I have around 2000 hours in previous FromSoftware games and I mostly like Elden Ring. I have just finished the game and I think I have done almost everything you can do in a walkthrough. This is spoiler free except some points about difficulty, but always using the spoiler tags.


I have had 4 crashes, none made me loose progress, all were outside combat and all were in different places in Liurnia.
I didn't have issues except in certain places (mostly in the open world), which are problably related to loading areas in the background or a poor implementation of dx12.
This happens every 10-15 minutes if you are traveling the open world almost as much as you can (so in my 85h let's say around 50 times total). In those cases my fps drop to ~45 for 5-10 seconds and very rarely with a half a second stutter.
The only time that has been annoying was at the beginning with the Erdtree Sentinel (everything was ok fighting him up the slope).
The rest of the time I have 60 fps.
I am playing with everything on high except motion blur (off) and these set to medium: SSAO, Shader Quality and Grass Quality.
I am playing at 1440p with G-sync, RTX 3060 Ti 8GB, Ryzen 3700X, 16GB of RAM and a SSD.


The exploration is better than I expected. It never gets boring. This is my favourite open world game, by far.
It is really fun going around and finding dungeons, bosses, vistas, etc but what I wasn't expecting was the world to feel so big, in fact I have lost myself many times even when checking the map from time to time.
I find myself thinking about going this or that way next, exploring this area, going back to fight some boss, checking out mechanics, but (and this is great) without any kind of obligation or stress. I really want to find out, not just in order to get stronger.
Seriously the exploration is awesome overall.


Some enemies feel like they are spamming attacks infinitely.
The game and particularly the PC port some times feels like a beta, like they were lazy at some points.
Even with the points listed below I have been having a blast, but I think many people are going to drop the game early.

• Placing of some enemies that encourage critical attacks due to their large health. In many cases you can't riposte because they are too big and they fall down in some place you can't reach or the ground hitbox is badly implemented and they sink in the textures, so they get a bit underground (this also happens a few times with flying enemies and walls, during their normal movements). It feels like they didn't test these at all.
  
  
• Difficulty.
  
  • Some attacks deal too much damage for their area, speed and hitboxes, particularly instant charges, wind and ground attacks. In particular I think these are broken:
    bear charge attacks (up to 3 times in a row), very big summons until you where their caster is, several grab attacks (as usual), giant hands, glitchy dragons (most of them), snipers in Siofra and giant lobsters, boss on the rot lake, some general gravity and status attacks, the slash combo from bosses like Malenia
    
  • There are enemies with infinite stamina and FP spamming certain abilities without CD, which is a problem in some areas where you can get shot from somewhere you can't reach quickly. In particular I am thinking about a certain mine and a certain river, but this applies to bosses too. This could have been easily solved and can be VERY annoying.
    
  • It seems like their approach here is something like "if it's optional content it doesn't matter", which I find very dissapointing. When you add this to stacking enemies in a closed room you get artificial difficulty, which can be done (for example the big head duo for a greatshield) but it's not good content. This get worse at end game.
    
  • The stance damage for fast weapons is too high, while slow weapons should be much stronger. I have been playing with a fast straight sword and Greatsword and the straight sword breaks stance almost as much, because the R2 bonus (so it is also an issue with the guard counter). Jumping R2 is op sometimes and can look very weird.
    
  • I was a bit dissapointed with the design of some bosses because they didn't feel fair at times. For me there are few bosses with the quality of the best in Sekiro or Dark Souls 3. In particular some attacks are very annoying due to unintuitive hitboxes and in many cases instead of dealing full damage they could easily be a dot hitbox (like there are in other instances).

• I think I am going to miss online coventans...
  
  
• Crafting. I have bought every crafting recipe book I could and still I only use a few recipes, mostly for healing status like rot or poison.
  
  
• Obscurity.
  It is typical in their games, but in this case I think a few hints from NPCs would improve the experience for some blocked doors, how to reach some places or meeting other NPCs.
  A list with the icon and meaning for buffs and open world events should be in the game.
  A bit clarity in mechanics would be nice too, I don't want to check the wiki for everything, like if bonus for charge attacks apply to impaling attacks, fully charged magic attacks, fully charged R2 attacks or ground dragging attacks, or even all of them.
  
  
• The balance of stealth, AI and enemy placement feels wrong. I know this needs a lot of testing in order to feel right, but still it could be better.
  
  • Some wild enemies like wolves in packs stare at you after the combat has started, so maybe one or two attack you out of a pack of 5, I mean in total, not at the same time.
    
  • Wild life only for getting crafting materials should have bigger aggro areas.
    
  • When you enter a room there is a high chance you find an enemy with his back open and facing a wall.
    
  • Patroling is still the same in big castles, only from near point A to near point B, where it would make sense to move them a bit more, nothing game breaking, just a few paces more.
    
  • Some enemies don't care at all about all the fighting going on around them (miners for example), even when missing them by centimeters. I think it would be better if they had a small aggro area instead.
  
  
• My messages get rated all together just after login or none at all, which misses the point of healing you in unexpected situations.
  
  
• Too much repetition for minor enemies and bosses. There are several instances where you meet again a certain boss and it doesn't offer a significant reward (other than runes) and it doesn't make much sense either to have a boss there. I would prefer the world to be around 30% smaller and have better quality.
  
  
• The game feels designed for ranged builds like sorcery caster in many places, particularly in end game content. Playing melee was some times very fustrating. Dark Souls 2 felt exactly like this.
  
