On August 20, 2024, FromSoftware announced that the Prime Video anthology show Secret Level will feature an all new story set in one of the universes of Armored Core. The series, being developed by the same creative team as Love, Death & Robots, will feature 15 shorts from various video games.

Armored Core joins a list of many other famous games to appear in installments in Secret Level, including Mega Man, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer 40,000 and Pac-Man. The tweet announcing this FromSoftware game's involvement also showed off a mech racing across an icy wasteland and a picture of a human character who resembles actor Keanu Reeves.

You can see the official tweet here:

This isn't the first time the Armored Core property has gone beyond the video games. Numerous model kits have been made of famous Cores from the series. A novel called Armored Core: Brave New World appeared in Japan.

Blur Studio, the production company behind Love, Death & Robots and Secret Level previously did work on films like James Cameron's Avatar, created trailers for Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight, and redid the cutscenes for the Master Chief Collection version of Halo 2.

Secret Level will be streaming on Amazon Prime Video on December 10, 2024, and the Armored Core episode will be a part of the show.

The post Secret Level Anthology Show Includes an Armored Core Short appeared first on Siliconera.

Earlier this month, Amazon announced that it had ordered an animated series full of shorts based on video games like Spelunky and Mega Man, called Secret Level. Now we’ve gotten our first look at the teaser trailer for the series, and it certainly looks like there’s a short based on Armored Core, the FromSoftware mech…

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A new update for Elden Ring has been released, bringing multiple balance adjustments and boosting Spirit Ashes.

Update 1.13 is now available for all platforms. However, localisation staff removed from the credits are still yet to be added in.

As previously reported by Eurogamer, some Latin American translation staff were removed from the credits with the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, differing from the base game.

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This is your friendly reminder that Microsoft is set to close its Xbox 360 digital store on 29th July – that's next Monday – so you have just a few days left to make the most of those last discounts on some of the best Xbox 360 games of the generation.

Microsoft announced a raft of discounts on Xbox 360 digital games back in May. Whilst some games will live on via other platforms and services – including Microsoft's comprehensive backwards compatibility system – there are a handful of games that will disappear from sale forever. So, if you've ever fancied one, now's the time to pick it up.

X user Kalyoshika has shared a list of the games/DLC that "will not survive", as well as "a couple of games that are going from cheap, easy-to-get digital copies", to "impossible-to-get, expensive, piracy only, jump-through-hoops to play".

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A new update for Elden Ring has been released, bringing multiple balance adjustments and boosting Spirit Ashes.

Update 1.13 is now available for all platforms. However, localisation staff removed from the credits are still yet to be added in.

As previously reported by Eurogamer, some Latin American translation staff were removed from the credits with the release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, differing from the base game.

Read more

This is your friendly reminder that Microsoft is set to close its Xbox 360 digital store on 29th July – that's next Monday – so you have just a few days left to make the most of those last discounts on some of the best Xbox 360 games of the generation.

Microsoft announced a raft of discounts on Xbox 360 digital games back in May. Whilst some games will live on via other platforms and services – including Microsoft's comprehensive backwards compatibility system – there are a handful of games that will disappear from sale forever. So, if you've ever fancied one, now's the time to pick it up.

X user Kalyoshika has shared a list of the games/DLC that "will not survive", as well as "a couple of games that are going from cheap, easy-to-get digital copies", to "impossible-to-get, expensive, piracy only, jump-through-hoops to play".

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FromSoftware or Soulslike game fans, rejoice! The PS5 remake of Demon’s Souls from 2020, the precursor to the Elden Ring phenomenon, is now available for PlayStation Plus Extra subscribers.

This visually stunning reimagining brings the brutal world of Boletaria to life with breathtaking detail, offering veterans and newcomers alike a chance to experience the game that started it all.

Did you know? The Demon’s Souls remake includes a mysterious new door, unseen in the original, sparking wild theories among the community. What secrets lie behind it? There’s only one way to find out – dive in and discover for yourself.

Are you not ready yet to pay for Elden Ring and Shadow of Erdtree DLC? Practice in Demon’s Souls for your PlayStation 5. It’s really a good deal.

