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The joy of Elden Ring’s Limgrave, a Souls game in miniatureMy favourite Elden thing
My favourite Elden thing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FromSoftware/Bandai Namco Entertainment
What lies beyond Limgrave? I honestly don’t know. I’ve muddled my way throughElden Ring’s starting peninsula three times now, but have yet to step foot beyond the crumbling gatehouse ofStormveil Castle. The second Godrick The Grafted is reduced to a sickly pile of wobbly limbs, I turn the game off and walk away.
12 Elden Ring Tips And Tricks To Help You Easily Conquer The First 10 HoursAdmittedly, a lot of my time in Limgrave was spent making tips videos, but my point still stands.Watch on YouTube
12 Elden Ring Tips And Tricks To Help You Easily Conquer The First 10 Hours
I’ve often heard Limgrave compared to the Great Plateau from Nintendo’s The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, a walled-off area that contains everything to be found in the wider game for the purpose of organically teaching the player how to interact with its world and systems. A truly interactive tutorial that replaces pop-ups with carefully placed enemies, puzzles and biomes. I guess there’s some truth to the idea that the pair serve the same purpose. Limgrave, too, presents the player with Elden Ring’s greatest bits, albeit smaller and less grand. Caves full of horrible bosses. Crypts full of horrible bosses. Vast swathes of quiet, decaying landscape full of horrible bosses. You are taught how to summon ashen effigies of common enemies to fight alongside you in battle, a mysterious woman converts your runes into strength, and a bangle allows you to charge through the mist on the back of a horned steed.
But Limgrave is so much more than a simple tutorial zone. It’s paced differently, for starters, and contains more depth than you can comprehend at first glance. You can easily spend 25 hours within its forests, poking around its cliff faces and underneath its crumbling churches, and still find new (and probably awful) secrets lurking within them. There are characters to talk to. Weapons to wield. A hulking stone quadruped with a house on its back. Roaming bands of soldiers. Fierce warriors on horseback. This isn’t just a simple starting zone. Limgrave is an entire game.
Limgrave’s rolling green hills are beautiful despite the decay. A bit like England, I suppose. Hahahaha. How witty.
Over the last few months, a friend of mine has been helping me play throughBloodborne. He patiently sits next to me as I stumble my way through Yharnman, politely pointing out how shit I am at dodging in a way that doesn’t hurt my feelings. Although I’m very much enjoying (if that’s even the right word) my time with the game, I can’t help but remember how inaccessible Bloodborne - and, indeed, every other Souls game I’ve played over the years - felt when I first started playing it alone at launch. They are relentless, miserable things for those who struggle to engage with their specific design principles. Overcoming even a single obstacle can be a nightmare, and not one many have the patience to persevere with.
That’s a whole Souls game! Right there! In Limgrave! What more could you want? Another one? There are like, four more waiting for you after this if you choose to keep moving forward. Fill your boots, pal. For me, though, I’ve got everything I could ever hope for from Limgrave alone. The perfect Souls game, contained within arguably the best and biggest one ever made. The haunting melody of that dreary area will forever be playing in my mind as I recall the way those golden leaves would lazily drift toward the festering dirt.
You know, before a big bear smashed me so hard into a tree all my bones disintegrated in an instant and I crumpled to the ground like a tarnished shaped water balloon full of crispy bolognese sauce. It’s still Elden Ring, after all.
