Elden Ring (PS4) | $45 | Amazon
Elden Ring (XBO/XSX) | $50 | Amazon
Elden Ring is the most recent game to come out from FromSoftware, known primarily for the Dark Souls series, and the latest to win the coveted Game of the Year award at The Game Awards. It seems recency bias wasn’t enough for God of War Ragnarök to pull ahead. No, our memories of first exploring Limgrave have stayed with us since February.
If you’ve yet to play the 2022 GOTY, what we have here is a vast and unforgiving open world to get lost in. The developer’s signature appeal has widely centered around the difficulty (but fairness) of their combat, obtuse narratives, and wide range of customization when it comes to how your character plays. All of that is here in Elden Ring, but its open world does make it easy to walk away from a tough fight and find something else to explore (in case the difficulty scares you a bit from hitting “add to cart”). You can easily pour hundreds of hours in here and just barely scrape the surface of the Lands Between. And great news for those hopping in now—it’s only $45 at the moment.