The post PS5 Brings Inferno with Demon’s Souls to Happy Subscribers for Free appeared first on WePlayGames.net: Home for Top Gamers.

Kai Cenat is at it again. After taking on and overcoming Elden Ring and its expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, the massively popular Twitch streamer Cenat is once again marathoning a game from FromSoftware’s legendary catalog, and he’s tackling the best one. That’s right, he’s playing Bloodborne, the best game to ever…

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The pre and post launch hype behind Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has been impossible to ignore, but has it managed to convince any of you 'never-Souls' players to finally give the game a try?

The oft-mention difficulty curve of the Souls series can be an instant turn off for some. I mean, what possible fun could there be in getting your Tarnished butt handed to you every 10 minutes or so? That sounds rubbish! But also, deep down, maybe you just can't shake that feeling that you might be missing out on something incredibly special?

That's how Maddie Cullen felt as she saw our internal chats about Shadow of the Erdtree, so she decided to test out whether or not following tips and guides could help her to embrace the pain and help her get into the game. Join Maddie as she documents her first few hours of the game to see if tips and guides are essential tools for a newcomer on the video player above or, if you'd prefer to watch it on YouTube, you'll find that embedded just below these words.

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With the release of DLC Shadow of the Erdtree, Elden Ring players are back to their old tricks by playing the game in weird and wonderful ways.

Take Twitch streamer Perrikaryal, who's already played the game with her mind and is now tackling Shadow of the Erdtree. Yes, you read that right.

Perrikaryal uses a bluetooth, portable EEG reader to analyse patterns of brain activity and, along with an eye-tracker, convert these to inputs. She then thinks about specific actions, which trigger rolls, attacks and the like in game - here's an explanation clip.

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Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco has "called out" Elden Ring fans struggling with the dfficulty by suggesting they "level up your Scadutree Blessing".

In a brief message posted on social media platform X, Bandai Namco US said simply: "This is a suggestion".

"The best advice coming straight from the source," said one Tarnished.

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I always get lost in games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls. The impossible architecture, the improbable geography and the way that the levels twist and turn and fold back in on themselves really muddles my head and stops me from being able to visualise the locations properly. Put me in those same places in VR though and suddenly, because it feels like I'm actually there, their spaces make so much more sense. The depth, the distance, the perspective, every visual trick that VR provides makes From's abstract scenery much easier for my brain to understand.

Not only that though, VR also allows me to appreciate the finer details of the game's assets. Little bits of stitching on a robe, the thin whisps of incense rising from a burner, these are things I'd just blunder right past without noticing in flat. Which leads me nicely to today's VR Corner, in which I take a leisurely trot around Elden Rings' Shadow of the Erdtree DLC in VR!

Thanks to the most recent update for Luke Ross' REAL VR mod, I was able to toggle on a 'tourism' mode and become invisible to all the enemies in the Lands of Shadow. That way I could really drink in the visuals and enjoy the scenery of Shadow of the Erdtree without worrying about getting a foot to the face from a Furnace Golem (until I turned tourism mode off specifically for that purpose!).

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Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC has fallen to a "mixed" user rating on Steam after players logged their disappointment with difficulty and the PC version's performance issues.

An aggregate score of almost 15,000 players has seen the critically acclaimed DLC stumble on PC, and whilst most players comment favourably on the game's stunning presentation and world building, others take issue with the capped FPS, stuttering, and "bosses with jerky roll-catch movements and a plethora of physically nonsensical moves".

"I love running for 20 minutes in an open area with absolutely nothing to pick up random consumables that I'll never use against bosses that are insanely tedious to fight. Very miserable experience," said one unhappy Tarnished.

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Elden Ring pros are helping players beat two key bosses to enable fellow Tarnished access to its recently-released DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree.

As Shadow of the Erdtree isn't accessible until you've taken out both Starscourge Radahn and Mohg, Lord of Blood – something a surprisingly high number of Elden Ring players have yet to do – Elden Ring experts are offering their time and expertise to fell the great enemies and help players jump into the new content.

