The review embargo for Elden Ring is finally up, and now we're seeing Elden Ring Review and Review Scores coming out. Is Elden Ring worth it? We find out in our Elden Ring review roundup here. As of writing this article, we are still roughly 24 hours removed from the game's public release. However, those who pre-ordered the Steam version can start pre-loading the game now. If there's going to be just one key takeaway from this article, it's that your pre-order is safe. Elden Ring is the quintessential Souls-like game, implementing open-world in the best way possible. But if you're still unconvinced, you can check out the Elden Ring review articles we'll quote below. Visit their websites, too, to get a fuller picture.
Elden Ring Review Scores: 97 in Metascore for PS5, 95 on Xbox Series X and PC
After waiting for this game for like, forever, Elden Ring is finally coming out this Friday. Now, we know where all the people will be during this weekend. Luckily, game journalists have already finished their review articles – mostly based on a 60-hour (incomplete) playthrough of the game. Bandai Namco distributed early review copies for the big gaming websites, and they have done the work of checking for us if the game is stable pre-release, if the game delivers on its promises, and if it's the kind of game that will bring more players into the Souls-like sub-genre. You'd still see a lot of review-in-progress articles at this point, and that only speaks volumes on the depth and density of Elden Ring.
Right now, Elden Ring has received universal acclaim from video games critics. Its score of 97 for the PS5 and 95 for both Xbox Series X and PC are amazing and are the highest pre-release scores for a major title in a long while. Some writers even claim that we will remember Elden Ring as a revolutionary game that will become a template for future titles, FromSoftware or not. The general consensus is that this is also a good gateway game for people who have been wanting to try out a Souls-like, but have always felt intimidated by the game's challenge. Elden Ring provides many different options for players in building their characters and features like summons, softening up the difficulty by allowing players to play in the way they like. There are, of course, cheese strategies that will make the game so easy, but the game's conveniences will make the game much more accessible to newbies in a way that no other Souls-like ever did.
Meanwhile, the game's open-world implementation is textbook in terms of adaptation. FromSoftware didn't fall into the trappings of modern games in its implementation of an open-world. No Quest Lists, unnecessary side quests, map markers, and outposts that you would need to conquer to reveal portions of the map. This isn't your Ubisoft template open-world. FromSoftware's idea of an open world ends at that – no modern gaming tropes to get in the way of the immersion.
Finally, and probably most importantly, Elden Ring doesn't have a lot of bugs or glitches that can ruin your fun. There are some weird graphical issues and staggering that have been observed by a couple of reviewers, but nothing that a soft Day 1 patch can't fix. We won't actually have to wait for a week until the game is ready to play. Whether on PC or on console, players will be able to enjoy this game right away after their downloads finish this Friday.
A lot of game reviewers have given Elden Ring a perfect score, which includes Daily Star, Atomix, Gaming Age, Game Rant, Digital Chumps, TheGamer, GamesRadar+, Digitally Downloaded, Screen Rant, VGC, Destructoid, GamesBeat, Gaming Nexus, GAMINGbible, God is a Geek, and The Guardian. The game offers such an overwhelmingly fun experience that moved these reviewers to call the game a masterpiece.
“FromSoftware doesn’t rewrite the medium’s rulebook,” says TheGamer, “but does tear its own tenets asunder while reconstructing them into a cohesive whole that outclasses all that came before it. The Lands Between invites you to explore it with an unparalleled level of freedom, offering up a plate of seemingly impenetrable challenges and intimately constructed stories that are always a delight to indulge in. This is, without doubt, one of the best games in recent memory.”
“With Elden Ring, we're in masterpiece territory,” reads Digitally Downloaded's review. “FromSoftware is consistently great, of course, and I don't mean to denigrate Sekiro or Dark Souls here, as they're all exceptional, but Elden Ring has all the potential to have a similar level of impact as Demon's Souls here. Spinning a richly evocative and carefully paced tale of darkness and misery, Elden Ring isn't the most easygoing game, either in terms of its storytelling or general difficulty. However, not only is it majestic in scope and vision, it is one of the most perfect examples of how an open world structure can be used to the thematic benefit of the game, rather than just be a massive space used to hurl worthless content at players. In this way, Elden Ring joins a very elite group indeed… and it has arguably topped it.”
To put simply, Screen Rant concludes: “Elden Ring is exactly what fans want it to be, and it very likely will become many people's favorite FromSoftware title yet.”
The game is so universally revered that, at this point of writing, the game's lowest review score is at 9/10. Among these, Dexerto gave the most compelling review, saying: “Make no mistake, Elden Ring is to the Souls subgenre what Breath of the Wild was to the Zelda franchise; it took a classic dungeon-diving formula and opened it up, adding more choice, nuance, and combat flexibility in the process. It feels destined to kickstart a wave of “did you know you could do this?” YouTube videos, and a deeper discussion of build-crafting. Elden Ring isn’t Dark Souls 4 or just ‘Big Souls’, but it’s damn close, and represents the evolution the series needed and manages to be everything else we wanted it to be.”
In Conclusion: Is Elden Ring Worth It?
You're still reading? Go get the game already. It's not only worth every penny you spend to buy it – it's a steal that Bandai Namco is giving us this game for the price of a regular video game. Buy the game, and buy a copy for all of your friends who want to play the game but can't afford to purchase it. That's just how good Elden Ring is, and it's the kind of experience that you'd have to share with your best buddies.
EDIT: After a week after release, players still report poor performance issues on the game's PC version. Hence, for those who are still holding out, it might be best to wait until Elden Ring gets patched for its poor performance. The Steam reviews are disappointingly low, and you should wait until folks over there start saying that the PC version has been fixed. It's typical for FromSoftware to mess up their PC version, and sadly, Elden Ring is no different. If you're a console player, though, you can go ahead and get those versions right now – they're not experiencing any of the performance issues the PC players have been experiencing.
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