Game Review: Elden Ring

Reviewer: Jordan Gatewood (@ironmana712)

This is a beautiful RPG with a world to discover that was created with the help of Author George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire) You start as a “Tarnished” in “The Land Between” The story is told and then the open world is yours to discover. Everything is explained and drawn out except for your role as the Tarnished Warrior. The way you uncover the story and progress is finding and interacting with NPCs that have their own personal agendas, that will also help you on your quest. It is your choices and actions that lead you to unlock and choose out of 6 different endings for your play through.

I myself have had 300+ hours into this game, and while I can’t reasonably justify that many hours for anyone else, this game does have the repeatability factor. There are only 12 mandatory bosses in Elden Ring to complete the story, but there are more than 100 optional ones that sometimes drop rare loot. The beauty I find in this game is that the game to me is your options are endless and there’s no journal or checkpoints. The world and what you choose to discovery is up to you. You can spend hours unlocking map fragments, dungeon crawling, and leveling up without making any significant progress in the story. There’s nothing making you explore this vast world, but it’s so rewarding to take your time to see what the world has to offer. Elden Ring to me is definitely able to set a standard for world building in RPGS and is one my favorite PS5 games if not the best in my opinion. It’s also worth the high price tag that I see in the new gen console games as I can’t justify spending $60-$70 for an 8-10hr game. You can easily put 150hrs in this game and make it worth your money. I think Elden ring has a great case for game of the year