https://gematsu.com/2019/06/bandai-n...uni-remastered

Holy ****!

I wonder what the extent of GRRM involvement really is. His latest blog post just says “I’ve consulted on a video game out of Japan.” while listing a ton of other stuff he’s working on.

-writing two books
-8 shows in development(5 at hbo, 2 at Hulu, one on the history channel)
-a # of feature projects
-some short films
-Meow Wolf

Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s just having his name attached to anything and everything he can while he’s still able to command a high asking price.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if he's input was a couple of meetings and some notes, I would be surprised if he had a major role in the narrative. I'm just pumped for another From Software universe to be honest.

They dropped the teaser.

obv didnt see much in the trailer, but Im really pumped From is coming back to a high-fantasy setting, hopefully this will also be more rpg than action-adventure.

Interview with Miyazaki

That's the only bit about Martin's involvement.

This was posted on Resetera over a month ago by someone who has proven themselves to be some sort of insider in the past:

It's been in development since March of 2017. I hope we get gameplay soon.

in case anyone somehow missed it:



I don't think I've ever been this hyped for any piece of media. Everything looks absolutely amazing, the character designs by FromSoft are quite simply the best in business and you just know that the gameplay will be as good as always

The only thing that worries me a bit is the horseriding/openworld aspect, since I absolutely hate openworld games, but I have enough trust in FromSoft to believe that they will pull it off without all the usual bs that accompanies such games.

Hopefully this will be more similiar in structure to DS1, with "meatwalls" somewhat guiding your progression. I also really hope that they won't introduce level scaling, this mechanic is enough to completely ruin a game for me.

Excited for this, but also a bit nervous. I have finished DS games, but failed miserably on Sekiro, barely even half way through the game. I hope the difficulty level is closer to DS levels (if even that) which I found challenging but palatable.

From the trailer it does look like the combat is a bit on the slower side of things, more heavy weapon, blocking/dodging based and not requiring lightning speed parry reflexes. I guess we'll see though.

It looks like the kind of game where I'd just like to get lost in the story a bit more, still with challenging and engaging combat, but not like, hair pulling frustration.

Yeah, I beat the full final boss of Sekiro but holy **** was it hard. I still haven't beaten the optional boss near the end which is, imo, the hardest boss in the game. It ranks up there with like Tyson level difficulty for me personally.

Recently played bloodborne for the first time which was my first Fromsoftware game. Best game i have ever played on PS4 easily just glad i tried it better late than never. Now looking at the dark and demon souls games sekiro etc have alot to catch up on.

Well you should try Sekiro then so it can change your mind about PS4 power rankings. I prob put Spiderman above BB as well personally.

This game looks really neat visually but I personally hate that style.
It is just way too creepy and depressing (as the dark souls game).
I loved lovecraft but this style is really draining (another reason I'm not a fan of PoE look).
What is that style called? Dark fantasy?
I want the same game but with slimes

Elden Ring details were revealed at Gamescom.

Included, but not limited to:

-Fast travel from anywhere
-optional areas
-multiple paths and endings
-"Legacy Dungeons" separate from the main game (think Bloodborne Chalice Dungeons)
-Enemies may have balance mechanic that can be broken similar to the main mechanic in the combat of Sekiro

Can't wait!

we got almost 20 mins of gameplay today!

some loose thoughts on what I saw:
- overall, this looks even more DS3 than I thought, and I love it, with DS3 being my favourite From game
- the core systems seem to be unchanged, with bonfires, estus and similar stats (faith build, here I come)
- the combat is definitely closer to ds3 than I expected, with rolls and weapon swings looking very familiar
- there are illusory walls, so hopefully as many secrets as in previous games
- I was very worried when they announced the "spirits" mechanic, but it looks like they are just this games' version of npc summons, so hopefully entirely optional (I hate forced coop more than anything)
- curiously, they refused to show anything about the hud - hope it's not too minimalistic, I wasnt my massive healthbars and names on bosses, for me it feels much more grandiose
- speaking of bosses, the first (mini)boss shown was looking a bit bland, but the second one makes up for easily, seems like a crossover between Ludwig and Gael

so, to sum up, looks like they are not going to far away from their formula, and I'm really happy about that. I just hope that the game being open world won't ruin it

Given the vertical nature of the world, I'm curious if fall damage is still a thing. Maybe you get access to a ring or item early on that mitigates it.

When that second boss showed up, I couldn't help it, I shouted "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!" That was before I noticed that there were much more unusual things about him than a six-fingered hand.

Also, from the treasure chest having a chain, it looks like mimics will be back in some way.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/play...n-5/elden-ring

so far, 97 score on metacritic! honestly, I couldn't be more hyped, the game was my first preorder ever and it looks like I picked the right time

8 hours in and I've finally found some lady who'll level me up... I'm terrible when there's no floating compass point holding my hand.

The yellow squiggles on the map point in the direction of important things, such as that lady.

23 Hours in and have not left the starting area.

I am pretty sure I am more attempts into Marjit at this point than the entire list of Dark Souls 1 bosses took me on my first playthrough combined.

I keep leaving, going levelling up some more, finding some better equipment, upgrading it. Coming back and trying again and don't feel any closer.

