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New Elden Ring trailer reveals an open world and a January 2022 release date

DeAngelo Epps
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FromSoftware and Bandai Namco unveiled a new trailer for their newest “Souls” game, Elden Ring, today at Summer Game Fest 2021. The game will launch on January 21, 2022, on PC, plus current and last-generation consoles.

ELDEN RING - Official Gameplay Reveal

Elden Ring is a new action roleplaying game from FromSoftware, the developers behind series like Dark Souls, Demon Souls, and Bloodborne. This game is being headed by game director Hidetaka Miyazaki, a lead on Bloodborne and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and fantasy writer George R. R. Martin, the man behind the original novel series that inspired Game of Thrones.

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Based on the trailer, we know that Elden Ring takes place in a world of ruins and players will take control of a created character in search of the “Elden Ring.”

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Unlike the past Souls games, Elden Ring is more narrative heavy, thanks to Martin. In past games, the lore felt more optional, while this game seems to be taking a more active storytelling approach.

Elden Ring is being called the “natural evolution” of the Souls series and features a larger, more open-world experience. There is also the added mechanic of being able to ride on horseback for travel due to the scale of the world that is shown off in the trailer.

It seems that the combat will be a bit deeper than in past games while still keeping the classic Dark Souls options intact. The trailer showed off new magical attacks, more spectacular combos, and greater evasive options. Despite these differences the combat looks very similar to Dark Souls 3.

Elden Ring is set to release on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S on January 21, 2022.

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DeAngelo Epps
DeAngelo Epps
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
The best Spirit Ashes in Elden Ring
A player stands next to Ancient Dragon Knight Kristoff in Elden Ring.

In every FromSoftware Souls game, summons have existed in multiple forms. There are helpful human summons that can fight alongside you, but also human invaders that aim to kill you. Alternatively, there are NPC summons that can serve those same two purposes. The situations and requirements for how and when you can access these summons change from game to game, but in Elden Ring there is a third option thrown into the mix. Instead of costing items, humanity, or only being available in specific locations, Spirit Ashes are a new type of NPC summon that calls a ghostly figure -- usually based on an enemy -- to your side. There are dozens of them to be collected in The Lands Between, and all can be upgraded with rare materials. But the power gap between some of them is quite large.

Spirit Ashes can't be called anywhere or if you've already summoned help via another means, but if you've got the right ones, they're arguably better than summoning human help. Most will cost you some FP, just like magic, but don't come with the downside of increasing the boss's health to compensate like a regular summon would. Since the bosses of Elden Ring are so aggressive, and there are more than a few where you're facing two at once, having a reliable buddy to back you up is almost necessary for evening the odds. Rather than fumble around trying to sort out which out of the dozens of Spirit Ashes you've collected is best, here's a list of the best ones to invest your upgrades into in Elden Ring.

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If you like Elden Ring, play 2021’s most underrated game
Sable watches the sunset from a perch.

Elden Ring was released to widespread critical acclaim and adoration over a month ago. It proved how open worlds that emphasize discovery and exploration engage and immerse players more than a world that just feels like a hub for a checklist of missions and collectibles. Unfortunately, Elden Ring isn't a game for everyone, myself included, due to its crushing difficulty and some other questionable design choices. 
Thankfully, Elden Ring isn't the only game to contain an open world that enables that much player freedom. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the easiest comparison to make, but an underrated indie game from 2021 also gives Elden Ring's open world a run for its money. The best part: It's more relaxing than Elden Ring because it doesn't contain an ounce of combat. 
That game in question is Sable from Shedworks and Raw Fury. Released for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S in September 2021, Sable uses an open world with immense freedom to tell a coming-of-age story that's as long or short as the player wants it to be. Whether you're a fan of Elden Ring looking for a similar game to sink your teeth into or someone who likes the freedom of Elden Ring's open world but can't get past its eccentricities, Sable should be the next game you play.
Sable - Launch Trailer - Available Now (4k)
Beneath the mask
In Sable, you play as the titular character, a young girl from the Ibex tribe on the giant desert planet of Midden who must go on a journey across the planet to collect masks. When Sable is ready, she can return to the village and choose a mask to determine what she'll do for the rest of her life. After a somewhat confined beginning where the player learns to float in the air and also creates a hoverbike called a Glider, they then set off into Midden's vast deserts, free to meet people, complete tasks for them, and solve puzzles while collecting masks and learning about the history of the world.
The moment when players are driving away from the Ibex tribe into the desert and Japanese Breakfast's original song Glider kicks in trumps the opening of both Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring in getting the players excited to explore a large world. Couple that with distinct visuals and excellent sound design, and you have a game that's a treat to look at and play. 
Although the player is directed toward a specific village after leaving Sable's tribe, they can choose to go anywhere from the start. The player's floating ability and stamina allow them to climb anything they come across. Players will slowly uncover the history of Sable's world while learning more about the cultures and kinds of people that populate it, which fans of Elden Ring's hands-off storytelling will appreciate. No matter where players go, they can meet another wandering traveler or complete a puzzle platforming challenge to get a mask. Sable is an experience that purely cares about that feeling of adventure, so there's no combat or overreliance on adjusting and leveling up Sable's stats. While this minimalist approach might seem too simple, it actually makes it a fantastic companion piece to Elden Ring. 
Relaxing, not taxing
Sable does many of the same things correctly as FromSoftware's latest, but without any of the overwhelming -- and sometimes poorly explained -- fluff. Players don't have to worry about difficult roadblocks that force them to explore and get good. Sable enables players to go anywhere they want and do anything they want until at least three masks are collected. Players can beat Sable in just a few hours, but the game has enough depth to support players for much longer than that with the number of quests to complete and masks to collect. The game features a quest log too, so even with its minimalist aesthetic and UI, you'll never feel truly lost.

Sable demonstrates that the difficulty isn't what makes Elden Ring so great; world design that encourages and rewards players for exploring does. Games like Breath of the Wild, Sable, and Elden Ring understand it and are three of the best open-world games in recent years for that reason. But out of this triple threat of standard-setting open-world games, Sable has garnered the least attention and acclaim for its efforts, making it a hidden gem. Now that Elden Ring has indoctrinated over 12 million players into this modern version of the open world, Sable is worth revisiting.
Sable is available now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. It's even on Xbox Game Pass. 

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What letting Fia hold you in Elden Ring really does
A knight standing next to Fia.

It wouldn't be a FromSoftware game if there weren't NPCs with cryptic dialogue and interactions that make almost no sense. Elden Ring has the most NPCs of any Souls game yet, and offers way more opportunities to actually speak with and learn about them. But that doesn't mean some aren't still needlessly obtuse or downright confusing. That goes double for all the characters who have some sort of quest associated with them. While a patch did make some quests easier to track and complete, there's one NPC you meet in Roundtable Hold that might be affecting your game far more than you expect.

Fia the Deathbed Companion can be found in a cozy bedroom, sitting on a bed beside a crackling fire in the Roundtable Hold. By speaking to her, she will offer to embrace you for a while. You can choose to let her hold you or reject the offer, but most people -- at least at first -- will feel tempted to let this kind woman hold our tired warrior for a brief moment of respite. If you do, or did, then you will also realize that you gain a special item for letting Fia hold you called a Baldachin's Blessing. She will even say that you can always go back to her to get another if you use yours. Sounds like a good deal, right? Maybe not. Here's what letting Fia hold you in Elden Ring really does.

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