Elden Ring Tarnished Edition

Genre: Open-World Action-RPG

Players: 1-6 Co-Op (Online), Shared Online Content

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Review:

Originally released in 2022 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, Elden Ring took the “soulslike” formula pioneered by FromSoftware in Demon Souls and the Dark Souls series and brought it to an Open World. And now, in 2026, with the game finally seeing release on a Nintendo platform with a Nintendo Switch 2 version complete with the Shadows of the Erdtree expansion, I think I can conclusively say… yeah, I’m just not a soulslike guy.

The soulslike “genre” (if that’s even the right word to describe it) is one I’ve repeatedly tried to get into, and every time, it just bounces off of me. And to be clear, I’m not opposed to difficult games, so I don’t think this is a “git gud” situation. And for Elden Ring, I spent 16+ hours in the game, explored much of the game’s first 5 major areas (at least, the first five map fragment areas), fought numerous larger enemies (which isn’t saying much – building-sized enemies are practically around every corner in some places), died countless times, succeeded somewhat often too, and in the end… to me, this felt like an ordeal more than if felt like fun. However, I try to take into account how the game appeals to its target audience and not just my own personal preferences, so this isn’t just going to be how I feel about the game, but my assessment of it. That said, I think it’s fair to say that if you want a review from someone heavily steeped in the soulslike genre… well, I’m not your guy.

Elden Ring is set in a dark medieval fantasy world called The Lands Between, which is in chaos since the destruction of the titular Elden Ring, and is being fought over by demigods ruling over the lands. Players take the role of a self-named “Tarnished”, a risen warrior seeking to collect the pieces of the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord.

As we’ve come to expect from FromSoftware, the game is steeped in lore but light on plot – your character has no personality beyond what you bring to the table, and the motivations behind the most frequently recurring secondary character, your patron Maiden Melina, are nebulous. This game’s world clearly has a history behind it, but it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly function in any practical sense – every now and then you meet friendly characters, but it’s unclear how they survive in a wasteland of monsters, giants, zombie-like soldiers, and various other grotesque horrors. I would argue this game is going off of vibes more than coherency.

At the very least, the game is stylistically wonderous. The image of a massive glowing tree lighting up the skies at all times of day and visible from every corner of the continent is awe-inspiring in a way that has become iconic, the grotesque monsters you fight are wonderfully creative in their designs, and the crumbling ruins speak of a once-great realm brought low by countless years of conflict. And the exaggerated gothic style of this game extends everywhere – even allies look fiendish, helpful items you collect are often disgusting and visceral or oddly esoteric and ritualistic, and the game seems to constantly be finding new ways to draw your attention… and make you wonder if you should go closer to check out some new oddity when it may well reach out and kill you.

Graphically on a technical level, Elden Ring is outstanding, with an extremely detailed world, massive detailed creatures with wonderful animation, even more massive structures, beautiful trees and foliage, nice weather effects, good lighting and shadows… what it’s depicting may often be grotesque, but it’s rendered gorgeously. On Nintendo Switch 2, there are caveats though. The 60FPS framerates of other modern platforms isn’t even close to attained here, with the standard framerates generally hovering closer to 30FPS. And when the action gets intense, they can briefly slow to a crawl. It’s not so bad that it greatly affects the gameplay, but it is a problem all the same.

These visuals are joined by an atmospheric soundtrack, some good sound effects, and occasionally with voice acting that adds some nice personality to the world. Not everything here is voiced, but the major story moments are.

When it comes to the gameplay, this game absolutely succeeds at giving players a fascinating world to explore, though following in the footsteps of other Soulslike games, it punishes you for your curiosity almost as often as it rewards you. This is mitigated somewhat by the game also carrying over the feature where players can leave messages to warn each other about what’s ahead, and players can even get friendly help to take on tougher challenges.

I do think the game is a bit misleading early on, with what seems to be an indicator showing an intended path. Yes, this is an Open-World game with exploration being a key element, but Open-World games tend to have a main campaign path that players can opt to deviate from if they choose. Here, it needs to be stressed that while there are indeed places the player will need to go to progress, deviating from that path isn’t just an option, it’s pretty much required.