I learned to stop summoning Rogier, as it scales the boss, and he just gets torned apart as soon as Phase 2 starts and leaves you with a doubly more difficult task. Phase 1 is fairly easy at this point, the attacks are pretty slow and telegraphed. Then Phase 2 is just relentless non stop attacks and you get windows for like 1 or 2 hits.

I am very in a love hate relationship with this game. It's a masterpiece, clearly, but I don't know if I am having fun...

The scale of this game is incredible, and I've died more times than one can count. This is my first "souls" game and the tip I was given that I found to be most helpful is to watch the hands, not the weapons.

I can see why people like it, but I can also definitely see why people hate it.

For Margit, I used the NPC summon on both my Astrologer kill and when I restarted as a Wretch because I felt like the extra body to draw boss attention was pretty important. I had no idea it scaled boss health. Both kills were after my NPC helper had died, but I had enough flask juice to finish it off.

The worst is definitely when you get a boss under 10% in the first few attempts, and then spend the next 2 hours getting 1-shot right out of the gate.

The closest I came to ragequitting was on a Lion boss in the southern castle, which is the most aggressive ******* I've encountered so far and all his attacks seem to be huge sweeping motions. But then I was told how to use Ash Summons. Again, just the extra few seconds of drawing boss aggro was enough to get me the kill. I read that this makes me a scrub, which I'm fine with, because I can't imagine killing that guy without them. My favorite summon to use is skeletons, because they pop back up after being killed the first time.

I had planned on going in completely blind and not looking anything up, but I caved on day 3 and looked up the location of the item that lets you purchase smithing stones for souls.

Im over 40hrs into the game (never played that much of anything in one week in my life), being a souls veteran so far it's rather easy, but a very enjoyable experience. I'll probably write some sort of review once I'm finished, but for now let me write this:

Elden Ring is a perfect open world game, BUT it is still an open world game, a genre that I inherently dislike. So, while the experience is, as I said, great, there are still few issues I have, all coming from the genre shift:
- repetition - sure, ER is very varied FOR AN OPEN WORLD GAME, but there is still more repeating bosses and similiar areas than in any souls game before
- balance issues, an open world game like this is bound to have you few shotting trivial bosses every now and then. Plus, if you explore everything like I do, you will be a bit overleveled (which isn't completely gamebreaking due to weapon upgrades, but still means something)
- empty spaces, again, ER world is very dense FOR AN OPEN WORLD GAME, but there are still moments when you just go for a while and there's nothing there except for few random enemies and crafting materials
- finally, the fact that you can just come back later to harder parts of the game - my favourite part of souls games was the fact that you were forced to face and overcome challenges. Sure, you could farm a bit, but it's boring, plus most of the progression is through weapon upgrades, which were area-locked. So, you were stuck in place and forced to keep trying, and finally overcoming challenges felt amazing. This feeling is gone, if you get stuck you just go somewhere else. Sure, you can get stubborn and just stick to whatever you encounter, but I'm not masochistic enough to impose that on myself, I'd prefer when the game does that for me.

all that said, everything else is, well, perfect, so the game for me is still strong 9,5-10/10, with Dark Souls 3 still being my favourite game of all time and strong 10/10.

BUT I'm not even halfway through the game, and if it gets harder and more focused towards the end it might overcome DS3 eventually

yeah, Margit is a nice skillcheck for the rest of the game, I got to him a bit overleveled (like 25-30, after exploring literally everything I could find in Limgrave and peninsula) and it was still a bit of a challenge. Make sure that your weapon is +3, maybe change your build a bit.

I beat him with greatsword from the camp at the beginning, but it's not an easy playstyle, as you have to constantly be finding windows for jump attacks and charged strong attacks to stagger him, if executed correctly you will get 2 stuns and critical hits throughout the fight. Another thing you could try is bleed, I hear it's really OP, you can get it from flail that is found in the same camp as the greatsword.

As for his phase 2, yeah, the hammer makes it really hard, but if I recall correctly he still gives you a good window after his frontflip attack, so you can just dodge everything else and only go in after that. Keep in mind that the invisible stagger meter decreases overtime, so if you plan on a more passive approach, don't go with that gameplan. You should, however, be able to proc a bleed in that window. I don't use summons, but I've also heard that jellyfish can help a lot, and summoning spirits does not increases bosses' health.

I found that boss to be really easy once I stopped being greedy. One hit, wait for the next opening. Repeat until dead.

I explored everything I could in Peninsula and Limgrave and blew right through Margrit.

I do have a highly cheese build though, playing high faith invocation build. I basically just burnt him down with a fire spell and used an upgraded mob summons (demi humans).

I think I hit him with my +3 mace tuned to faith scaling only a couple of times if that.

I had a time beating the Dragon as you need to do it mounted and I dont have enough dex for any decent bow weapons.

Also agree strongly that the open world has led to some severe balancing issues.

I went through a portal to what I guess is a much higher level area, there I was able to one shot one of the regular enemies with my ashes of war attack, for 1400xp.

This is when levelling up was costing me circa 6/7K.

There was a grace point really close to a mob, so it was easy to farm, reset, farm again with no risk.

I actually opted to stop doing it once I realised how easy it was as I did not want to cheese the game too much.