Nearly two and a half years after it was first announced, an extended look at the gameplay of Elden Ring has been released. FromSoftware's latest isn't launching until February 2022, barring another delay, but fans of the development studio's previous works have been eagerly awaiting more footage at every turn. Delivering more than what was promised, the Elden Ring gameplay preview brought roughly 19 minutes of select adventures through the Lands Between, giving viewers a wide variety of glimpses into how the game is going to be played.
FromSoftware has positioned Elden Ring as the culmination of the studio's experience from more than the last decade. A key selling point for the game is its unprecedented scope when compared to its Soulsborne predecessors, which - while expansive - don't quite fall under the commonly perceived definition of "open world." Elden Ring indeed appears to have a rather large playable area, but does well to embrace the combat, level design, and RPG elements of the games that came before.
Prior to this new gameplay preview, Elden Ring had just two trailers and a handful of interviews, webpages, and press releases to give prospective players an idea of what the game might look like in February 2022. Based on the accounts of those involved, this new footage appears to be the Elden Ring preview a select few were shown at the end of August. From the limited glimpses at Elden Ring's map screen, there appears to be plenty left to discover, but there's still a lot that can be gleaned about its gameplay and how it's advancing FromSoftwar's signature design.
Elden Ring Game World: The Lands Between
Perhaps the greatest insights provided by the Elden Ring gameplay preview video come from getting a look at Elden Ring's world, the Lands Between. Rather than the tightly designed levels of previous FromSoftware games, the Lands Between give players a chance to freely explore wide tracts of land. The very beginning of the preview provided a name for what are effectively Elden Ring's bonfires - Sites of Grace. Not only do they provide a place for rest (complete with a bonfire-like animation when activated) but can also sprout a guiding light, which will presumably lead players to areas worthy of closer inspection. This is reminiscent of Ghost of Tsushima's golden birds, but is directly tied to Elden Ring's checkpoint system.
Traversal through the more expansive areas in the Lands Between is possible on horseback, a first for the Soulsborne sub-series. While the player's summonable steed can jump (and even double jump), there are some incredibly vertical areas in the game world. Spirit springs will let players on horseback reach new heights (literally) by launching them high into the air. This same verticality poses another question to those who have fallen off the scaffolding of Dark Souls' Blighttown one too many times: fall damage. From the gameplay preview, fall damage appears to be either non-existent in Elden Ring, or very forgiving. It's hard to tell, though, since no HUD is available in the video, and thus no health bar.
The world itself does indeed appear to live up to its Big Dark Souls reputation, and players have been provided a looking glass and an in-game map to aid exploration. Reddit user max-zilla has stitched together what was shown of the map in the gameplay preview, though it would appear to only be a fraction of the Lands Between, since the world extends beyond what was shown.
The bottom right corner of the map conveys the time of day, pointing to Elden Ring having a day/night cycle, and this appears to be accompanied by some sort of dynamic weather system. While overlooking an area just before pulling up the map in the gameplay preview, the player sees a fog-shrouded grove - or could it be the "suffocating swamp" teased on the Bandai Namco website? In other sections, there's heavy rain and lightning, and a sky overcast with bright yellow clouds.
It's unclear whether or not the entirety of the footage shown takes place in the same region, but section of the Lands Between has been confirmed to be named Limgrave. Somewhere within Limgrave - one of the player's ultimate objectives - is Stormveil Castle, one of Elden Ring's Legacy Dungeons. Though these will provide more traditional Soulsborne dungeon-crawling, there are plenty of other distractions throughout the Lands Between. The Elden Ring gameplay preview video shows the player running into all sorts of random encounters and side opportunities, including open world boss fights, caravans filled with loot, and "catacombs, caves, and mines" ripe for exploration. Players will be able to place a variety of markers on the map to help keep every destination organized, as well as beacons which are visible in the game world.
Elden Ring Combat & Item Crafting Show In Video
Elden Ring's combat appears to most closely resemble the variety present in that of Dark Souls (and even has an Estus Flask-like mechanic) but borrows elements from both Bloodborne and Sekiro. The Elden Ring gameplay preview video shows a plethora of different weapons: one- and two-handed melee weapons, shields, magic staves, bows, and a myriad of arrow types; and a selection of armors: plate armor, chainmail, helmets and hoods, robes, and leather clothes. Some of the arrows used were crafted from materials gathered in the world, which brings a new revelation that players will be able to hunt beasts and birds for their bones, feathers, and more. Here's a list of every item detailed in Elden Ring's crafting menu:
- Bone Knives - made from Thin Animal Bones to be thrown at enemies
- Bone Arrows - made from Thin Animal Bones
- Bone Arrows (Fletched) - made from Thin Animal Bones and Flight Pinion
- Sleepbone Arrows (Fletched) - made from Thin Animal Bones, Flight Pinion, and a rare flower called Trina's Lily
There also appears to be un-fletched Sleepbone Arrows, some other item craft-able in stacks of 10 that provide the same sleep effect, a couple that appear to be types of Firebombs, and a variety of others with no information aside from an icon.
The player in the gameplay preview used Sleepbone Arrows to sneak through an enemy encampment, and put unaware foes into a slumber before executing them in a single blow. The stealth is very similar to that of Sekiro, with the player crouching to avoid detection, which provides an opportunity to perform backstab attacks. Players can also break enemy stances with heavy strikes or attacks from above to deliver exceptionally powerful blows. This looks similar to Sekiro's posture mechanics, but doesn't appear to operate on the same rhythmic parry system. In general, the combat appears to be quite fast - closer to the pace of Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3. Some influence from Bloodborne's dynamic, transformable weapons can be seen in Elden Ring where "a variety of unique attacks can also be interchanged between weapons."
