My First Soulslike#

Elden Ring was my first Souls-like. It’s always daunting to jump into a hard game, specially given how Dark Souls is famously known for being very hard.

I started playing around launch in 2022, and now in 2026 I got all the achievements and finished the DLC. It’s a game centered on external growth and improving as a player, which makes for a frustrating yet rewarding experience.

It’s one of the best games and the best experiences I’ve ever had, which puts Elden Ring on the highest shelf: 10/10.

This review focus only on the base game. the DLC will be reviewed on another post

A New Genre#

It’s not everyday you play a new genre for the first time. I wasn’t going to play Elden Ring at all, then a streamer I watched at the time bought the game, and stream by stream I started feeling that itch. Skip forward a Week and I bought it.

I knew nothing about it except it was very hard. And right at the start From Software makes sure to set expectations straight: the first enemy you encounter is a grafted scion boss and it demolishes most players quite quickly. Session by session I got used to what ‘Soulslike’ meant and started adapting. After all this is what external growth means: you adapt and become better.

Elden Ring wasn’t just a new experience for me though. It’s the first soulslike to feature an open world. Right after the tutorial it opens the world to the player. For me personally it means that if I can’t beat a boss, I could go and explore other dungeons, other bosses and come back stronger. I believe that this was the best souls game I could start with because while very hard, it’s very welcoming.

The Path of Grace#

You’re guided by the grace of gold to your primary objectives. Following the grace from the beginning will get you straight to Margit, but for me it wasn’t quite easy as ‘get to margit’. I got stuck at the village where you get the Limgrave map and it was the first of many times I felt ‘This game isn’t for me’. Then after many attempts I killed the Troll (just to be killed right after by a random archer).

I struggled quite a lot until I got to Margit but nothing was quite like dying over and over multiple times to the first real boss. Learning to play Elden Ring and learning to enjoy Soulslike was, in a way, learning to constantly face the feeling that it wasn’t my place. And deciding to step back and explore the rest of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula was also understanding how the game works.

The Environment#

Elden Ring has amazing environments. While exploring I could go to any direction and find something to do along the way. Caves, Dungeons, Settlements, Overworld enemies and bosses. These areas are really helpful for leveling up, exploring the lore and learning how to use your kit: weapons, dodging, ashes of war and summons. They also provide loot: more weapons, talismans, crafting and upgrading material. You don’t have to do any of these to beat the game, but the game has plenty to offer for the explorers. During my first hours exploring I found the Bloodhound’s evergaol, killed it and used his weapon right until Farum Azula

For someone who didn’t know what to build, it meant: exploring, looting, testing and repeating. This is the foundation for a 10/10 game world. I connect this sort of game design a lot with Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild: create a world that rewards exploration, rewards experimentation and allow each player to trace their own path. This is in stark contrast with other open world games like Ubisoft’s where you have a giant open world that feels mostly empty and a ton of collect-a-thons to force you to explore it.

Speaking of Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring also has a decadent world. We play in the remains of the civilizations that came before. The entire Limgrave and Weeping Peninsula are in ruins, devasted by the shatering war. And then in one of those ruins I found a chest with some magic smoke. The chest took me to the heart of the shattering war.

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome#

Elden Ring usually gives you multiple ways to tackle a challenge. You can find the 2 halves of the Dectus Medallion or you can climb the tunnel around it. You need any 2 Great Runes to enter Leyndell, from whatever shard bearers you prefer. Sometimes the best way is to not tackle the challenge at all. Being transported to a tunnel in Caelid, a higher level area, I had to learn the hard way to ignore everyone around me. Of course avoiding enemies means I’m not getting any runes and not leveling up, but it’s also a skill on it’s own to master

Sometimes the boss run back is farther away, sometimes there’s no Marika Stake. Sometimes you have to adapt and ignore everyone to get to a Boss with a full health bar

The Bosses#

As any souls games, bosses are the core of it. Elden Ring has plenty, over 200 in fact. There are dungeon bosses, overworld bosses, night bosses; everywhere you go you are guaranteed to find a boss along the way. At the start it might seem daunting having to face this many enemies, but there are only a few required bosses.

In order to beat the game you need to get Great Runes. There are a total of 7 shard bearers in the game: Godrick, Rahdan, Renalla, Rykard, Morgot, Mogh and Malenia. You need any 2 great runes to reach Leyndell, and Morgot is a required fight, so you’ll need to kill at least 3 big bosses. But counting all the required bosses, you have to beat a minimum of 11 Bosses to beat the game.

This just put into perspective how much content there is. less than 10% of the bosses are required, there’s just so much to explore and fight in the lands between.

Legacy Dungeons#

Even though Elden Ring has a rich open world, it still features some linear areas. These are called legacy dungeons and there are a few scattered throughout the map: Stormveil Castle, Raya Lucaria Academy, Volcano Manor, Leyndell, Elphael etc.

These have gameplay loops closer to what you’d expected on another souls game: a big closed environment, plenty of enemies to explore and a few checkpoints here and there, finishing in a boss fight. But don’t mistake their linear nature with ‘just walk forward’, there’s still an environment puzzle aspect to it. I can’t count how many times I got stuck walking in a loop around volcano manor because I couldn’t find the path forward.

