We've Left Elden Ring Behind

A lot has happened since 2022. For one, I’m happier.

I doubt many could say they’re the exact same person they were 3 years ago, many say we don’t really change after a certain point, but I don’t think that could be further from the truth. Even if it is only in little ways, we evolve, or at least we always strive to; those who are stuck in time, or even more damming, rebel in maintaining themselves as the same being they were are doomed to a nauseous cycle. We need change; we need to discover the world around us and ourselves. We need to question in ways we may have not even thought of asking before, we need to learn from what came and will come after. We need to move on from the pain.

Elden Ring has been with me, and with many of us, for more than 3 years now. It has received a DLC that feels like a world of its own, sure, but the product itself, the game that we were given on a February so distant I cannot even imagine the smell and feeling of its rain, has largely remained the same. Patches came and went, a line of dialogue or two were added, a quick bandage to give the illusion of finality to some quests.

Even still, it remained. Unchanged.

Elden Ring arrived at a time of my life where I needed it the most. Looking back, it almost felt like a divine gift of some sort. The game didn’t magically solve all my problems or turned my frown upside down overnight —that I owe to the wonderful people I’m beyond lucky to have in my life—, but in a way, it did the most important thing a piece of art could have done at that time.

It completely forced me to submerge in it. Feel the water that was its atmosphere on my very skin, to hear about its legends and fallen monarchs, to make me do something more than swing my sword and get lost in a field of green and blood. For a moment, I was there, a world that I believed in, a fantasy that blended the occidental medieval idiocrasies with a look into the cosmos and the souls, a look equal parts sharp and tragic. Even today, that’s probably its best card, the sheer strength of its words, the power in its quietness, a land where, after the grueling battle ends and the dust settles, the brief moments of observing and lending a hand feel just as potent in a way not even Miyazaki’s previous outings quite managed to accomplish.

The temptation to put a Goku siluette on the sky was strong but I feel to attached to this scene to make that joke I fear.

Its dichotomy is kinda hilarious, as it is both the most concrete AND abstract story the modern output of the studio has ever given us. A formless narrative that you can almost touch, arrive past its prime as we’ve done so many times, yet we watch it on the front row. A world that never revolves around us, and with it comes questions we may never find a proper answer for. Answers that may be better left on the dark.

I sometimes remember that song. The song of the nomads. . A melody that drowned out the chirp of birds and even the wind itself, not out of an imposing presence or a grandiose melody… but out of a necessity to be heard. As if the world itself stopped with you, giving way to wander, to ponder over where the notes were once written. A remembrance of lands yet to see. A preview of a tragic truth left hidden.

Song is always at the center of Elden Ring’s best moments; choirs of lament filling ruined mines that announce the arrival to a false holy land , a beautiful chant coming out of the depths in reverence to murdered gods , the acute trumpets announcing your arrival to a capital drenched in the stench of waxed made out of blood and ashes from stone scales. It’s the loudest game in the souls adjacent series ever release, and even at its quietest, there isn’t total silence. But that lack of silence isn’t always to give way to imposing orchestras, but to give a voice to the people, those who saw the Lands Between for what they are. Those who suffered get to be hard, even if it means nobody besides us will listen.

Ironically enough, Elden Ring doesn’t reach its highest peak at the tops of mountains of giants or at the unreachable city of Farum Azula, it does it here, in moments unseen, forbidden by that which rules it all. In shadows, at the bottom of the world, true beauty shows itself, a repulsive, broken one, hard to advert your eyes from it.

In a lake of rot, in a false star filled sky, in the tomb of a dead demi-god which yet lives, in the mourning of a knight of old to the tree of yore that watched over the forsaken… All broken, all perhaps a bit annoying to play through at times. All irreplaceable, all incomparable. All small, all monumental.

Shadow of the Erdtree is worth its own story, yet this sentiment remains the same through its run-time.

The best playthrough of Elden Ring is the very first one. It’s the one every single new discovery hits the hardest, where your will to see all reaches its high, the one in which your heartstrings are pulled the hardest. You cannot do anything but witness in awe to what’s ahead and ponder over what came before, the horrors yet to be dealt with as well as the landscape adorning the horizon. Every battle an epic, every lord an unforgettable meeting. A living, breathing world.

The worst playthrough is also the first one.

For as much as the Lands Between can sometimes feel like a kingdom where two corners aren’t the same, it is also a bloated landfill of unintended messiness. Every dungeon and section of the map has the potential to be incredibly special in a vacuum, yet everything diminishes itself.

It’s the perfect contradiction, an impressive, borderline perfect setting and handcrafted world that as it goes on presents increasingly impressive settings, but it also seems more willing to bastardize itself. No moment exemplifies it best to me than the aforementioned Mountaintops of the Giants: a visual masterpiece, a white graveyard adorned with the remains of the majestic giants that one walked it, the branches of the Erdtree that commanded their annihilation still looming it, a depraved light clashing with a white inferno… that is also filled with recycled enemies from Caelid and Limgrave, their presence lessening the impact they once had and not doing enough to justifying them now.