  
• I think they could have done a better job with NPCs and lore. NPCs could use more lines, some of them just have a couple and then nothing

I have around 2000 hours in previous FromSoftware games and I mostly like Elden Ring. I have just finished the game and I think I have done almost everything you can do in a walkthrough. This is spoiler free except some points about difficulty, but always using the spoiler tags. [h2]About performance:[/h2] I have had 4 crashes, none made me loose progress, all were outside combat and all were in different places in Liurnia. I didn't have issues except in certain places (mostly in the open world), which are problably related to loading areas in the background or a poor implementation of dx12. This happens every 10-15 minutes if you are traveling the open world almost as much as you can (so in my 85h let's say around 50 times total). In those cases my fps drop to ~45 for 5-10 seconds and very rarely with a half a second stutter. The only time that has been annoying was at the beginning with the Erdtree Sentinel (everything was ok fighting him up the slope). The rest of the time I have 60 fps. I am playing with everything on high except motion blur (off) and these set to medium: SSAO, Shader Quality and Grass Quality. I am playing at 1440p with G-sync, RTX 3060 Ti 8GB, Ryzen 3700X, 16GB of RAM and a SSD. [h2]What is good:[/h2] The exploration is better than I expected. It never gets boring. This is my favourite open world game, by far. It is really fun going around and finding dungeons, bosses, vistas, etc but what I wasn't expecting was the world to feel so big, in fact I have lost myself many times even when checking the map from time to time. I find myself thinking about going this or that way next, exploring this area, going back to fight some boss, checking out mechanics, but (and this is great) without any kind of obligation or stress. I really want to find out, not just in order to get stronger. Seriously the exploration is awesome overall. [h2]What is bad:[/h2] Some enemies feel like they are spamming attacks infinitely. The game and particularly the PC port some times feels like a beta, like they were lazy at some points. Even with the points listed below I have been having a blast, but I think many people are going to drop the game early. [list] [*] Placing of some enemies that encourage critical attacks due to their large health. In many cases you can't riposte because they are too big and they fall down in some place you can't reach or the ground hitbox is badly implemented and they sink in the textures, so they get a bit underground (this also happens a few times with flying enemies and walls, during their normal movements). It feels like they didn't test these at all. [*] Difficulty. [list] [*] Some attacks deal too much damage for their area, speed and hitboxes, particularly instant charges, wind and ground attacks. In particular I think these are broken: [spoiler] bear charge attacks (up to 3 times in a row), very big summons until you where their caster is, several grab attacks (as usual), giant hands, glitchy dragons (most of them), snipers in Siofra and giant lobsters, boss on the rot lake, some general gravity and status attacks, the slash combo from bosses like Malenia [/spoiler] [*] There are enemies with infinite stamina and FP spamming certain abilities without CD, which is a problem in some areas where you can get shot from somewhere you can't reach quickly. In particular I am thinking about a certain mine and a certain river, but this applies to bosses too. This could have been easily solved and can be VERY annoying. [*] It seems like their approach here is something like "if it's optional content it doesn't matter", which I find very dissapointing. When you add this to stacking enemies in a closed room you get artificial difficulty, which can be done (for example the big head duo for a greatshield) but it's not good content. This get worse at end game. [*] The stance damage for fast weapons is too high, while slow weapons should be much stronger. I have been playing with a fast straight sword and Greatsword and the straight sword breaks stance almost as much, because the R2 bonus (so it is also an issue with the guard counter). Jumping R2 is op sometimes and can look very weird. [*] I was a bit dissapointed with the design of some bosses because they didn't feel fair at times. For me there are few bosses with the quality of the best in Sekiro or Dark Souls 3. In particular some attacks are very annoying due to unintuitive hitboxes and in many cases instead of dealing full damage they could easily be a dot hitbox (like there are in other instances). [/list] [/list] [h2]Some minor issues:[/h2] [list] [*] I think I am going to miss online coventans... [*] Crafting. I have bought every crafting recipe book I could and still I only use a few recipes, mostly for healing status like rot or poison. [*] Obscurity. It is typical in their games, but in this case I think a few hints from NPCs would improve the experience for some blocked doors, how to reach some places or meeting other NPCs. A list with the icon and meaning for buffs and open world events should be in the game. A bit clarity in mechanics would be nice too, I don't want to check the wiki for everything, like if bonus for charge attacks apply to impaling attacks, fully charged magic attacks, fully charged R2 attacks or ground dragging attacks, or even all of them. [*] The balance of stealth, AI and enemy placement feels wrong. I know this needs a lot of testing in order to feel right, but still it could be better. [list] [*] Some wild enemies like wolves in packs stare at you after the combat has started, so maybe one or two attack you out of a pack of 5, I mean in total, not at the same time. [*] Wild life only for getting crafting materials should have bigger aggro areas. [*] When you enter a room there is a high chance you find an enemy with his back open and facing a wall. [*] Patroling is still the same in big castles, only from near point A to near point B, where it would make sense to move them a bit more, nothing game breaking, just a few paces more. [*] Some enemies don't care at all about all the fighting going on around them (miners for example), even when missing them by centimeters. I think it would be better if they had a small aggro area instead. [/list] [*] My messages get rated all together just after login or none at all, which misses the point of healing you in unexpected situations. [*] Too much repetition for minor enemies and bosses. There are several instances where you meet again a certain boss and it doesn't offer a significant reward (other than runes) and it doesn't make much sense either to have a boss there. I would prefer the world to be around 30% smaller and have better quality. [*] The game feels designed for ranged builds like sorcery caster in many places, particularly in end game content. Playing melee was some times very fustrating. Dark Souls 2 felt exactly like this. [*] I think they could have done a better job with NPCs and lore. NPCs could use more lines, some of them just have a couple and then nothing [/list]