An Elden Ring player has defeated Malenia without dodging any of her attacks, simply brute forcing their way through the entire boss fight.
15.01.2024 - 12:01 / gamesradar.com / Tim Cain
Fallout's co-creator has named his personal pick of the five modern RPGs that everyone designing a game could and should learn from.
Tim Cain is no stranger to grand RPGs - he's been making them for over 30 years at this point, beginning with the very first Fallout, and stretching all the way to helping Obsidian make The Outer Worlds 2 in 2024. Bringing all those decades of expertize to bear, Cain has announced his pick of the five modern RPGs that he thinks everyone designing games can learn something from.
It's important to note that, as Cain himself highlights in the video below, these are five games that the developer believes can teach "certain aspects" of RPG development. This isn't a list of the five best RPGs ever - this is a list of five RPGs that you should be paying attention to, "whether you like them or not," Cain says.
Cain leads with World of Warcraft as his first pick. Why? Because even if it isn't the best RPG or even the best MMORPG, it proved that "making things easier makes them more fun," Cain says. Whereas Everquest offers "all stick and no carrot" in its difficulty design, Cain says WoW is "all carrot," in its approach to difficulty, and it's fun as a result. "Fun trumps just about anything," Cain adds.
Elden Ring, Cain's second pick, proves "harder is more fun." Cain loved Elden Ring's lore being there, but "you had to dig for it," and likewise loves the RPG's use of status gauges to show the player character accruing poison or other status effects over time. The player could stop the build-up of status effects with a variety of skills and items, and Cain loves that.
"Skyrim is an absolute masterclass in exploration," Cain says for his third pick. The veteran developer absolutely adores Skyrim for its use of art and its geographical variety of locations. Cain even says Skyrim is the closest he's ever come to playing a computer game what he imagines Dungeons & Dragons is like in his head.
Fallout: New Vegas is similarly a "masterclass," but for another reason: it's ability to take something older, and bring it into a new era. Cain lavishes praise on New Vegas for taking the older characters of the first two Fallout games, and "extending their storylines" by bringing them to new locations. Cain also picks New Vegas for nailing its humor, both in its situations and its dialog.
Additionally, Cain loves New Vegas for its "reactivity." Choices were presented to the player, Cain says, but they weren't presented in a "black or white" lens, and they had "huge consequences." They weren't "fake choices," in that they ended up being sort of similar, but were "fundamentally different" decisions. Cain immediately wanted to play New Vegas again after finishing it, which he thinks is the sign
An Elden Ring player has defeated Malenia without dodging any of her attacks, simply brute forcing their way through the entire boss fight.
An Elden Ring player shared a short video of a hilarious invasion which ended up looking like a Looney Tunes episode. Invasions in Elden Ring are a fun little diversion that provides players a chance to engage in PvP fights, battling it out in competitive multiplayer without the confines of being in the Colosseum. Sometimes, invasions will even lead to interesting situations that turn out to be more entertaining than the solo gaming experience itself.
One unlucky Elden Ring invader ran into another player using a hack that allowed them to fly around on a bug. Elden Ring is one of FromSoftware’s most successful titles, having won numerous awards, including Best Role-Playing Game in 2022 and even Best Multiplayer at various ceremonies. FromSoftware games are known for their challenging combat and formidable bosses that require players to learn their attack patterns to defeat them successfully.
The Shadow of the Erdtree DLC for 2022's Game of the Year Elden Ring has potentially had its release date leaked by limited edition Xbox and Thrustmaster controllers. It's been almost a whole year since Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was announced and Souls fans have been clamoring for any bit of new info since.
Updated on January 25, 2024, by Josh Coulson: The alleged controller listing was posted by someone claiming to be a Play Asia employee. However, it's origin and how much it differs from the controller designs leaked in December mean the image might not be the real deal. It still seems likely we will be getting something to celebrate Elden Ring's second birthday a month from now.
Bandai Namco has recently updated the Elden Ring playlists for its various YouTube channels, leading some to believe that the big reveal trailer for the game's highly-anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC could be happening soon. Elden Ring has been a massive success for FromSoftware and Bandai Namco, smashing records and establishing itself as one of the highest-rated video games of all time.
Palworld, an open-world action-adventure title where players can combat and capture Pokemon-like creatures, has become a phenomenon, rising to the top of Steam charts days within launch. The game, which also incorporates elements of the survival genre, now has the fifth-highest peak concurrent players in the history of the Valve storefront, going past heavyweight titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy. Palword developers Pocketpair also confirmed Monday that the game has sold over five million copies within three days of launch.
An Elden Ring player has uploaded a reference clip showing Malenia's hitboxes during the Waterfowl Dance. Most fans are already familiar with the iconic character and her signature move, the Waterfowl Dance. Many gamers even claim that she is one of the most complicated enemies, and possibly the hardest opponent, available in the game. While there have been different strategies to beat Elden Ring's Malenia, even up to this day a lot of players have difficulty in defeating one of the game's secret bosses.
Expectation for an Elden Ring DLC announcement has reached fever pitch after Bandai Namco updated a YouTube playlist.
A hardcore Elden Ring player has recently started to play the game in a curious way: by rolling in real life every time they dodge during boss fights. Many Elden Ring bosses are already notoriously hard, and with this handicap, the player made these fights even more difficult.
Although news regarding the upcoming DLC,, has been scarce, a behind-the-scenes addition to the game could indicate that it'll be releasing sooner rather than later in 2024. Similar to the pre-launch cycle for the game itself, the advertising for has been practically nonexistent outside its announcement, which has driven a fair amount of speculation that more concrete trailers for the DLC would appear at various gaming events near the end of 2023.
New evidence suggests Bandai Namco and From Software could be preparing to reveal Elden Ring’s long-awaited expansion soon.