As spotted by TheGamer, the r/BeyondTheFog subreddit – a community dedicated to "online multiplayer in the Elden Ring game" where you can "request help with a boss or area or offer help with bosses and areas" – is full of friendly Tarnished offering to lend a helping hand across PC, PS5, and Xbox.

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Update Sunday 23rd June, 2024: FromSoftware has responded to CD Projekt Red's congratulatory tweet, saying it is "truly an honour" for the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree to be "placed alongside" The Witcher 3's Blood & Wine, long considered one of the greatest DLCs ever made.

In a response to CDPR's original X post, FromSoft said: "It is truly an honour to be placed alongside Blood and Wine, one of the all time greats.

"We are humbed by your kind words. Thank you."

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FromSoftware's Soulsborne games are notoriously difficult to beat, but creator Hidetaka Miyazaki has said it would "break the game itself" to turn down the challenge.

In an interview with The Guardian, Miyazaki discussed how high difficulty is not only creatively part of the game, but also has led to its success.

"If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn't the right approach," he said.

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I play Elden Ring like a Hoover. I explore the The Lands Between while hammering the button to acquire new materials. In all honesty, I've barely bothered with crafting unless I really need to, but all those leaves, stones, shards of bone, and strips of meat? They get sucked straight up into my inventory regardless.

But then I get a really great looking item. Maybe it's a new talisman, or an Ash of War. Maybe it's a really important story item with a description that's integral to the plot. But too late! It's already gone, lost in the black hole of my inventory, never to be found again. It's all very well finding an item while exploring, but finding it in your inventory is a whole game in itself.

Now, though, that's a problem of the past. FromSoftware has released an update for its iconic Souls adventure that's available for all alongside its Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree. It includes two new inventory features: a recent items tab, and exclamation marks above new items. They're game changers.

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With one hand FromSoftware giveth (a goat-horse in a more opportune location, for instance) and with the other it taketh away; Elden Ring's newly released 1.12 update has introduced a bug that can break things on Steam Deck - but FromSoftware says it's investigating.

As detailed on the developer's social media feed, leaving Elden Ring inactive for too long on Steam Deck renders the game unplayable in some instances - something you'll probably want to be mindful of if you need to wander off and punch something, or have a little cry.

"A Steam Deck related issue has been identified and a hotfix is being worked on," the studio wrote on X. "Leaving your Steam Deck inactive for more than five minutes may stop the game from accepting inputs. We apologise for inconvenience." For what it's worth, I left Elden Ring running for multiple five-minute windows in the interests of science and had no problem resuming each time - so it's possible this isn't an especially widespread issue.

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With Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC mere hours away from release, you might think there's not much FromSoftware could possibly do to refocus your excitement on the base game. But Elden Ring's previously promised new 1.12 update is now here, and it's already caused a bit of a flutter among fans - not least because it finally lets you take your trusty steed Torrent into the base game's concluding Elden Beast boss fight.

Now, I'll readily admit I haven't fought the Elden Beast myself - the short explanation being my wildly misguided decision to do a melee-only first run-through and, uh, Malenia - but even I'm aware of the boss' notoriety. Not due to its difficult, mind, but because it teleports itself around an arena so massive, players have frequently found the ensuing on-foot chase-the-monster action utterly exhausting. This Reddit thread from two years ago called it the "single worst designed boss" in Elden Ring, and, well, it's a fairly common opinion.

Plenty of people have speculated the Elden Beast was originally designed to be tackled on the back of Torrent given its cavernous arena - and wondered why everybody's favourite goat-horse wasn't accessible in the final release version - but, some two years on, he's finally here. "Added new feature to summon spectral steed during the Elden Beast boss battle", explains today's 1.12 patch notes - and the Elden Ring fanbase rises for thunderous applause.

