I just want to live in Elden Ring forever

I don't mind being a filthy Tarnished. I've been Hollow before, and an Ashen One. I've been the Chosen Undead and the Bearer of the Curse. But I've never played a game quite like this before.

There is a tower looming in the distance, across a wide abyss. Like everything else across this hoary plain, it is grey and crumbling and shrouded in fog.

Music plays quietly against the harrowing backdrop, but it’s far from welcoming. More like the sound of flies buzzing. The musical equivalent of a rotting corpse.

Everything here, from the alien ruins to the denizens of this foggy nightmare, oozes menace. Even the rain feels hostile.

And then, of course, there is the dragon.

This is not the first dragon I’ve encountered in Elden Ring, nor the first I’ve run away from. This one waits ready to pounce on the only bridge leading out of this terrifying peninsula in a region of the game’s sprawling map known as Dragonbarrow.

I took a swing at this beast, woefully under-levelled for such a fight, and the foul creature one-shotted me in an instant. YOU DIED scrawled red across the screen as everything faded to black. It’s okay, we’ve been here before.

I know my limits, so the next time I crossed the bridge, galloping on the back of my noble Spectral Steed, Torrent, I grabbed my lost Runes (Souls, basically) and raced past. He gave only a half-hearted chase.

In the distance to the South, past the massive minor Erdtree and its glowing saffron leaves, I glimpsed the ramparts of some mysterious fortress. Riding past the Erdtree and its fearsome Guardian, through the curious field of giant cracked pots that lie at the base of each of these trees, I reared my horse to a halt. The dragon, Greyll, had returned to his bridge. The Erdtree Guardian had stuck to his field of pots. I could breathe a sigh of relief.

Or perhaps not.

This ancient, horned dragon makes Greyll look like an infant in comparison. Surrounded by wyverns with glowing red eyes, the creature is more a part of the landscape itself than anything.

Dragonbarrow is a terrifying place. I am not ready for this distant corner of Elden Ring. I came here through a secret teleporter I found behind the Third Church of Marika—where one finds the extraordinarily useful Flask of Wondrous Physick—and it turns out to be a very good place to farm Souls Runes. The diminutive soldiers who patrol this area are dangerous but easy to sneak up behind and backstab, and they drop over 1,000 Runes apiece. But I’m not ready for these dragons. I’m not ready for the eldritch horrors of Fort Faroth.

Why would I want to live in such a horrifying place?

Well, I don’t really want to live here, not in the sense that Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy lived in Narnia. But I do want to spend all of my time in Elden Ring. I’ve struggled to even write about the game. I just want to play it, to get lost in its mist-shrouded forests and labrynthine dungeons. I want to explore every nook and cranny of Stormveil Castle and the Raya Lucaria Academy.

Besides, the Lands Between are nothing if not varied. Not every region is as menacing and stressful as Dragonbarrow or the rot-swamps of Caelid with its blood-furnace sky.

There is also the vast and beautiful starlit subterranean realm of the Siofra River, a landscape as stunning as it is deadly. You’re far, far beneath the surface here (having taken the longest elevator ride in video game history) but it feels as though you’re somehow delving in space among the twinkling stars. Not content to create one massive open-world area, FromSoftware created another beneath it.

Or perhaps you’d like to ride across the wetlands of Liurnia of the Lakes, a lowland region of greens and blues surrounded by high cliff walls, the towering spires of the Raya Lucaria Academy glittering in the distance. Once upon a time, the learned magicians of this world studied their tomes and grimoires here. Now, everything is in ruin and the Academy has sealed its gates.

One reason that I believe Elden Ring has the best open-world game design of any video game ever made is the simple fact that all these vistas are reachable. Any tower you see, you can travel to. That cliffside over there? At its top is another entire region to explore. Here is a screenshot of my character, Kae, near Fort Faroth in Dragonbarrow looking down on Caelid from above.

When I was exploring Caelid for the first time, I had no idea there was an even more terrifying realm up above on the high cliffs to the north.

Here I am riding north of the Mistwood in Easetern Limgrave. The sea sprawls out before me, and high cliffs jut up across the water to the northeast.

Beyond those cliffs lies Caelid. From my perch high up in Dragonbarrow, there’s no way I could see all the way down to the Mistwood, but it’s there.

