Elden Ring

19 stunning Elden Ring screenshots reveal key details

Images from Steam hold deeper truths.

by Robin Bea

We’ve made peace with the idea that many of 2021’s most anticipated games won’t be released until 2022. But 2021 did give us one pleasant surprise: Elden Ring’s release date.

Sure, it’s not coming out until 2022 either, but we’re happy to know that it’s real and coming soon.

The recent launch of Elden Ring’s Steam page quashed rumors of Epic Games Store exclusivity and gave us a better look at what was shown in the reveal trailer along with a few new details.

The first tidbit on the Steam page mentions Elden Ring’s “open fields” and “huge dungeons with complex and three-dimensional designs.”

We saw plenty of open fields in the reveal trailer, but those huge dungeons are still largely a mystery.

One screenshot does show a pretty crystal-studded cavern, which surely won’t be full of horrible magic and crystalline monsters.

Mentions of “overwhelming threats” and “a high sense of accomplishment” mean we’re due for another round of difficulty discourse when Elden Ring arrives, but director Hidetaka Miyazaki has said that it will be more “manageable” than other Souls games.

The Steam page reiterates that weapons, armor, and magic will be customizable, so you can probably dress up as either of these fashionable folks if you want to.

Bandai Namco

That’s standard for a Souls game, but further confirms that Elden Ring is ditching Sekiro’s equipment-free character building.

That doesn’t mean Elden Ring will be predictable. Whatever kind of magic is going on here, it sure looks new.

The Elden Ring trailer shows a bit of multiplayer (another return to form after Sekiro), and the Steam page makes its inclusion explicit.

In addition to traditional multiplayer, you’ll “feel the presence of others” in Elden Ring through an asynchronous online component.

In other words, expect to see Dark Souls-style phantoms — or something quite like them — in Elden Ring.

The most interesting new detail on the Elden Ring Steam page may be a cryptic tidbit about the game’s story.

With George R.R. Martin on the project, Elden Ring could have a very different kind of narrative from previous FromSoftware games.

On Steam, Elden Ring’s narrative is described as “a multilayered story told in fragments ... in which the various thoughts of the characters intersect in the Lands Between.”

That seems to suggest From’s signature “figure this out for yourself” storytelling remains intact.

If the Lands Between are a place where characters’ thoughts come to life, it could explain the varied, mythic sights we’ve already seen — and hint at even stranger things to come.

If nothing else, the Steam page confirms that we’ll be getting slapped around by this giant with too many arms on January 21, 2022, when Elden Ring is released.

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