Who is *NOT* going to be playing Elden Ring, hmm?

...an abomination!

I’m not. I like games with a quick payoff. I’m not going to walk around an endless field of grass. I need a hook to catch the passion for a game.

No, I am the Lisan Al Gaib!

I played my first FromSoft game in January of 2021 and have since spent around 450 hours or so playing 5/6 of their games. That's almost 50% of my game time in the last 12 months and I have played around 30-40 games in 2021.

Elden Ring will be no different, I imagine 150-200 hours in this game.

@mrbojangles25: Yeah, pretty much my thoughts also.

After Lost Ark was the worst game I have played in quite a while, I need something to cleanse my mind of that game. Maybe this is the game I am looking for afterall, it is an ARPG (thus a similar genre). So this game might just be hte right game at the right time.

After the reviews are out, and you see a metric ton of praise from everyone, you will buy it. A game created with passion, no mtx tactics to lure you into their mtx store which they also don't have, meaty dlc's that are only $15 and probably the game that will offer the highest amount of quality content for $60 in 2022.

How exactly did it took you this long to try their games?

@hardwenzen: I never liked hard games. I read comments like people saying the easiest dark souls boss was 100x harder than Sigrun on GMG. I am also incredibly OCDish and the thought of losing souls/xp made me avoid them like the plague. Obviously those statements and opinions I read were full of shit. I also beat every 5/6 Fromsoft games 1-4 times each and barely lost any souls at all . (I always play safe)

it was only with Demon's Souls on PS5 that I thought, **** it I'll give Fromsoft games ago.

Absolutely fell in love with them.

I put Sekiro and DS3 as my third and fourth favourite game of last gen (after MGS5 and TLOU2...) , that's how much I loved them. have not played Bloodborne yet (waiting for remaster) but sure it would be top 10 somewhere. DS1/DS2 were a little to old and dated to be placed in top 10 but still really enjoyable games.

To think I almost missed out on all of them.

Not me. I'll go as far as Jedi Fallen Order for my Souls-likes, but other than that...

lol. I feel the exact same way.

1. sometimes the more powerful one has a worse port.

2. I heard the dualsense features for this game and feel great for single player games.

just saying.

how did returnal flop? its praised by many websites including digital foundry.

A game no one really knows about and on a console that only sold 10 million or so.

sony also bought them after this games so im sure it impressed the right people.

If this game gets an 8 here, how epic will your meltdown be?

Zero chance of it getting anything under a 9 because GS staff is full of Fromsoft fans. I am even expecting a 10, something i would very rarely expect from a game.

Flop score

Flop blurry 1080p graphics

Flop sales

Flop quality

We will see how it does. I expect the game to score a 9.

Either way, I will get the game if I cannot scrape off the shallow experience Lost Ark left in my mouth. I need an ARPG to make me forget the awful taste left by that game. And as it happens, Elden Ring looks to be the best ARPG released in quite a while.

£32 on Xbox, cheapest I could find and certainly worth a punt.

Bit worried its that price already, but hopefully its a good game.

What so bad about LA?

What isn't bad about Lost Ark? I'm serious, is there one thing about Lost Ark that is good? It's free, I guess.

The mission structure: You go to a place and click on 5 things and talk to an npc. You go to another npc and talk. Then back to the first npc and talk. Then back to the other one and talk, and then to the first one again and talk.

That's basically the missions in the game. Repeat this a million times.

You don't get any experience, it would seem, from killing enemies. You get it form missions. Which means you will focus on doing the missions, which are horrible.

The combat seems ok, at best. The thing the whole game should be about. Don't really know though, as I just mash my available skills without any thought until everything dies. Not sure how long you can play the game like that, but definitely over 20 hours.

The graphics are really bad. It's shiny perhaps, but the designs are all horrible making the game look like shit.

I don't give a shit about the story, but if you do, I can confirm it's absolutely terrible.

Not sure how to explain this. Lost Ark is one of the most shallow MMOs I've ever played. Probably one of the most shallow games I've ever played. I don't even know why it's an MMO. So I can do all these incredibly boring things with 50 other idiots running around making everything cluttered? Awesome.

@Litchie: So i imagine that you didn't play it for long and early game is your experience with it? The story, short and boring side quest (typical of an mmo), the game being too easy early on, unreal engine 3 graphics are all bad. But from what i've read, heard and seen, the endgame is very different. There are a lot of different challenging content and the combat system at level 50 opens up quite a bit. A good combat system with a lot of flexibility and a vast endgame is not what i'd call it being a shitty mmo.

@hardwenzen: Yeah, the game might be better after 30 hours. Too bad the road there is absolute dogshit.

What mmo isn't? Its like the stand of an mmo. If the endgame is good, its worth the time investment. Thing is, in the large majority of mmo's that coming out, they don't even have a god damn endgame, so its shitty questing into nothing. And with games such as New World, you have a pathetic combat system to boot😂

WoW was fun up to lvl 60, less fun on endgame. Comparing classic WoW to LA, it's not even funny how big a piece of shit game LA is. And it's released 18 years after WoW. I thought Guild Wars kinda sucked compared to WoW back in the day, and it was a million times more fun than LA.

