Elden Ring feels like a true Dark Souls successor

I’ll admit I was worried when Hidetaka Miyazaki, director of FromSoftware, revealed that Dark Souls III would be the final game in the series back in 2017. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice proved Bloodborne wasn’t a fluke, and that the developer could branch out from the ingenious formula of its core series and still create something special, but it isn’t Dark Souls. It wasn’t until after I played Elden Ring for six straight hours that I could finally move on from the beloved trilogy. The king is dead; long live the king.

FromSoft has left Dark Souls behind, but it has taken the series’ strengths and bolstered them with new tricks to create something that could be even better in Elden Ring.

After three games, the hallmarks of Dark Souls are well established. There are the obvious furnishings, like bonfires, esoteric progression paths, and brutal boss battles, but the real heart of the series is the relationship between death, exploration, and progression. It’s a beautiful, messy love triangle that keeps you struggling through each location until every poisonous pool and foetid corridor is burned into your mind.

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