Elden Ring Catch-all

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So, you seek the Elden Ring?

I didn't watch the leaked trailer - but I've sure read about it. Anyone see it and have any thoughts on it?

Leaked trailer here, terrible quality:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/comment...

Looks extremely Dark Soulsy! I like that!

The contents of the trailer are very, very, very Dark Souls 4. Cut out the bit about riding on a horse and you'd have a very hard time convincing me it wasn't Dark Souls 4 I was seeing.

I could go into more detail, but seriously: picture what you'd expect to see from a Dark Souls 4 and I promise you're just about there already.

This is the version of it I found, if you or anyone else wants to check it out: Leaked Trailer on YouTube I think there's a slightly longer one out there somewhere too, but I haven't found that one.

I'm hoping we'll get the full trailer soon, as that fuzziness doesn't exactly reveal anything of substance. Though the real question is: can they make a game where horse combat is actually fun and not a pain in the butt or just incredibly simplified?

I've yet to play a game where horse combat serves a purpose.

ccesarano wrote:

I'm hoping we'll get the full trailer soon, as that fuzziness doesn't exactly reveal anything of substance. Though the real question is: can they make a game where horse combat is actually fun and not a pain in the butt or just incredibly simplified?

I've yet to play a game where horse combat serves a purpose.

My only concern about this game is the horse. That said, I think horses in the RDR games have been very well done.

ccesarano wrote:

I'm hoping we'll get the full trailer soon, as that fuzziness doesn't exactly reveal anything of substance. Though the real question is: can they make a game where horse combat is actually fun and not a pain in the butt or just incredibly simplified?

I've yet to play a game where horse combat serves a purpose.

You should play Mount & Blade!

Will the game have us Elden Ring the bells of awakening?

While it may be heresy, I would welcome an easier take on the Souls franchise.

Hobear wrote:

Will the game have us Elden Ring the bells of awakening?

"Elden Ring my be-eh-el, ring my bell!"

chooka1 wrote:

While it may be heresy, I would welcome an easier take on the Souls franchise.

Their easy mode is to be a caster and summon help!

I haven't watched the leaked trailer. I will wait for a proper reveal to watch it in full HD glory.

Rumor is that the leaked footage is from a year old build. There are also now rumors of Namco Bandai putting on a direct-style presentation of their own. If those are real, that's likely where we'll see it the first official gameplay reveal.

It was great to see something even a fuzzy glimpse. It did look like it was an older, cruder version of the game even before that was confirmed.

I did watch the footage, and yeah it's a grainy low-quality mess. Lots of placeholder effects and textures, but given that it's supposedly a year (or more!) old, I imagine the real thing looks much sharper.

I hope the resulting game is good, but I definitely want more Souls and less Sekiro (give me gear and leveling and upgrades dammit!). Not thrilled about PvP being back, but since I don't sub to PS+ it won't matter.

I also watched the extended footage (4 separate clips) and have a question, spoilered:

Spoiler:

So at one point we see the main character use a spell that looks an awful lot like Homing Soul Mass. Is this just a placeholder spell for that early trailer footage, or is Elden Ring set in the same universe as the Dark Souls games? Is this game going to release as "Dark Souls 4: Elden Ring"?

merphle: I guess no one knows what's permanent and what's placeholder, but the entire trailer looks straight outta Dark Souls to me, and I love it!

Oh believe me, you'll hear no complaints at all from me if that turns out to be the case.

ARISE! It lives.

January 21, 2022

Whoa, didn't think that leak was gonna end up delivering.

I'm behind the Souls curve now (no Nioh or Sekiro yet), but that sure does look like a pretty looking Souls-like game.

Yeah. There's a good number of artistic callbacks to the three Dark Souls games (e.g. the creature resembling Yoel of Londor at 0:34, and the giant bell hanging under the giant stone turtle at 0:54). I didn't see any usage of Homing Soul Arrow, as was shown in the earlier leaked videos.

Regardless, I'm very excited for this. Sekiro really didn't do anything for me. Elden Ring looks like it'll be right up my alley.

It is Dark Souls 4 as far as looks.

And there is nothing in that which I can guarantee is actual gameplay and not cinematic. It looks pretty but felt disappointing at the same time.

farley3k wrote:

It is Dark Souls 4 as far as looks.

And there is nothing in that which I can guarantee is actual gameplay and not cinematic. It looks pretty but felt disappointing at the same time.

Huh? There was a ton of combat that looked almost exactly like Dark Souls 3. I agree with you very much that it looks like Dark Souls 4, though.

I think it's wild that they dropped this out of nowhere the week before E3 instead of putting it in one of the big press conferences.

EDIT: Also, FML if this thing drops during PAX South 2022. I'd rather February or March.

A lot of this is because Bloodborne is the only game that I played, but it felt like it had some of that aesthetic going as well. Mostly Dark Souls because of the era and European fantasy element, but something vaguely Bloodborne in there, too.

