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Just because I'm not currently playing Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't mean my co-editor isn't. Nate put up these thoughts about tensions between cool, sick, double swords and the small moral choices that From litters throughout.

I like Elden Ring. I wrote about Siofra River a while ago and it's one of my favorite pieces from the last few years. But Armored Core 6 is so good, and seems to me the best synthesis of From's approach so far (including lessons taken from ER), that I'm not in a rush to go back to the lands between.

And it would be going back, since I never finished the main game. Or even made it to the boss that is apparently the one you've got to do before entering the DLC.

I liked the Elden Ring multiplayer a lot. I like Souls multiplayer a lot, in general. But the flip side of that is that I tend to lose interest in the single player side of things. It's absorbing, but it can also feel a bit one note. My interest wanders, I start to play other games (and there are always a lot of other games that I'm playing), and before I know it games like Elden Ring have fallen out of that rotation, again. To date, the only From DLC from the last decade that I've finished is the one from the first Dark Souls. I loved it. I've started all the stuff in 2 and Bloodborne, but I never even finished Sekiro or 3 in the first place, let alone their expansions.

AC6 also provided me with an experience that may have crystallized some feelings about From's boss designs. Ultimately, I appreciate all the bosses in that game. That said, I still think that Balteus wasn't a very good boss. It has too much going on, too deep a tool kit, to be as fun an Armored Core fight as I would have liked. I like tough fights that are a bit more symmetrical (and there are plenty of those in the Souls games, too!). But Balteus has so much more of a loadout than any player could possibly have at that point in the game. It was the low point of a great game, at least the first time through.

So when I read about the new Elden Ring bosses and it sounds like they all have 17 move combos to mix and match and can cross the screen in an instant, etc, etc. I gotta say that I don't feel all that interested. A bunch of bosses in the same vein of thinking as Balteus, but I don't even get to be in a mech? I dunno about that. The environment sounds fantastic and I'd probably love exploring it. But I'm too tired to mash myself against a string of bosses like that just to see the cool stuff that is likely in store.

And in the meantime, I've got loads of stuff that I'm playing and enjoying. Gonna go play something out of the Capcom Fighting Collection (Red Earth!) or Shadowrun: Dragonfall, or Dusk, or Quadrata, and that's just what I've played in the last two days or so. Have fun over there, friends, but I'm going to sleep on it.