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My first steps into the Shadow Realm are with bare feet and an empty head. After reaching out to Mohg's crusty egg, I materialise in a vast, rolling field dotted with ruins. In the distance is a dimmed, sickly twin of the Erdtree ringed by shadowy drapes. It takes a minute to remember my buttons, but I summon Torrent to sprint through the long grass like a dog being let off the leash, and almost immediately experience death from above – some gnarled freak just two-shot me into the dirt. It takes a while to get a rhythm going again, and sort out whatever I was trying to do with my NG+ build. I decide for the sake of efficiency to stick to my Moonveil/Carian Glintstone Staff setup, because one does not simply walk into a FromSoft DLC.

It takes more time to feel at home again, but soon I'm puncturing hearts and obliterating minds, executing small huddles of gibbering NPCs as they pray, finding ways to slip past hard-hitting knights. Everyone I meet is all about Miquella, and it's a lot, but such is the way of the cult. Miquella has left crosses scattered about the Shadow Realm for his devotees, to denote where he has shed parts of himself and his flesh; Jesus himself couldn't have pulled off this kind of postmodern brand campaign.

Eventually I find myself in the Specimen Storehouse, which is in many ways a classic convoluted FromSoft library/lab level, and perfectly in line with Elden Ring's weird fascination with eugenics and taxonomy. There are many artefacts here, including a preserved giant suspended face-down from the ceiling, a waistcloth draped over his rump. As soon as I see him, I am seized with wild Miquellan fervour and run behind him to write "hole ahead." I am the first to write this here; I am message-seeding for the most prominent hole in the game like an enterprising SEO writer. Later, as I'm about to get evaporated by a boss, my message gets a "like" that saves my life. We're so f***ing back.

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Elden Ring creator and FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki has said mass layoffs won't happen at the studio "as long as this company is my responsibility".

Speaking to PC Gamer, Miyazaki discussed layoffs across the games industry, in particular the number of studios being closed under Embracer.

"Speaking to myself and this company, I want to say that this is not something I would wish on the staff at FromSoftware in a million years," said Miyazaki. "I'm pretty sure our parent company Kadokawa understands that and shares that view."

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One of those rare clarifying moments in my life came when I was told that the whale in Moby Dick didn't symbolise anything. Or rather, it didn't symbolise any one single thing in a fixed and coherent way. The whale might symbolise a handful of things, and those things might contradict one another and you'd just have to live with it. Also the whale was simultaneously a whale - no just or merely a whale, because there is never anything "mere" to be had when a whale is involved.

This was a brilliant thing to learn, and I still think about it often. Symbolism and things like that were very exciting when I was first learning about art and literature, but the danger, I guess, is that they become binary, a kind of substitution cypher. If the whale is a single thing, then Moby Dick is a puzzle that can be solved and we can all move on to other things. But it's not a single thing. It contains multitudes, to borrow a handy phrase from a contemporary of Melville. This frees it and sets it loose in the wild oceans of the mind. It is forever a thing of inference and speculation, of contradiction and dark wonder.

I may have written about this before. No bother. At the moment, anyway, these thoughts very much remind me of Elden Ring, which is getting a DLC this week in the shape of Shadow of the Erdtree. Inference and speculation, contradiction and dark wonder. I have my own relationship with Elden Ring, as I do with almost all FromSoftware games. I have played them a bit, some of them really quite a bit, and always enthusiastically. And then I have inevitably stalled on a skill issue or a simple matter of cognitive overload: too many threads to keep track of, so when I step away for a week or two, further progress becomes unthinkable. But this is only part of my relationship with these games, and it may actually be the weaker part. I love FromSoftware stuff and I think I love it passionately. I just love to talk about it, think about it, and most of all hear about it.

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Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree is out soon, and in anticipation developer FromSoftware has asked that people are considerate with what they post on social media to avoid any spoilers.

Greeting its many Tarnished players (it was recently announced Elden Ring has now shipped 25m units worldwide) the team wrote: "With the release of the expansion of Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, please be mindful of spoilers for those who want to tread into the Realm of Shadow with nothing but their determination and their minds unclouded."

It closed its post on X by preemptively thanking the Elden Ring community for their cooperation on this.

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Elden Ring creator Hidetaka Miyazaki is "still in the process" of creating his "ideal fantasy RPG", despite the huge success of the game and the previous Souls games.

