One such area is the Legacy Dungeon, known as Crumbling Farum Azula, an area of the game that can be reached, depending on the player’s previous decisions in the game’s story, either by talking to Melina or listening to the flame at the Site of Grace at the Forge of the Giants in Mountaintops of the Giants. This maze-like dungeon has multiple branching paths that lead to the Dragonlord Placidusax, the boss of the region.
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Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the area, however, is the beautiful lighting and scenery. As Redditor vashkor points out, the “consistent contrasting light” is great for character portraits, and the picture in their post exemplifies this beautifully. The screenshot of their player character at the Tempest-Facing Balcony highlights Elden Ring’s attention to detail in character models as well as armor artwork.
Though graphics are never at the forefront in any FromSoftware game, as the developers much prefer to focus on gameplay, the visuals in Elden Ring still shine brightly, thanks to the power of next-gen consoles and modern graphics card technology. The screenshot above shows off a great deal of detail in the character model, with the lighting of the area accentuating shadows and depth to create an even more realistic scene. The draw distance is also shown off here with the architecture in the background as well as the massive tornado that is ripping up parts of the earth and swirling it around in the air.
Captivating visuals, high resolution, and other graphics-related elements are staples for video games these days as the next generation of consoles and graphics cards allow for higher fidelity with more stable framerates. However, like all FromSoftware games, Elden Ring’s gameplay and world-building are impressive enough and don’t necessarily need amazing graphics to be a great game.
That said, the attention that the developers have given to areas like Crumbling Farum Azula is welcome, and so are the detailed character models, as everyone that has spent copious amounts of time in Elden Ring’s character creation knows very well. Players can likely look forward to seeing many more screenshots that highlight these lighting effects and other graphical nuances over the next few months.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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