Recently released gameplay footage for Elden Ring, FromSoftware's latest dark fantasy action RPG, has revealed new weapons, new skills, new spells, and new modes of combat players can use to fight their way across the fantasy world of the Lands Between. There's also several new gameplay mechanics that transform the "Soulslike" formula Elden Ring is built around, while also giving players new tricks they can theoretically use to complete "Pacifist Runs," play-throughs of Elden Ring where they bypass obstacles and defeat major bosses without every directly attacking them.
Pacifist runs, attempts to beat a combat-focused video game with zero bloodshed (on the part of the players), are intriguing for several reason. Much like speed runs, they're a great way for video game-streamers and content creators to show off their skills and knack for using quirks of the video game's engine and mechanics in ways the developers didn't intend. Pacifist runs of video games also challenge the makers of "violent" video games to question the assumptions baked into their design process and hopefully inspire them create games like Dishonored 2 or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, where violence is just one of many tools players can use to progress.
In previous FromSoftware RPGs such as Dark Souls 3, pacifist runs were extremely difficult to pull off without the use of game glitches, and next to impossible in games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where the player is required to finish off enemy bosses with "Deathblows." The various new features displayed in the latest gameplay preview for Elden Ring, however, may unlock new options and strategies for players interested in completing the RPG without staining the hands of their players with literal or metaphorical blood.
Elden Ring Pacifist Run With Stealth & Sleep Arrows
In the open-world map of Elden Ring, players can explore on foot or on horseback. Within this sprawling overworld, a ruined fantasy realm called "The Lands Between," players will be able to collect resources, discover secret items, and encounter roaming packs of enemies that can be fought, evaded, or dealt with by other means.
In the preview trailer for Elden Ring, there's a scene where a scimitar-wielding player character uses a telescope to spot the enemies guarding a caravan, then opens their crafting menu to create a handful of "sleepbone arrows." Crouching and sneaking through the shadows and fields of grass (a basic stealth system ported from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) the player character tags a guard with a sleepbone arrow, and the enemy instantly falls unconscious.
Using just the gameplay mechanics described above, players of Elden Ring can bypass normal combat scenarios in many interesting ways. The full release of Elden Ring on February 25, 2021 is likely to reveal even more useful tricks and approaches players attempting pacifist runs can exploit; updated versions of Dark Souls non-combat spells such as "Aural Decoy" or "Rapport," crafted items that blind or distract foes, skills capable of knocking enemies back (and off cliffs), or even unique summons.
Elden Ring Pacifist Run By Using Summons To Do The Dirty Work
Battles against spectacularly designed and unforgivingly lethal "Boss" enemies have been the highlight of every FromSoftware RPG directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Elden Ring will be no different. Indeed, the Bosses of Elden Ring, generally located at the heart of sprawling "legacy dungeons," will almost certainly be the biggest challenge to players attempting a pacifist run – not just because of their difficulty, but because at least some of them need to be slain to beat the game.
One solution to this conundrum may be summoned NPCs or summoned players, "minions" theoretically capable of slaying bosses by themselves as shown in previous gameplay reveals for Elden Ring; in one scene, a summoned player character helps a wizard fight a knight on horseback, while another scene shows a sword-wielder summoning a flail-wielding NPC to fend off a demigod Boss called Godric the Golden. With a character build centered around healing, pacifist run players could potentially keep their summoned ally alive until the Boss is beaten – "defeating" their enemy without ever technically committing a violent act.