Platform: Nintendo Switch 2
When Hidetaka Miyazaki’s Demon’s Souls landed back in 2009, it forever altered the gaming landscape. A punishingly difficult, absurdly opaque game that made no effort to explain its mechanics, nor accommodate less capable players (dying just makes the game harder), it set the stage for FromSoftware’s incredibly successful series of dark fantasy RPGs, each sharing similar mechanics, difficulty and mournful atmosphere. With that title, the ‘soulslike’ was born, but in 2022, with the release of Elden Ring, the formula was finally perfected.
A sweeping, open-world title that broadened the traditional soulslike canvas beyond anything before it, Elden Ring is a towering monument to inspired game design. The vast geography of The Lands Between lends players the feeling of being able to go literally anywhere at any time — if you can see a distant fortress or a mist-shrouded mountain peak on the far horizon then you’d better believe that, atop your trusty steed Torrent, you can find your way there and explore what lies within.
Four years after it debuted on Playstation, Xbox and PC, this magnificent game now makes its debut on Nintendo’s portable handheld in the form of this Tarnished Edition. Essentially a bundle of the base game and its similarly colossal expansion, Shadow Of The Erdtree, along with a few minor cosmetic additions, now playable in the palm of your hand. Except, if you’ve been paying attention, then you’ll know it seemed very much on course for absolute disaster. Early play sessions revealed a port so jerky as to be almost unplayable, clearly stretching the Switch 2’s hardware to breaking point. A lot has clearly happened since then, however, as we’re delighted to report that, in its final form, the Switch 2 port of Elden Ring is near faultless. Aside from some minor pop-in and very occasional slowdown when there’s a particularly large horde of dragons, trolls and assorted soldiery on screen, the frame rate remains buttery smooth throughout, with visual polish that, while not quite on a par with a high end PC or PS5, makes the game look absolutely gorgeous, whether in handheld mode or docked to a big screen TV.
The Tarnished additions boil down to three new customisable looks for your mount (including golden Tree Sentinel attire, complete with clanking plates as you gallop) picked up at various points in the story, four new armour sets (including the rakish Lucatiel set last seen in Dark Souls 2), and two new starting classes. Of the latter, the Idus Knight is a lightweight dexterity class with a long but nimble blade, while the chonky Heavy Knight lives up to its name, clad head to toe in plate and wielding a giant, two-handed scimitar. None of these additions have a huge bearing on the gameplay and while the two starting classes can make for a slightly more varied early game, by the time you step foot outside of Limgrave, you’ll likely have moved on towards whatever endgame build you were considering anyway. It’s also worth noting that all of the Tarnished Edition upgrades are available on existing consoles for a nominal DLC fee anyway, so there’s no need for completists to pick up the port just to have them. The only question here, is do you want to play Elden Ring on the Switch 2?
If you’ve never yet had the pleasure then the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Four years on and Elden Ring has lost none of its majesty, more than having earned its place among the pantheon of the greatest games every made. Even those Ninty fans who’ve never yet sampled a soulslike and could be put off by the notorious difficulty should give this a try. The freedom to go anywhere means you’re rarely left bashing your head against the same insurmountable boss. Getting your arse handed to you? Go explore that distant forest, or delve into an underground city until you’re feeling stronger. The addition of spirit summons makes things yet more accessible than Souls past, too. Found through various hidden ashes, these let you summon (and upgrade) assistance for major boss fights without having to wait for other player to answer your call for help. Taking down a giant, sword-wielding lava lizard with a pack of spectral wolves (or a knight, a pair of puppets, or gaggle of greatshield-wielding skeletons) is no less rewarding than facing them solo and allows even players of modest ability to comfortably progress the game’s main story.
The story itself is as nebulous as that of all FromSoftware games, with dense background lore (here provided by George R R Martin), gleaned largely through item descriptions. But the central narrative isn’t the draw here so much as the environment itself and everything in it. There’s a dizzying assortment of enemies to put to the sword (or axe, or spell, or flaming incantation) as you progress through the world, but the primary joy here is in simple exploration. As you make your way through the castles of Limgrave, the watery expanse of Liurnia, the festering wastelands of Caelid, the gilded Royal Capital of Leyndell and far, far beyond, the vast landscape offers up a treasure trove of easily-missed nooks and crannies. Mines hidden in the crook of mountain passes, catacombs ensconced behind illusory walls, even entire play areas that you could easily miss in a single run-through if not taking your time to follow every path, scour every dead end or follow the silvery clues left by players who have come before. Few games have managed such a feeling of overwhelming scope and scale such that you could sink several hundred hours into exploring, while only turning up a fraction of what the game has to offer.
Put simply, Elden Ring is a must-play title and if this is your first opportunity to set foot in The Lands Between then we advise you to jump in with both feet. The Switch 2 port proves an unexpected triumph, too, capable of running this colossal game while losing precious little in the jump from big screen to handheld (though don’t expect your battery to last much more than a couple of hours playing this one). With the Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC providing more game hours than the majority of full-priced games, the Tarnished Edition represents incredible value, too. This is one Elden Ring to rule them all.
