The more I play of this game, the more I enjoy it. The demo hooked me, and as you play through the full version it just keeps introducing new features at exactly the right pace to make that smile grow wider. Best new game I've played in years!

It does everything right!

Elden Ring is a superb game with fantastic amounts of content. Whether you worship FromSoft's earlier games or have never Darked a single Soul, this one is worth playing. I would love to be one of the many positive reviews, but the more I play it the more frustrated I get with the subtle but serious mechanical issues that I encounter time and again.

Remember Dark Souls netcode? It hasn't been fixed. Input queuing? Still there. Input delay is very noticeable - your perfect dodge will still get you hit, and your block will get broken when you've stopped holding LB. Gank bosses feel less balanced than in earlier games because of Ashes, upgradeable NPCs that can be summoned with items, a really cool addition which apparently led the devs to assume no one would try to play the game solo.

I have other gripes, but I can't call this a bad game. It is, genuinely, a masterpiece; but so far the mechanics are frustrating me more than the game's actual difficulty, and that doesn't deserve a positive review.

This was a great game, then they added a stupid launcher which a) slows down the already-slow game launch; b) unnecessarily intrudes on your privacy; and c) adds profiteering clutter to a single-player, offline game. It's amazing how quickly money makes a once-good company stop treating its players as people and start exploiting them instead. You only need to look at the ubiquitous Paradox DLC-creep to see that truth borne out. Paradox Interactive have started on the road of screwing over their customers, and it's terribly unfair to us the players and to Colossal Order, who created a very fun game. I do not plan to buy from Paradox Interactive ever again.

Very cute game. The small dev team are regularly adding features, some of which require old cities to be reworked or, as you unlock them, just won't fit in your vision for the town. That's not *necessarily* a bad thing, but you don't always want your citizens demanding a bathhouse. Just wash in the bay, you snobs.

Combat is a bit odd, requiring an awful lot of micromanagement for a game where the economy runs itself. It definitely needs some work, but it's not bad.

Ongoing feature creep can be either a pro or a con in your book. I like some of what's been added, but other bits I'd opt out of if I could. It is, though, a genuinely nice game and well worth some hours.

It's like Dark Souls but worse.

I love this game, but all too often the quests suck. I put off playing The New War for years (took a break) and then weeks (when I came back) and I'm glad I did. Unfortunately, previously unlocked content was then locked once again until TNW completion, so here I am bashing my head against a mediocre quest I can't drop. This review (first left in November 2017) was previously positive, and I still deeply enjoy the game, but because TNW is compulsory content that does not fit the vibe of the rest of the game I am changing the review to a negative one to offset somewhat the overall "Very Positive" that the game has (and, in fairness, deserves). Mixed feelings.

____ Below this line is my old review. I do stand by it. ____

I'll be honest, I'm only writing this review for the Steam Awards badge, but that should say something by itself: this is a game that deserves a Steam Award.

There's an effectively constant stream of content and reasonably regular reworks of older stuff to make it fit better. Recent updates (especially Plains of Eidolon) have added some really snazzy features to the game and we're expecting more updates like it next year. I'm very excited now just thinking about them. This is a game with an active and invested development team who have a genuine enthusiasm for the game and their community.

10/10 would buy if it cost money.