We’ve learned a lot about Elden Ring over the past few weeks, through class reviews, previews, inopportune leaks, and memes galore. And today, we got the final piece of the big pre-release puzzle: The Elden Ring launch trailer.
It’s a heck of a thing: Bombastic, overwrought, loud, and filled with strange creatures, bizarre fantasy landscapes, and the faux gravitas that arises inevitably from booming voices and choral chants. FromSoftware recently asked players not to spoil anything, which led us to wonder, is it even possible to spoil a Souls game? My feeling, after watching this trailer (more than twice, for the record) is a hard “no.”
There is one particularly interesting point of note amidst all the sound and fury, though. At the 1:05 mark of the trailer, our intrepid hero uncorks what is clearly a firearm of some sort. After some discussion with my colleagues we decided against calling it a gun, for fear of suggesting that scores were being settled with some kind of medieval AK: Instead, we’ve opted for “shield cannon,” mainly because UK news editor Rich Stanton pointed out that Bloodborne has an arm cannon, so it’s apparently a reasonable thematic fit and not as out-of-place in a swords-and-sorcery action game as it might seem.
What I like most about this trailer, though, is the way it demonstrates the absolute truth behind this brilliant tweet:
Dark Souls revolutionized games, in the sense that instead of a story now you can just have some guy with a big sword named Myrmidon of Loss who gasps “Zanzibart… forgive me” when he dies and then twenty YouTubers will make an hour long video about how deep your lore isFebruary 5, 2022
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It’s worth noting that Winkler expressed genuine love for the Dark Souls games in a followup tweet, and I suspect we’ll see the same sort of eyes-wide-open appreciation for Elden Ring. As overblown as it is, it also looks extremely promising: After playing through a six-hour preview build, our features producer Imogen Mellor said Elden Ring is the most excited she’s been for a game since she was a teenager.
Elden Ring goes live on February 25—here’s the full schedule of global unlock times.
Elden Ring guide: Conquer the Lands Between
Elden Ring bosses: How to beat them
Elden Ring dungeons: How to defeat them
Elden Ring paintings: Solutions and locations
Elden Ring map fragments: Reveal the world
Elden Ring co-op: How to squad up online