Elden Ring First Impressions From A Dark Souls Noob

“Elden Ring” certainly looks like a “Dark Souls” game, and I think it looks pretty good, especially once you get out into the open world. While perhaps not as obviously next-gen as something like “Horizon Forbidden West,” “Elden Ring” is still a good looking game, and once you dive in, I would urge you to pay particular attention to the fine details on things like buildings and armor.

I’ve spent most of my time playing on PlayStation 5. Originally, I’d planned to play “Elden Ring” on PC, but I ran into an issue where I couldn’t get a controller to work in the preview build of the game I had access to. That issue still persists, and it doesn’t matter which controller I use – Xbox Wireless Gamepad, PS5’s DualSense, or even the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller – I can’t seem to get the game to recognize it. Those controllers all work fine in other Steam games too, so I’m guessing this is a problem with the preview build and not something wrong on my end, but it’s hard to know for sure with PC gaming problems. I’ll update this article after I’ve had a chance to try the retail PC build to let you know if my controller problems remain.

On PlayStation 5, the game runs pretty well and looks good. As with so many PS5 games these days, you have the option of playing in Resolution Mode, where framerate is decreased to play at a higher resolution, or Performance mode, where resolution drops to facilitate a higher framerate. The Performance mode is good but it’s not quite rock solid, as I experienced a few frame drops out in the open world as I was playing. Still, I would recommend that most people play in Performance mode, because the boosted framerate makes combat feel a lot more fluid and responsive.