When interviewed by PC Gamer, Miyazaki discussed the influence of tabletop games on his work. "You might say that trying to capture that excitement of those old tabletop games and game books was one facet of making Elden Ring," he said.

"But I think more than anything it's just my personal preference when it comes to RPGs and exploring fantasy worlds, so you might see some of my personal idiosyncrasies come into play. I'm still in the process of making my ideal fantasy RPG. While Elden Ring is not quite it, it's pretty close. It's getting close."

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Among Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree's more fearsome bosses is the Dancing Lion, a festive prancing terror inspired by Chinese Lion dances. Looking at it, you might expect this costumed nuisance to be another grafted abomination, its layers of papier-mache, binbags and repurposed carpets hiding a rippling quilt of flesh and bone, perhaps a real lion that has been shaved and stitched to its theatrical double. The truth is more appalling still: it's just two guys in a lion suit. They aren't even sewn together mouth to backside, like in the Human Centipede. Way to bait-and-switch, From!

Read more

Despite an overwhelmingly strong reception with critics, Shadow Of The Erdtree is currently sitting at a ‘mixed’ review rating on Steam, with nay-sayers citing performance issues and overbearing enemy design. The Elden Ring DLC is currently metacritic’s highest rated expansion of all time at 95, beating out the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Blood And Wine’s 92. However, roughly a third of the 41,000 user reviews on Steam are negative.

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After years of anticipation, Elden Ring’s first - and only - expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is finally out as of today. While there are plenty of intriguing secrets hiding in the new corner (it’s a big corner) of the Lands Between, Steam Deck players might stumble upon a not-so-welcome new discovery too, courtesy of a bug that can make your game unresponsive.

Read more

Update: Whelp, spoke too soon. Apparently some Steam Deck players are seeing an "Innapropriate activity detected" message upon launching Elden Ring, blocking them from playing online. I haven't had this myself, and some have reported the issue fixing itself after they installed the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but hopefully there's a proper patch in the works.

Elden Ring on the Steam Deck has long enjoyed a smoothness that desktop play has lacked. Not so much in simple framerate terms – the handheld spends far more time around the 30fps mark than it does bumping into Elden Ring’s 60fps cap – but thanks to a Proton compatibility update back in 2022, it’s drastically less prone to the flow-breaking stutter that still plagues the RPG in 2024. That now goes for Shadow Of The Erdtree as well, judging from my portable time in the new expansion.

Read more

I realised recently that a juicy subject for another Should You Bother With has been staring me in the face – or rather, I’ve been staring at it. Ultrawide gaming monitors have clearly avoided non-starter status, given they’ve been around for years, seemingly being exchanged for currency – and yet they’re nowhere near what you might consider the 'default' option when making a display upgrade. Regular widescreen monitors, with regular 16:9 aspect ratios, remain the go-to. So why switch?

Read more

We’re less than a day now from Shadow Of The Erdtree’s launch, and as promised, FromSoft have just released the latest patch (notes here) for the open world game. It’s only 6GB, and you’ll need it to play the expansion, so do click that button if you haven’t already. The updates headline features - new hairstyles, plus inventory and summoning QOL tweaks - were announced last week. However, it seems they buried the lede deeper than my disgust at the game’s Albinuaric murdering community: Torrent, the game’s spectral steed mount, is finally summonable in the fight against the final boss - just as the community have long speculated it was always intended to be.

Spoilers for the name of that boss below, if you’d rather not know.

Read more

Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree has finally been released on PC, adding a fat, rancid helping of open world role-playing to an open world RPG of already trouser-wetting, skirt-soiling scale and hazard. You can find this "first and last" Elden Ring DLC expansion on Steam, the Xbox Store and in the suppurating depths of your very worst nightmares. Am I overdoing it yet? No matter. Let's press on.

Read more

With Shadow Of The Erdtree about to launch this week, From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki has been doing a round of interviews discussing next steps for the venerated action-RPG developer, or at least, hinting at them in the manner of a Dark Souls NPC suggesting that you might want to have a poke around New Anor Londo. In one such chat, Miyazaki strays perilously close to airing the "themes or core elements" of whatever game or games FromSoftware are working on post-Elden Ring, commenting that he has been inspired, albeit perhaps in a "short-term way", by the experience of having a daughter.