Elden Ring does have some brand-new offerings in terms of combat, namely mounted combat and the ability to summon spirits. The horse combat was shown near the beginning of the gameplay preview when battling a dragon (more on the dragon and other bosses below), though it can also be fought on foot. The player approaches a group of enemies burning some sort of pyre, when a dragon descends from the sky. Elden Ring's horse combat lets players use a variety of weapons, including magic, and does a good job demonstrating the agility afforded to players while on horseback. Spirits appear to be summonable throughout the game. It's unclear how exactly players acquire them, but they seem to be the phantoms of encountered enemies, summoned to fight alongside the player. At one point, five are summoned at once to battle a squad of enemies.
As for build variety, players familiar with Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne will find similar statistics in Elden Ring. A Character Status menu can be seen during the crafting portion of the preview, and seems to reveal Elden Ring's Souls/Blood Echoes equivalent to be Runes. Below the character's level and number of Runes held are the attributes Vigor, Mind, Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. These are followed by HP, FP, Stamina, Equip Load, Poise, Discovery, and Memory Slots. Equip Load is presented in the normal fraction format, but will now tell players which load category their current equipment lands them in (for instance the gameplay preview character is currently has a "Med. Load"). This will likely dictate how fast a character can roll, and may have a connection to invincibility frames like previous Soulsborne games.
Elden Ring's Godrick, Dragons, & NPCs Revealed
Although this Elden Ring gameplay preview video was primarily focused on gameplay, it provided some new details on its story through NPCs. Elden Ring's Fire Keeper analogue now has the name Melina, and a closer look at her face was given. Melina keeps one eye closed due to some sort of injury, and lighter scars can be seen on her hands and wrists. When she approaches the Tarnished sitting by a Site of Grace, she calls them a "Traveler from beyond the Fog," implying the Lands Between are isolated from other realms similar to Demon's Souls' Boletaria. It has already been explained that the Tarnished is returning to the Lands Between to reclaim lost Grace, and has to do this by killing the realm's demigods. With the introduction of the Fog, it's strikingly similar to the storyline of Demon's Souls, and there may be clues to the world's past, like how players are given hints to what Boletaria was like before the Fog.
Another NPC shown in the preview, Rogier, reveals that Tarnished are not especially rare. He's met inside Stormveil Castle, wearing a hat not quite as big as Big Hat Logan's, and mentions, "This place is bristling with Tarnished hunters, you know. They sacrifice our kind, for grafting." Though he doesn't elaborate, "grafting" is most likely what the demigod who rules over Stormveil Castle has done to himself. Godrick the Golden is a congealed mass of body parts, sprouting numerous arms from his back, including one with six fingers. Presumably Godrick the Golden rules over Limgrave (a name which seems a bit on the nose), but the other bosses shown don't have any narrative details to accompany them, nor do they exhibit Elden Ring's affinity for body horror like Godrick.
Dragons aren't foreign to the likes of Dark Souls, but the one battled in the preview appears unceremoniously, bringing back memories of the randomly encountered dragons in Skyrim. The other boss shown in the gameplay preview is encountered in a similarly organic way. A large, armored being rides a similarly massive and protected horse, and doesn't appear to have a dedicated boss arena like Soulsborne games are known to include, but is instead found in a rather open forest. Bosses like this appear to be entirely optional, presented as lucrative side content like the scattered, minor dungeons.
There were three other NPCs revealed alongside Melina and Rogier. One is right at the beginning of the preview, standing near a Site of Grace, but the player does not interact with them. Another was located in Stormveil Castle, gave the Tarnished some advice on how to proceed, and offered two directions to take - one dangerous through the main gate, the other unbeknownst to the guards which scales the Castle's perimeter. The final NPC reveals Elden Ring's pot monster to actually be friendly and in need of assistance. His rotund body became stuck in a hole in the ground, and asked the Tarnished to help by smacking him with a club. The exchange gives the impression that NPCs will be encountered numerous times in different locations, similar to those in previous FromSoftware games.
Elden Ring's Multiplayer Gameplay Explained
Multiplayer was already advertised to be present in Elden Ring, but the gameplay preview finally gave an extended look at it in action, especially cooperative play. The in-game concept is the same, with the narrator of the gameplay preview saying it involves "players from other worlds, from cooperative to PvP and invasions." The exact method of summoning wasn't shown, but other players' phantoms sprout out of the ground when entering the game like in previous games. One drawback to summoning help is the inability to ride a horse during multiplayer. The aforementioned mounted boss was fought in the preview with a phantom companion, but it's possible that it could've been confronted alone on horseback.
It's interesting that both PvP and invasions were mentioned individually in the Elden Ring gameplay video. They are often one in the same, but they've had a square/rectangle relationship in previous games, where invasions are always PvP, but PvP doesn't require an invasion. This could be a hint at the inclusion in a dedicated PvP arena somewhere in the Lands Between, but this so far hasn't been confirmed or denied. Similarly, it wouldn't be surprising to see NPC summon signs available in certain places, though this too hasn't been discussed outright.
This is by far the most in-depth look prospective players have received for Elden Ring so far. Aesthetically and mechanically, the game appears very similar to Dark Souls, but it still has a fair bit of innovation. It's unfortunate that Elden Ring was delayed by a month, but this vertical slice seems rather polished, so the extra development time was likely for the better. This may not be the final look at Elden Ring before launch, since the gameplay preview ended with a promise of more details at a later time.