ELDEN RING Review Summary

Stunning Visuals and Atmosphere: The game is praised for its beautiful and immersive visuals, detailed environments, and breathtaking landscapes. Players appreciate the art direction, atmospheric design, and overall aesthetic appeal.

Reward and Exploration: The game offers a sense of discovery and rewarding exploration. Players find it enjoyable to uncover secret paths, new areas, and hidden content.

Challenging and Rewarding Gameplay: The gameplay is described as challenging yet fair, with a deep and demanding combat system. Players appreciate the difficulty and the sense of achievement from overcoming challenges.

Engaging and Challenging Boss Fights: Boss fights are highlighted for being intense, memorable, and well-designed. Players enjoy the variety, challenge, and rewarding nature of these encounters.

Variety in Weapons and Builds: The game offers a wide variety of weapons, spells, and character builds. Players enjoy the flexibility and customization options available.

Open world feels empty: The open world is criticized for feeling too large and empty, lacking interesting interactions, content, and rewards. Players find it boring and unmotivating due to its sparse and repetitive nature.

Lack of clear narrative: The game's story is criticized for being unclear, hard to follow, and requiring external research. Players find the narrative structure opaque and lacking direction.

Quest system requires guides: The quest system is criticized for being too cryptic and hard to follow without external guides. Players find it nearly impossible to complete quests without additional help.

Frustrating platforming: The platforming sections and gameplay are described as frustrating and difficult. Players experience frustrating deaths and challenging gameplay mechanics.

Unpredictable enemy attacks: Enemies are noted for having unpredictable and overpowered attacks, making it difficult for players to predict and react to enemy actions.

Challenging boss fights: The game includes a variety of boss fights, each with unique and complex movesets. These battles are challenging and require players to learn specific attack patterns and behaviors.

Variety of playstyles: The game offers a wide range of playstyles, builds, and customization options. Players can choose from different character classes, weapons, and fighting styles.

Complex combat mechanics: Combat in the game is engaging and involves trial and error. Mechanics include parrying, avoidance-based strategies, and a smooth combat system.

Open-world exploration design: The game features an expansive open-world design with verticality, dynamic events, and hidden secrets. Players appreciate the freedom to explore and the rich, detailed environments.

Character customization: Players can extensively customize their characters, including builds, weapons, armor, and upgrades. This high level of customization allows for diverse character development.

High-end PC requirements: The game requires a high-end PC with a very good CPU and GPU. This has been a barrier for players with less powerful systems.

FPS locked to 60: The game has a 60 FPS limit, which has been a point of contention among players. Some also experience FPS drops, adding to the frustration.

Optimization issues: The game has optimization issues on PC, with some players reporting poor optimization, while others praise the optimization.

Occasional crashes: There are reports of occasional crashes and server crashes, which disrupt the gaming experience.

Camera mechanics issues: Players have reported poor camera mechanics, including lock-on issues. These problems affect the gameplay experience negatively.

Challenging and immersive gameplay: The game is highly recommended for players who enjoy challenging and immersive gameplay. It offers deep lore and open-world exploration, making it suitable for patient and determined players seeking a unique and rewarding experience.

Highly recommended for all players: The game is recommended for a wide audience, including both fans and new players. It is highly recommended for its value and content, making it suitable for everyone.

Diverse weaponry and combat styles: The game features over 300 weapons across various classes, each with unique movements. This diversity allows players to choose their preferred combat style, enhancing the gameplay experience.

Exceptional world and creature design: The game's world design, textures, and creature designs are considered perfect. It is also noted for its cinematic quality and the discovery of new creatures and places even on subsequent playthroughs.

Immersive and enjoyable experience: The game is praised for its immersive and enjoyable experience, offering a complete gaming experience that is both unique and highly recommended for purchase.

Community fair range: $55.00 - $60.00.

Game completion: 150.0h.

Story completion: 50.0h.

Session length: 4.0h.

Endgame: 50.0h.

The game starts slow with a significant amount of initial exploration and learning, but it becomes highly engaging and fun as players delve deeper into the game world and mechanics.

Reported time to anchor: 12h.

The Completionist Explorer: Thorough and experimental, often using external resources to enhance understanding and experience. Motivation: Exploration and mastery of game mechanics. Stance: buy.

The Technical Challenger: Focused on skill improvement and technical performance. Motivation: Overcoming challenges and appreciating technical excellence. Stance: sale.

The Cautious Critic: Critical and cautious, often providing warnings and advice to others. Motivation: Avoiding negative experiences and critiquing game design. Stance: deep sale.

Steam Deck: The analysis of user feedback reveals several critical issues affecting the Steam Deck experience. Anti-cheat problems are a significant concern, with many users reporting the need to disable it for smoother gameplay. The control scheme is another frequently mentioned aspect, with mixed reviews on its ease of use and mastery. Game stability is also a notable issue, with numerous reports of crashes during character creation and gameplay. Additionally, there are mixed experiences with the Steam Deck's performance, including issues with HDR and frame generation. These factors collectively impact the overall user experience, highlighting areas that need improvement.

Linux and Proton: The game generally runs well on Linux, with many users reporting better performance compared to Windows. However, some users experience minor compatibility issues that require specific launch options or tweaks. Overall, the consensus is positive, with Proton compatibility being highlighted as a strong point.

Monetization: The analysis of user reviews for the game and its DLC reveals a mixed sentiment. While there are concerns about the high pricing of the DLC, many users find the game and its additional content to be of high quality and worth the investment. The overall sentiment leans positive, with users appreciating the depth and value of the game's content.

Mod reliance: The analysis of user feedback reveals that while many users prefer and recommend mods for enhancing gameplay and co-op experiences, there is no widespread consensus that the game is unplayable without mods. Most mentions of mods are related to preferences and enhancements rather than essential fixes.

External guides: The analysis of user feedback reveals several key issues impacting the user experience. Technical issues such as game freezing, input delays, and camera problems were frequently mentioned, causing significant frustration. The lack of quest markers and the difficulty in tracking quests were also major pain points, forcing players to rely on external resources. Navigation and exploration were challenging due to the lack of in-game guidance, leading to frustration and reliance on external maps and guides. Additionally, the game's mechanics and customization options were criticized for being unclear and requiring external resources to understand. The crafting system and progression mechanics were also found to be complex and not well-explained, often necessitating the use of external resources.

Best horse in games: Players praise the horse mechanics, considering it the best among all games they've played.

DLC requires base game: Some players express regret over not owning the game personally and having to purchase the base game to access the DLC.