A dance that repeats way too often. Not every instance of recycling is that egregious, but the bad examples outweigh the good ones. The catacombs have a reason to exist in such quantity lore-wise, a visual showcase of the cycle of death and life that seems to be reaching an unsustainable point, but that doesn’t change the fact they become an absolute pain to play through, turning into a parody of themselves that results in only two good ones worth remembering, the rest existing in a limbo between real location and videogame dungeon that doesn’t work one way or another.

The two other types of mini dungeons, the Hero’s Tombs and the Caves, are marginally better, if only because they’re more rare or more interesting respectively, but their existence as an excuse to act as item holders, with only one or two more interesting exceptions, remains the same.

In a game that should celebrate its uniqueness and the idea of each playthrough varying depending on the mini dungeons you visit, to make this a world that feels natural, it seems too inclined for you to not miss as much as possible, which feels like an oxymoron when it also hides some of the most important and impressive secrets REALLY well.

It all results in sameness, each swing of the sword, each casting of a spell, it all blends in a sea of repetition that hits you with variation on VERY specific points, even if those points hit hard. It’s enough to make repeated playthrough an interesting challenge run, not sufficient to make them actually engaging experiences. The first playthrough is where the worst of the worst and the best of the best meet, where Elden Ring is forced to a limit it cannot sustain. The songs get quieter, the health bars get bigger, fascination leads to frustration. All feelings that, as much as I tried to ignore, were already present and clear back in 2022.

Elden Ring seems to be stuck in perpetual discourse. It was always doomed to. Beyond the incredibly grating subsect of players that will move earth and sky to be the most annoying people imaginable to impose the ‘’right’’ way to play it, Elden Ring doesn’t exist in solitude, in fact, it’s almost an announced tragedy that never quite, well, ‘’tragedies’’.

It is 2011, and Dark Souls begins treating the futility of cycles, how each makes the last one lost to time, the fire burns less brightly. The world doomed to drown in ash.

It is 2025, and Elden Ring exists, an open world souls like whose design invites to ignore as much as possible of it in repeated playthroughs and game pluses, offering an undeniable mechanical excellency and player expression once you decide to dabble with its build system and give crafting a chance, but it still walked retreaded ground, and doesn’t seem to fulfill its promise in favor of more visually impressive, questionably fun to fight late game bosses, all of which it spawned a rogue like spin off.

It is kind of impressive it’s as good as it is to begin with.

I now return to it, most of the mist vanished, and I can still clearly see its impeccably designed closed areas, as much as the void that the open spaces cannot seem to fill in engaging ways. The ash covers the capital, almost in reference to its past, basically in allegory to itself. This world cannot keep going, hell, it couldn’t even before the tree burned.

I don’t need Elden Ring, not in a way I needed it back when it was released. I’ve changed in the face of a game that clamors to turn the page, yet refuses to do so itself. In terms of what my own brain dictates to me, Elden Ring is a really well-designed RPG with an open world too grand for itself, trapped in eternal repetition till its non-highlighted words lack meaning. Fuck it, two Godricks and two Astels, why the hell not? And the irony of the justifications for said repetitions being some of the most ‘’set in stone’’ facts about the game’s story so that we can go ‘’oooooh, at least it makes sense!’’ isn’t lost on me.

It's cowardly, even.




This is the part where I say that every time I play it again, all the problems disappear, and I go back to that moment when I first played it, and suddenly, everything feels right. But if I’d said that, I’d be lying. And honestly, I don’t think I want to feel like I did back then, for multiple reasons. Nor do I need to.

Elden Ring possesses a level of artistry that thousands upon thousands of videogames wish and pray they could achieve, a visual expression that feels out of this world, and the base game itself isn’t even its peak, and yet it still amazes me. Elden Ring still fills me with joy to play, some boss fights have stood as some of my all-time favorites in the history of the medium, some sections of legacy dungeons remain all timers, questlines that grant an agency and personal stake to the player that none of From made souls titles had achieved till now. Elden Ring is still special, you can still hear its song, and it makes you stop, sit, give meaning to a world in lack of it, even something as silly as making a jar closure or happiness. Something that can make you tear up.

I will never feel the same about Elden Ring like I did in 2022. And that’s fine, because the memory is still with me, and now I watch it for what it truly is. The most imperfect perfect game ever made.

It remains unchanged, the messy, confused game that it was in 2022. And there’s something comforting about that. Something that makes me wish for a future hat may or may not be different, even if the past built the foundation.

The Golden Order ushered an age of prosperity and peace, and with it, it brought devastation and darkness to those it deemed underserving of its brightness. Now as it agonizes, it expects someone to take up the mantle, continue until there’s nothing left to govern.


And still, we can see two other paths. One that burns it all. Another that brings a comforting, unknown cold.

We sat on the throne once, now we need to get up.

It’s time to move on.

And let it burn.

Originally uploaded to Backloggd on July 13th, 2025.

Thank you so much for reaching this point.