When NieR:Automata developer PlatinumGames released the action RPG Babylon's Fall in March 2022, the expectations were high, because of the standards that Automata had set for the studio and for gamers. Instead, the game received a largely negative reception when it came out, and has had an abysmally low player ba  
Elden Ring has been one of, if not the most, acclaimed video games of 2022. With a story co-designed by Game of Thrones novelist George R.R. Martin and coming from the same studio that created the Souls series, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice , and Bloodborne , Elden Ring presents an expansive and lore-heavy open-world game that, while difficult at parts, is an extraordinary achievement and an overall bl  
Using the proprietary Nemesis system, Monolith Productions made the Middle-earth: Shadow games stand out by having previous foes recall player actions against them and react based on that upon a rematch. It's not the only way to make the world feel like it's alive, but it is an impressive and unique  
The Dragon Communion had a much different relationship with dragons, on the other hand. Rather than build a relationship on love and admiration, the Dragon Communion hunted dragons to devour their hearts. Doing so would grant them the power of the dragons they killed. But this comes at a cost: The more dragon flesh the Dragon Communion devoured, the more they turned into dragons. This is why Dragon Communion incantations in Elden Ring see the Tarnished morph into the head of a dragon to spew its breath or r  
Skyrim took the gaming world by storm thanks in large part to its dizzyingly large map, presented in breathtaking HD graphics (albeit graphics that were more impressive in 2011). Open-world games with huge maps had been released before Skyrim , of course, and even earlier Elder Scrolls entries like Morrowind had sprawling in-game environments, but Skyrim managed to densely populate this gargantuan world with countless activities, small details, collectibles, and unique locations. The sheer amount of both gameplay and narrative content contained in Skyrim 's game world have made it one that stands out from the crowd, even more than a decade after its release. This focus on size would be continued in The Elder Scrolls Online , which actually beats Skyrim when it comes to pure sc  
Perhaps the strangest creatures in Elden Ring are the Living Jars – ambulatory ceramic vessels of varying size and stone-like limbs, stuffed to the brim with corpses sealed under a lid of wax. The first Living Jar players can encounter, stuck in a pit in the Limgrave area, is Elden Ring 's gregarious Iron Fist Alexander , who pits himself against different challenges in foes in the hopes of becoming a true warrior. After joining forces with the player to defeat the Starscourge Radahn boss and stuffing himself with the corpses of warriors from an old battlefield, Iron Fist Alexander can be found bathing in a lake of lava in Mr. Gelmir, and will gift the player with a literal Jar to wear as a helmet (this jar helmet happens to be the signature headgear of the legendary Malenia-slaying Elden Ring co-op player called "Let Me Solo He  
Finally, there are three schools of Faith-based magic left in Elden Ring , and each of them finds its source in a different Outer God. The first, Blood magic, derives its power from the Formless Mother. Many of the Blood incantations require the caster to literally obtain blood from the Formless Mother's body via magic to then attack opponents with it. Though the Formless Mother is the source of power for these incantations, it is Mogh the Lord of Blood who discovered them and enables his servants to use t  
Radagon left his betrothed for Queen Marika, leaving the Full Moon Queen Rennala to go mad and eternally depressed. It's later revealed that Radagon and Marika are technically one and the same, with the former being a physical off-shoot of the lat  
Connected to the magic of the Godskin Apostles is Bestial magic. In Elden Ring , only the Beast Clergyman Gurranq and his militiamen utilize Bestial magic, which is said to have been created by the primitive beings of the Lands Between long before the creation of the Erdtree. Of course, Gurranq is actually Elden Ring 's Maliketh the Black Blade , so his ancient Bestial magic has somehow been able to overcome the Death magic of the Godskin Apost  
The map of Skyrim is undoubtedly vast and variable, but Elden Ring 's the Lands Between has it beat. Players won't know exactly how big Elden Ring 's map is at first, which makes its diversity even more astonishing. Whereas Skyrim offers visual diversity between its most important settlements, elden Ring News Ring 's many locations have differences that are far more than surface-deep. For example, Noskella, Eternal City has almost nothing in common with Leyndell, as the former is a subterranean, dark, menacing landscape while the former is a regal and pristine metropolis. These opposing styles are evidenced through each city's unique art style, but also through their environment design, with Leyndell being far more open and sprawling and Noskella is more linear, with a greater focus on verticality and complex, Gothic architecture that highlights its incomprehensible nature. This difference is also present in the enemy types of each location (shining knights in Leyndell, giant bugs in Noskel