The sheer variety in landscape and elevation between here and Caelid and Dragonbarrow is jaw-dropping, and these are just three of many regions woven together in Elden Ring. The music changes between each area. The feel of each region is entirely different from the others. Everything feels real—not just a flat map with some hills and canyons and repetitive enemy encampments, but a like an actual living place with distant reaches to explore. Untamed, wild and dangerous. It’s hard to describe.

There is no hand-holding, either. No map markers dotting the slowly unveiled map (beyond Bonfires Sites of Grace and some points of interest you unlock such as castles or wells). There are quests but no exclamation points on the map to find where you ought to go to complete them. You must actually explore. You must study the notes and clues.

You must actually struggle and overcome.

The world of Elden Ring is designed in the same way the original Dark Souls levels were crafted. Despite being open-world, it has the same feel to it, the same sense of endless wonder. I am constantly awestruck.

When I talk about what made Dark Souls so wonderful, I often mention the bridge where you fight the red wyvern. This bridge is also where you’ll find the first major shortcut in the game—a ladder that you kick down to the Undead Burg bonfire, allowing you to finally skip the enemies you’d been dying to over and over again.

Much later in the game, in the Darkroot Basin, you can look up from the shadowy depths and see that same bridge far above you. With a little effort, you can reach the base of one of the towers, unlock the door, and clamber your way up a long staircase back to the bridge you were at hours before.

Elden Ring is different, obviously, because it’s open-world, but there’s the same sense that everything is built organically, linked together not just by pixels but by a realism and logic that few games ever bring to the table. What you can see, you can reach, but when you get there you may not like what you find. It’s captivating. I can’t get enough of it.

That I can traverse so much of this world on horseback—faster and more fluid with a handy double-jump and other perks—only makes it that much better.

Other quality of life enhancements also make the game just that much better than its predecessors. Stamina doesn’t decrease outside of combat; the HUD disappears and reappears by default; fast-travel actually makes sense given the openness of the game; a Multiplayer section in the menu so you can access all those Finger items to summon, invade, etc. without bogging down your inventory. It’s like every good lesson FromSoftware learned from all its other games was put to good use in Elden Ring.

It’s marvelous.

The combat is also phenomenal, whether solo or with Cooperators. Many bosses are entirely optional, which is only new in scope not in kind, but those who you must face you can manage solo with the help of Spirit Ashes and NPC summons. Margit the Fell Omen is a beastly first mandatory boss, but I’ve beaten him twice with the help of the sorcerer Rogier and my Chrysalid Spirit Ashes. Other bosses will be much harder to solo but make for good sport with some friends. Just be very aware that many of these bosses introduce move-sets that will be very unfamiliar to veteran Souls players. FromSoftware keeps us on our toes, no doubt.

Little changes, like Guard Counters which allow you to block and then instantly attack, can be a powerful (if risky) new tactic in battle. Assigning Ashes of War to your weapons unlocks countless possibilities. Then there are the spells, the incantations. So many options.

Elden Ring is one of those rare games that captures every ounce of my attention and simply refuses to let go. I’ll be honest: I find myself bored with a lot of video games these days. Perhaps I’m just getting old. So much of the time, games feel padded with tedious content, or bogged down with lackluster stories and combat.

I find myself mostly wanting to play online games like Call Of Duty with friends (perhaps because we all starved a little for social interaction the last couple years) but Elden Ring gives me that ability while also remaining a solid single-player experience with a story that’s at once opaque and enthralling.

I was playing yesterday with my brother and his friend, all three of us in a party on Xbox, but none of us actually playing in the same game instance, having not reached any suitable boss fight since the last great foe, and all in our own corners of the Lands Between. We played together and yet apart, and it was glorious. Not quite jolly cooperation, but when that need eventually arises, well, Praise the Sun! We will fight and die together.

There is so much to do, so much to explore, such an adventure to embark upon in Elden Ring, that I think I could set aside every other game and just live here forever. I have put in dozens of hours already, and will put in dozens and dozens more and I’m sure even then there will be more secrets to unearth, more spells and Ashes of War (weapon skills) to try out, more unique weapon drops to find, more builds to test out. More dragons to kill.

Elden Ring is out now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. Even if you’re new to Dark Souls games, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Even now, as I type these words, I’m itching to get back to my trusty steed, my Crystal Sword, the next dungeon to delve and the next castle to storm. There is no other game like it.

*All these gorgeous screenshots are from my time on Xbox Series X.

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