From Software there was, among other things, an invasion mode, in which you could "penetrate" into the games of other users. Co-op opportunities were also often found, but they were always deliberately designed to be cumbersome and definitely not a focus of the makers. The team may save these and other details about the content and features of Elden Ring for a later date. It is quite possible that we will learn something new even during this year's E3.The release of Elden Ring is planned for January 21, 2022 for the PC as well as for the PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The action role-playing game is created in collaboration with the well-known author George R.R. Martin, who became famous mainly because of his novel series "The Song of Ice and Fire". This served as a template for the popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Source: Bandai Namco
Is ‘Elden Ring’ Too Much Like ‘Dark Souls’ — And Does It Matter?
Is Elden Ring too much like Dark Souls?
Credit: FromSoftwareElden Ring. Oh Elden Ring.
FromSoftware finally gave us what we’ve been asking for now for two whole years: A gameplay trailer for the studio’s next big game, Elden Ring. The action-RPG is a collaboration between the Japanese studio and A Song of Ice And Fire author George R.R. Martin—a man always eager to work on projects that aren’t called Winds Of Winter.
The trailer is epic, showing off the new mount system—summonable horses that seem to operate a little bit like Sparrows in Destiny 2—and a host of enemies, bosses and plenty of combat. The world is dark and wild looking, as bleak and forlorn as any Souls game.
Indeed, many—including your humble narrator—saw the trailer and thought “Well that looks an awful lot like Dark Souls . . . .”
And it really does. The combat, the various beasts and mangled demons, the weapons and move-sets, the magic, it all looks startlingly similar to Dark Souls. FromSoftware’s games all play a bit like the Souls titles, of course, but both Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice have very distinct worlds and major innovations to combat. Sekiro especially. That game has only superficial similarities to the Souls franchise. Its tight, parry-based dueling mechanics are wildly different in practice.
The question I pose is this: Does it matter? If this is Dark Souls 4 in all but name, should we care?
That’s the subject of my latest video which you can watch below. Let me know in the comments of that video—or on Twitter or Facebook—what you think. Will the game’s mounts and open-world differentiate it enough from Dark Souls to keep you hungry for more, or is this too much of the same?
Check out a whole bunch of Elden Ring screenshots right here.
P.S. I heard about this collaboration years before it was announced, though at the time the little birds told me that FromSoftware was working on an open-world Game of Thrones adaptation. Clearly some wires were crossed—Martin is involved but not his famous fiction. That’s probably for the best. What this tells me, however, is that this game has actually been in development for quite some time—it’s not a rush job, in other words.
And screenshots like the one at the top of this post, of a character holding a torch, make me wonder if From is finally utilizing the torch-bearing mechanic that was neutered in Dark Souls II. That would be really cool. It was in that game’s beta but absent in the final release, and it really hurt the game. Having a real torch system, with truly dark areas that require a torch in hand, would add some real tension and atmosphere to the game.
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