At one point, I found myself struggling to get past a gatekeeper boss and no matter what I tried ended up getting demolished before he was at half-health. Wondering whether I should take some time to grind, I checked online to see the recommended level for tackling the boss. Evidently, others recommended holding off on this one until level 25-35… and I was level 11.

Foolish on my part? Maybe. But the game doesn’t do a good job indicating when you’re really punching above your weight, and since everything in the game is framed as if it’s difficult and scary, it’s that much harder to know if you’re in a situation where you need to keep trying until you succeed, or you’re just bashing your head against a brick wall you couldn’t possibly be expected to break yet.

This of course comes with the frustrating Soulslike convention of players leaving their money where they died and forcing them to fetch it to reclaim it, pushing them to go back into the same danger that killed them lest they lose that valuable resource. And money (called runes) is used for quite a bit here, and will always be in relatively short supply. You need it to buy things, of course, but also to upgrade weapons, and to level up your character. This means there’s always pressure to farm, and especially to scrounge up every last resource that crosses your path, because even though your money is lost upon death, every sellable fruit and flower you picked remains in your inventory.

I’m not a big fan of combat in Elden Ring either. Your melee weapons have light and heavy attacks as well as a weapon-specific special move, and depending on your weapon or shield you can block. There’s also a dodge roll and jumping attacks you can perform. Unfortunately, I quickly found that enemy attacks would sometimes do full damage even if I was blocking, and my dodge roll would only sometimes evade attacks. So… a block you can’t rely on to actually block, and a dodge you can’t depend on to actually dodge. There’s also ranged attacks, but your supply is strongly constrained here: arrows are surprisingly pricey, and magic attacks draw from a limited magic point supply. I suppose I should also mention sneak attacks, which are powerful, but take quite a while and if there are multiple enemies in the area you’ll be glued in place while the others close in on you… plus stronger enemies won’t go down in one hit with these attacks, and especially strong enemies can’t really be hit with them at all.

Add to this a problem with frustratingly slow progression. Level ups that only add a tiny bump to one stat and cost progressively more cash is one thing, but there’s another even bigger issue. I’m 16 hours into the game and despite finding a few other melee weapons, my best one remains the one I had at hour 2 (with a few armorer upgrades). The same goes for my body armor. It’s gotten to the point where I’ll spend money at a shopkeeper on a new piece of armor hoping it’ll improve on what I already have (because there’s no in-shop comparison), but resigned to the probability that it will probably be worse. Surely if I’m on the other side of the continent that has some scary enemies capable of killing me in one hit, the shopkeepers should carry wares better than the stuff I could get in the starting area?

I can see the responses this review will be getting. “You should do X Y and Z”, “you’re going about the game wrong”, and of course the inevitable “git gud”. I’m not blind to how beloved Elden Ring is, and I can see why – this world begs to be explored, and tantalizes with possibility. For players who thrill at overcoming a challenge, I could see many declaring this to be a perfect game. But if that’s not you, if you’re like me and you don’t love tough challenges but you’re okay with them as long as you feel like you’re making steady progress… Elden Ring may not be the right fit for you. It’ll tease you with some amazing sights and some impressive monsters, but then frustrate you with its combat, slow progression, and other issues. And Nintendo Switch 2 already has a wealth of other great Open-World games to play. To be clear, I still think this is a great game… but it’s not a great game for everyone, and I think its appeal is going to be less than other games in the genre. If you’re the sort of player who this game hits, it’s going to hit hard. But it didn’t quite hit with me, and I feel like despite the high praise this game gets, there will be plenty of others who will say the same.

tl;dr – Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition (which includes the Shadows of the Erdtree expansion) is an extremely challenging Open-World Action-RPG with a stunning, fascinating, dark and grotesque world to explore, one filled with tantalizing secrets and bursting with devious creativity. At the same time, it has inconsistent combat, slow progression, and multiple other design issues that make this needlessly frustrating. Also, while this game mostly plays great on Nintendo Switch 2, it does have some framerate issues. For players this game strikes a chord with, it will be absolutely phenomenal. But I do think that more than a few players will find this game’s problems prohibitive to their enjoyment.

Grade: A-

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