What’s good about legacy dungeons is that they make the game more balanced. It’s not only open world exploration and not only linear dungeons. The mix’n’match helps prevent fatigue, introducing more variety.

Questing#

If there is one point where it doesn’t hold your hand, it is questing. It’s crazy how many quests there are in this game. There were quests I got to know only after finishing 100% of the game, characters I had never seen.

You don’t have a journal tracking quests or anything showing available quests or rewards ready to pickup. That tracking is entirely up to you, so when any NPC asks for a favor, write it down and remember to talk to them again.

NPCs also move around and sometimes they might not be where you expect them. Sometimes you can skip very large sections of quests. I would bet that most people who did Ranni quest only started the quest upon reaching Caria Manor, when in reality the quest starts on Kalé.

Speaking of which, Ranni’s quest line sits with Millicent as 2 of the best quests the game has to offer. With Ranni you get a glimpse into the past, the night of black knives, stealing the rune of death, the eternal cities. With Millicent you get this story where she’s trying to find herself, and in the process reach Elphael and Malenia. I just love her line:

Tell whoever put you up to this. That if I am to flower into something other than myself, I would rather rot into nothingness as I am.

Lore

Elden Ring’s lore is the chain that has bound me forever to it. The game’s main story is explained in a few cutscenes and NPC dialog. The gist of it is that Queen Marika has shattered the Elden Ring, her children have fought for years attempting to claim each other shards. After long years the Tarnished have been called back to the lands between, with the goal of mending the shattered Elden Ring. At the start, the game present the champions racing to become the newest Elden Lord, most of which have titles and past achievements. You though, are a tarnished of no renown.

But then the game tells the rest of the lore through item descriptions and environmental story telling. Through it you discover more about the shattering war, about Radagon betrayal. You find out about the ancient dragon civilization, about their downfall and eventually the golden order rise.

The more you dig, the more Elden Ring has to feed you. George RR Martin and Miyazaki did a job beyond spectacular with this lore. The game is coherent and solid where it matters most, but it’s also open to interpretation. It’s a perfect playground to spend some time wondering about the what-ifs and enriching the entire gaming experience.

I would argue that just as Tolkien did a perfect job writing the Lord of the Rings and expanding his world, making everything fit together with such complexity and every character still staying true to itself, Elden Ring might be (at least for me) the Lord of the Rings of this generation. If they ever released it as a book or collection expanding on the world, I would not think twice before buying it.

Change comes to us all#

In terms of soulslikes, this is definitely the gateway drug. Not soon after I got Lies of P (which there has a review being baked too) and I have all dark souls and Sekiro wish listed on steam.

I leave Elden Ring a different person than when I started. It was a 4 year journey with pauses, but I cannot summarize the impact this game had on me. I’m definitely a better player and not as afraid of starting other harder games. I could have spend the time playing the same old games, not experimenting and hiding behind what’s comfortable. I stepped out of my zone I was greatly rewarded back by the game.

Usually I prefer to write a short conclusion with the final score, but this one deserves more since it’s my longest review so far. I’ve heard quite a lot that Malenia was the hardest boss in the game and perhaps the hardest soulslike boss ever. This created a desire to beat her.

Not only I had this objective (which I eventually), but I got pretty deep into her lore and her brother Miquella. They are twins born cursed. Miquella was cursed with abundance, he’s eternally in this state of growing up. He has this power for starting new things and letting them flourish. Malenia on the other hand was cursed with decay. She is constantly battling the spreading scarlet rot. I’d forgive you to think that one represents life and the other represents death, but it’s not that simple.

Although Miquella is constantly creating, often his projects aren’t complete. His eternal compassion is a driving force for letting everything flourish, but when it’s time for him to ascend to godhood, he lets go of everything, even his love. It’s a reminder that we have the power to create and seek for a better world, but we cannot give ourselves up on the process. If we lose who we truly are, all our goals become pointless, to the point where Miquella was using his love as a weapon to force others into submission.

While Malenia is cursed by the scarlet rot and it constantly decaying and dying, we learn through her backstory she found a way to fight against it. It’s important to remember that Rot and decay isn’t inherently bad: in real life, yogurt, beer and wine are examples of using rot to our advantage. Grapes themselves decay, but through this process they ferment into wine, they are transformed. And the way Malenia found to fight was constant transformation. She uses the power of moving water to reduce the effects of the scarlet rot. It’s a reminder that if we stay still, our environment will decay. The room gets messy, the garden stops being pretty, our abilities get worse with time. If we are to live to our fullest, we must remain in constant motion.

Earlier I said that I’m forever chained to Elden Ring. That’s on a physical level:

It’s a constant reminder that I can create anything I want, but I should never lose myself of what makes me unique. And while naturally things tend to decay, I must be constantly transforming myself and taking care of everything around me.

Just as still waters turn foul, stagnation leads to decay. Warriors must remain ever-drifting.

10/10