The combat is what has me curious for a deep dive. Bloodborne's emphasis on dodging over blocking, as well as being a faster game, is a lot of why I prefer it over Dark Souls. That, and though enemies tend to hit harder, healing is in greater supply. So I'm curious to see how they implement those elements here. Most of the combat shown seems to emphasize dodge rolls over blocking with shields, though shields are present. Other moves look far more acrobatic than what you typically see in Souls or Bloodborne, though.

Will admit I'm nervous as Sekiro almost caused me to swear off From's games, and Bloodborne was right up my alley with little-to-no hope of a sequel or even PC port. So while we finally got a look at it, I'm already eager for more in-depth details. I'll have to try and be patient.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I think it's wild that they dropped this out of nowhere the week before E3 instead of putting it in one of the big press conferences.

Not the week before. E3 starts Saturday.

But I did expect this to be a part of Microsoft's show on Sunday. Either they'll run a repeat (as happens at times) or it'll be a no-show at their conference this year.

ccesarano wrote:

but something vaguely Bloodborne in there, too.

Maybe it's the boss with like a dozen hands grotesquely grafted onto its back, wielding a dozen different weapons?

Fedaykin98 wrote:
farley3k wrote:

It is Dark Souls 4 as far as looks.

And there is nothing in that which I can guarantee is actual gameplay and not cinematic. It looks pretty but felt disappointing at the same time.

Huh? There was a ton of combat that looked almost exactly like Dark Souls 3. I agree with you very much that it looks like Dark Souls 4, though.

Just to be sure I watched it again -My reason for saying there is no actual gameplay

At no point is there any HUD which is 99.9% of gameplay has. Now maybe this is a completely HUDless game but it would be way outside the norm. How do I know how much health I have, or what weapon I am using, or how many healing items I have?

There are also multiple times where the character does a move but then the camera spins around them for a slow motion view from in front of the character I doubt that happens in combat because it would be very hard for player to decide how to input movement (if I am moving to my characters left or the viewpoints left)

For those reasons, while it may be in engine footage I don't think it is gameplay footage.

Glad we’ve seen a trailer. Looks phenomenal to me and my impression was that Sekiro improved visually from trailer to trailer. It’ll be interesting to see more details. I’m very interested in knowing how co-op will work. I enjoyed playing through Bloodborne with Shymlark. Hopefully this’ll be as good in terms of letting you play the whole game together.

farley3k wrote:

For those reasons, while it may be in engine footage I don't think it is gameplay footage.

There's definitely a lot of cinematic in-engine footage there, but I'd probably argue that a good number of the active combat-y scenes were gameplay. A few times we see an enemy get hit by an attack and suddenly snap to a different orientation (e.g. bent over, to stiff-as-a-board just got hit by a whip at 1:45). And the Dark Souls games do have a way to eliminate the HUD (via UI config, or editing .ini files); that might have just been done for this trailer, so they have more information they can trickle-feed to us over the next 6 months.

farley3k wrote:

At no point is there any HUD which is 99.9% of gameplay has. Now maybe this is a completely HUDless game but it would be way outside the norm. How do I know how much health I have, or what weapon I am using, or how many healing items I have?

There are also multiple times where the character does a move but then the camera spins around them for a slow motion view from in front of the character I doubt that happens in combat because it would be very hard for player to decide how to input movement (if I am moving to my characters left or the viewpoints left)

Game developers have tools both third-party and often of their own design to disable HUD elements, which are frequently used to show off gameplay in a far more cinematic perspective. There are also tools that effectively "record" gameplay data not in a video format, but in a format that allows them to replay it with full control of the camera.

See the Devil May Cry 5 announcement trailer that, I assure you, is all in-game and in-engine. That's what it's like to play the game, those are the animations used, but the HUD is disabled and the camera is often at angles that look better in a trailer than being representative of playing the game.

These days, when a trailer is artificial, it's typically in scripting. See the latest Horizon: Forbidden West State of Play gameplay reveal, where a pair of robot dinosaurs are keeping pace perfectly with the player in control. Their behavior is scripted and the route taken is rehearsed. They're trying to make the trailer look flashy but the scenario is clearly not how the gameplay is going to work in execution. And if it is, well, I'll eat my words, but everything plays out way too conveniently and flawlessly.

What you're seeing in the Elden Ring trailer is just like the Devil May Cry 5 trailer. It's definitely gameplay animations you're seeing, but the absence of a HUD and varied camera angles and controls are likely due to the dev tools, proprietary or third party, that allow them to control how the information is played back and thus be recorded for more exciting trailer footage.

Here's a GDC timestamp demonstrating how this can work, which is actually far less complex than I knew of how to manage it.

Farley, have you ever seen a From reveal before?

No HUD, some camera angles that aren't player controlled, all gameplay footage.

Unless From has suddenly decided to change tactics from a winning formula, all of the combat and horse-riding footage shown in that trailer was likely actual gameplay.

I won't keep fighting about it but when I watch the Bloodborne you posted and then this one I see a lot of difference and I consider the one I am posting "gameplay" due to HUD, movement, etc.

And if the developers remove those things to disable HUD for a more cinematic experience. Well I guess that is what I mean. We are not seeing how the game will look with I "play" it.

A Let's Play is not a trailer.

So you agree it was a trailer they showed and not gameplay.

Which is what I said.

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