Read more

I'd been in Paris to see open world action-RPG Shadow Of The Erdtree early and when I got back, Edwin messaged me. He asked whether I thought it was big enough to consider the DLC a pseudo-sequel, and at the time I said something along the lines of, "It's hefty, but I think that's probably pushing it".

I was wrong. The Land Of Shadow may not be as expansive as the base game's Lands Between, but it's knottier, denser, more of a twisting mass that burrows into the earth and soars into the skies. For this reason I think it produces some of Elden Ring's finest moments, as exploration leads to a truer sense of discovery reminiscent of old Souls. But I also think its sheer density exposes more chinks in its open world format, where its interconnected sprawl leads to even greater recollection paralysis.

Read more

This once verdant ground is now wrecked by the passage of time. My terrible nemesis looms before me, inevitable and devastating. Many have fallen to it, but I will overcome. Oh, Elden Ring? I was talking about male pattern baldness. It will eventually destroy all that was once beautiful about my hairline, but at least I’ll have five fancy new hairdos to pick from when the open world RPG’s newest free update releases this Thursday, 20th of June. There’s also some QOL tweaks to inventory management and summoning pools, but I can’t wear those, can I?

Read more

Look, everyone wants to play Bloodborne on PC. It’s one of those universally accepted truths, like gravity or pizza being delicious. And, yes, nobody really knows why Bloodborne isn’t on PC yet, almost a decade after it released on PlayStation 4 - despite Sony’s apparent delight in bringing every other PlayStation exclusive to PC, just to mock us. It’s one of those universally accepted unknowns, like how gravity works or the actual best pizza topping. (It’s glue, if you believe AI.)

Read more

Shadow Of The Erdtree is out in under 10 days, but some players must be in for a surprise if they expect to be able to jump in straight away. As it turns out, most players on Steam haven’t even progressed far enough in the original game to access the DLC - something publishers Bandai Namco have now issued a friendly FYI about.

Read more

Among Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree's more fearsome bosses is the Dancing Lion, a festive prancing terror inspired by Chinese Lion dances. Looking at it, you might expect this costumed nuisance to be another grafted abomination, its layers of papier-mache, binbags and repurposed carpets hiding a rippling quilt of flesh and bone, perhaps a real lion that has been shaved and stitched to its theatrical double. The truth is more appalling still: it's just two guys in a lion suit. They aren't even sewn together mouth to backside, like in the Human Centipede. Way to bait-and-switch, From!

Read more

Despite an overwhelmingly strong reception with critics, Shadow Of The Erdtree is currently sitting at a ‘mixed’ review rating on Steam, with nay-sayers citing performance issues and overbearing enemy design. The Elden Ring DLC is currently metacritic’s highest rated expansion of all time at 95, beating out the The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s Blood And Wine’s 92. However, roughly a third of the 41,000 user reviews on Steam are negative.

Read more

After years of anticipation, Elden Ring’s first - and only - expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is finally out as of today. While there are plenty of intriguing secrets hiding in the new corner (it’s a big corner) of the Lands Between, Steam Deck players might stumble upon a not-so-welcome new discovery too, courtesy of a bug that can make your game unresponsive.

Read more

Update: Whelp, spoke too soon. Apparently some Steam Deck players are seeing an "Innapropriate activity detected" message upon launching Elden Ring, blocking them from playing online. I haven't had this myself, and some have reported the issue fixing itself after they installed the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, but hopefully there's a proper patch in the works.

Elden Ring on the Steam Deck has long enjoyed a smoothness that desktop play has lacked. Not so much in simple framerate terms – the handheld spends far more time around the 30fps mark than it does bumping into Elden Ring’s 60fps cap – but thanks to a Proton compatibility update back in 2022, it’s drastically less prone to the flow-breaking stutter that still plagues the RPG in 2024. That now goes for Shadow Of The Erdtree as well, judging from my portable time in the new expansion.