If a pay-to-win K-pop Diablo clone in the form of an MMO is appealing to you, go for it man.

I never played WoW, and couldn't care less about it, but i do know that it offers a lot of content. I did play shitload of guild wars, tho and liked it a ton, and the coop based instanced structure it had is exactly what i am looking for in an mmo. Couldn't care less about the k pop cringe, and if the combat system is solid with some large amount of endgame content to use said combat system in, that's already better than almost all mmo's on the market. This isn't saying much because the genre is dead, but still.

@hardwenzen: LA is not worth your time. You liked Guild Wars, so you've experienced an ok MMO. GW is.. I can't even explain how much better a game it is than LA. More variable quests, more fun gameplay, better graphics, better story.. If there's a good combat system in LA after 30 hours of gametime that magically makes you ok with suffering through hours upon hours of really shit game design.. too bad they wasted it on a shit game.

To me, i don't think any mmo will ever beat GW1, and that game wasn't even an "mmo", but more of a coop rpg. Ever since, i am trying to find something similar, but there's no such thing.

I miss it too. Was different to WoW in a way I liked. Tried to get my WoW-playing friends to play it with me, but did not succeed. Ended up playing alone and with random people and still had a great time. Never tried Guild Wars 2, as I was burnt out on that type of game at the time.

Bit lame you never experienced classic WoW.. Was quite the experience. Older people than me would probably say the same thing about Everquest..

Definitely going to play it ... but maybe not on launch day, perhaps when it gets a nice price cut, i mean it looks great but i can wait a bit.

@Litchie: What Gifford83 there said.

Pretty much any nintendo fan.

You can't play Elden Ring if you're a Nintendo fan?

I don't like overly difficult games. That doesn't mean there is something "wrong" with me.

Who said its overly difficult? Its an open world game. If you have a hard time with a certain spot you were in, simply do something else, then come back later, and with newly gained levels, you will go through it easily.

It makes me feel like you are either delusional or some strong hallucinogen.

Avowed, Starfield, ES6, Outer Worlds 2 - all will be bigger games than Elden Ring.

Bigger=/=better🤣

And the fact that you put Outer Worlds 2 in the same category as Elden Ring, just tells me that you're clueless and have no idea how much better ER is gonna be. Ass Creed is also bigger than ER. So? Enjoy your fetch quests x100000😆

Sure, bro. It's an RPG. So, the comparison is valid.

Not everyone likes Souls games.

I am not going to bash Elden Ring, I am sure it is going to be great for what it is. But, to make ludicrous statements like "This awful game will crush everything Microsoft can produce for the next 10 years." is quite asinine.

You're full on bovine right now - you need to tune down the moos.

BRO... have you read the previews? The nicest language being uses is "punishing".

Are you one of those people that play their games on the Journalist Difficulty (Easy or Very Easy) in very game? If not, you will be perfectly fine in Elden Ring. This is not something like Sekiro where you have one main path, and until you git gud, you will die a lot. You can do a ton of stuff on the side. This will get you levels, and with gained levels, you can come back to where you were stuck, and run through it easily/easier. Man the f*ck up, dabear.

I never go past "normal".

Will I be fine? IDK - that's why I am waiting for in-depth reviews before I buy it. I have never said Elden Ring is "trash" or "terrible". Never. All I have ever said it that it's a "wait and see" for me because I have played a Souls game (Dark Souls 2) and quit after10 hours. I am not dropping $70 on a game that I know I will not play.

@dabear: As i have said, its an open world game. You are not forced to hit your head against the wall to progress. You find a certain boss too difficult? You have dozens of other places to go through. Some will be easier or much easier, while some might be even harder. You have the freedom to chose what you want to do, so it being "too difficult" shouldn't be a concern. And when you're reading a review/preview, you should take into consideration that these journos are always rushing their games to release the article. They're the ones that might reach a certain spot in the main story that is difficult, and because they don't have time to explore the world, they're the ones that's gonna be hitting that head against the wall until they beat a challenging boss or a level. YOU don't have to play like that because you have time to play it on your own pace, and since its an open world game, you can play it slow as fk... i know i will.

I actually enjoy being stuck on a boss for hours, so i ain't backing up from challenging areas. I am more worried of overleveling boss/areas of the world, and then run through it like it was nothing.

That maybe true. But, I am going to wait and see before I dive in.

I do not enjoy being stuck on a boss for hours.

@dabear: You're trying to have a conversation with a 100% pure breed internet troll.

I play my games on normal usually. It's very rare for me to change the difficulty of a game. Having played and beat most of FS games I'll say that DS2 is not really a great way to get into this type of game. It's not just the worst Souls, it's not a good game at all.

DS2 it's not just punishing, it's cheap too, which is something that usually FS games are not. As challenging as they are they tend to be fair.

But this will obviously be another challenging title. I we all know what to expect. I'll say that DS is more about persistence, self control and learning your enemies than difficulty through execution.