ELDEN RING

Elden Ring is FromSoftware's open-world action RPG, built on the studio's Souls-like foundation but expanded into a fully explorable world called the Lands Between. Director Hidetaka Miyazaki, known for Dark Souls and Bloodborne, built the setting's mythology in collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin, whose worldbuilding shapes the game's lore without dictating its moment-to-moment storytelling, which stays true to FromSoftware's famously indirect style.

Since its February 2022 release, Elden Ring has become one of the best-reviewed games of the decade, holding a 96 on Metacritic and widely credited with bringing the Souls-like genre to a mainstream audience that had previously found FromSoftware's more linear titles intimidating. The open-world structure gives players far more freedom to sequence-break, level up away from difficult bosses, and approach the game's toughest fights on their own terms, a shift that softened the series' reputation for punishing difficulty without removing it.

Shadow of the Erdtree: The Expansion

Released June 21, 2024, Shadow of the Erdtree is Elden Ring's only major expansion, and it launched to a 95 on Metacritic, the highest score ever recorded for a paid DLC on the platform at the time. It sends players to the Land of Shadow, a new region tied to the demigod Miquella, with roughly 40 additional boss encounters and a full second act's worth of new areas, weapons, and questlines. Players are generally advised to be around level 120-130 in the base game before starting the expansion to get the most out of its boss encounters.

What Makes the Combat and World Design Stand Out

Elden Ring keeps FromSoftware's signature combat: deliberate, punishing, and reliant on reading enemy patterns rather than reflexes alone. What changes from earlier Souls games is scale. Horseback traversal, a vertical world with catacombs and hidden legacy dungeons, and full build flexibility across strength, dexterity, intelligence, faith, and arcane stats mean two players' runs through the game can look almost nothing alike. Multiplayer features both cooperative summons for difficult bosses and PvP invasions for players who want the series' classic competitive edge.

Should You Play the Base Game or Wait for a Bundle?

Shadow of the Erdtree requires the base game and a certain amount of story progress before it becomes accessible, so it isn't a jumping-on point for newcomers. If you haven't played Elden Ring yet, buying the base game first is the only real option; Bandai Namco periodically bundles both together during storefront sales, which is generally the best value if you already know you'll want the expansion.

Elden Ring's difficulty is real, but the open world gives you more ways around a wall than any previous FromSoftware game.

If you've bounced off Dark Souls or Bloodborne in the past specifically because of their linear structure, Elden Ring's world design is worth a second look. The freedom to leave a hard boss, explore elsewhere, and come back stronger changes the feel of the difficulty considerably, even though the underlying combat systems are recognizably from the same studio.