Read more

I realised recently that a juicy subject for another Should You Bother With has been staring me in the face – or rather, I’ve been staring at it. Ultrawide gaming monitors have clearly avoided non-starter status, given they’ve been around for years, seemingly being exchanged for currency – and yet they’re nowhere near what you might consider the 'default' option when making a display upgrade. Regular widescreen monitors, with regular 16:9 aspect ratios, remain the go-to. So why switch?

Read more

We’re less than a day now from Shadow Of The Erdtree’s launch, and as promised, FromSoft have just released the latest patch (notes here) for the open world game. It’s only 6GB, and you’ll need it to play the expansion, so do click that button if you haven’t already. The updates headline features - new hairstyles, plus inventory and summoning QOL tweaks - were announced last week. However, it seems they buried the lede deeper than my disgust at the game’s Albinuaric murdering community: Torrent, the game’s spectral steed mount, is finally summonable in the fight against the final boss - just as the community have long speculated it was always intended to be.

Spoilers for the name of that boss below, if you’d rather not know.

Read more

Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree has finally been released on PC, adding a fat, rancid helping of open world role-playing to an open world RPG of already trouser-wetting, skirt-soiling scale and hazard. You can find this "first and last" Elden Ring DLC expansion on Steam, the Xbox Store and in the suppurating depths of your very worst nightmares. Am I overdoing it yet? No matter. Let's press on.

Read more

With Shadow Of The Erdtree about to launch this week, From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki has been doing a round of interviews discussing next steps for the venerated action-RPG developer, or at least, hinting at them in the manner of a Dark Souls NPC suggesting that you might want to have a poke around New Anor Londo. In one such chat, Miyazaki strays perilously close to airing the "themes or core elements" of whatever game or games FromSoftware are working on post-Elden Ring, commenting that he has been inspired, albeit perhaps in a "short-term way", by the experience of having a daughter.

Read more

I'd been in Paris to see open world action-RPG Shadow Of The Erdtree early and when I got back, Edwin messaged me. He asked whether I thought it was big enough to consider the DLC a pseudo-sequel, and at the time I said something along the lines of, "It's hefty, but I think that's probably pushing it".

I was wrong. The Land Of Shadow may not be as expansive as the base game's Lands Between, but it's knottier, denser, more of a twisting mass that burrows into the earth and soars into the skies. For this reason I think it produces some of Elden Ring's finest moments, as exploration leads to a truer sense of discovery reminiscent of old Souls. But I also think its sheer density exposes more chinks in its open world format, where its interconnected sprawl leads to even greater recollection paralysis.

Read more

This once verdant ground is now wrecked by the passage of time. My terrible nemesis looms before me, inevitable and devastating. Many have fallen to it, but I will overcome. Oh, Elden Ring? I was talking about male pattern baldness. It will eventually destroy all that was once beautiful about my hairline, but at least I’ll have five fancy new hairdos to pick from when the open world RPG’s newest free update releases this Thursday, 20th of June. There’s also some QOL tweaks to inventory management and summoning pools, but I can’t wear those, can I?

Read more

Look, everyone wants to play Bloodborne on PC. It’s one of those universally accepted truths, like gravity or pizza being delicious. And, yes, nobody really knows why Bloodborne isn’t on PC yet, almost a decade after it released on PlayStation 4 - despite Sony’s apparent delight in bringing every other PlayStation exclusive to PC, just to mock us. It’s one of those universally accepted unknowns, like how gravity works or the actual best pizza topping. (It’s glue, if you believe AI.)

Read more

Shadow Of The Erdtree is out in under 10 days, but some players must be in for a surprise if they expect to be able to jump in straight away. As it turns out, most players on Steam haven’t even progressed far enough in the original game to access the DLC - something publishers Bandai Namco have now issued a friendly FYI about.

Read more

It’s Elden Ring day, again. Shadow of the Erdtree, its long-awaited and massive expansion, is finally live and, surprise, it’s really, really hard. Even veteran players are getting their asses kicked. Whether it’s new bosses or random scrubs out in the field, everything seems to be hitting harder and Elden Ring sickos…

Read more...