Elden Ring - George R.R. Martin and Hidetaka Miyazaki

it’s a magic horse, don’t you understand? And we get a map after 15 years since Demon’s Souls. Some folks always need to complain. And the animations are history, they belong in a museum. What do you want them to do? Change history just like that?? Seriously, though. I agree, they need to get better, git gud, as they say. Bloodborne was way more original…

I think this will be the firsts Fromsoft Souls game that I will buy digital first, because who needs discs. I will play it probably for the whole year(s). I finally bought all the other ones digitally, too, out of convenience. And the physical copy does not come with something special…

I don’t understand what the problem is here. It looked like a lot of fun open-world shenanigans to me, but I’ve long since given up trying to figure out folk. You do you!

I was a little nonplussed as well.

Yeah that video looked about exactly like what I expect from this game: gameplay very similar to Souls games (emphatically not like Bloodborne or Sekiro), graphics about on par with the Demon’s Souls remake. I did learn, though, that I think I want to dual-wield whips. I kind of appreciate that the horse is just a method of fast conveyance: can fall from any height, can be launched hundreds of feet in the air by a teleport geyser, disappears into a whirl of sparks when not needed.

For the subset of people who want more weapons, more armours, more miracles, more spells, and basically more everything really it’s a wet dream though. The asset reuse is worth the expansion in options for character expression and customisation, to them. Even if the array of meaningful choices isn’t greatly expanded, having a billion-and-one combinations of weapons, armours, spells and such seems to satisfy a lot of the “Souls” community. Often specifically, but definitely not exclusive to, those who like coming up with builds for PvP.

For example, see some of the common criticisms raised against Sekiro or Bloodborne, specifically pre-Old Hunters DLC, in regards to weapon variety or the like.

that was also a bit of a weak part for me in Bloodborne, I maybe switched to a new weapon once in the whole game… and I think I never swapped costumes or very rarely for some resistances.

Weapon switching in From games seems to be an NG+ phenomenon. A lot of good ones are found late in the game when your build is already pretty well set. It’s never been too easy to adapt to what you find.

Anybody knows if there is some form of randomization in Elden Ring? Like different items or items at different places to be found. Or enemy placement? Or do they follow the formula every item, enemy is always to be found at the same location. I would love to have some form of randomization…

Same here, but Sekiro was the one that was different for me. Though I think it probably comes down to setting. And it’s such a beautiful game visually.

I wouldn’t. There are plenty of games with randomness. I want these games to be very deliberately designed.

There’s a Dark Souls randomizer mod. Probably something similar will eventually be done to Elden Ring.

If you want Random Souls you could a lot worse than to check out Arboria.

It is kind of remarkable how much mileage they’ve gotten out of this stuff with the same basic structure and engine (with enhancements). I’m trying to think of any other example of this in gaming besides Bethesda and Gamebryo, heh.

Assassin’s Creed says Buongiorno!

I’ve always been a big advocate for asset and engine re-use. Build the technology, the art, and then damn it, make multiple games from that. M&M 3, 4, 5 being so similar is what got that conversation started between me and my brother at the time. We loved the games, and we kept saying more people should build the tech and the art for one game, and then re-use it and make multiple games with that. New World did it again with M&M 6, 7, 8, which my brother was a big fan of, but I just found it too ugly to play.

NG+ in DS2 SOTFS changes enemies around. All the games should do that in NG+ mode. And there are mods now that randomize everything, including bosses.

DS1 and DS3 make it so you can’t really experiment with too many weapons because the crafting materials aren’t available until really late in the game. There are also limited slabs, until you hit the DLC, then I think you can get 6-7.

I really expect just more of the same from Elden Ring. Basically that is how the three precious DS games have been developed. And Bloodborne is perhaps the most experimental but it also offers the least amount of weapon and armor options. I haven’t played Sekiro so I don’t know what it did.

The spells really look like something special is this game though. Might be the first time I make a caster.

I am not buying till I finish Dark Souls 3. And I am not sure that will ever happen. :P

There is no armor and there is only one weapon, unless you count the “shinobi tools” that mostly aren’t weapons and work on consumables. It’s a very good game but mechanically it’s quite different, even if spiritually it’s very much the same.