The Last of Us, Part II is an ambitious sequel to a beloved game. It's also got a thoroughly decent story about honor, duty and sacrifice - all fitting themes for a samurai narrative. But even though the game is broad, it's still admirably deep, with plenty of ways to customize your character. The combat in the game is simply superlative, with lots of techniques to employ, gadgets to use and strategies to learn.Īdmittedly, the game can drag a bit toward the middle, as it leans hard into familiar sandbox tropes: collecting doodads, solving mild platforming puzzles, riding from place to place on a horse and so forth. Where Ghost of Tsushima distinguishes itself from similar open-world adventures, though, is in its incredible swordfighting. You take control of Jin Sakai: a samurai who fights against the Mongols during their 13th-century invasion of Japan.

It's an open-world action/stealth game with a story based on real-world history. The pitch for Ghost of Tsushima makes it sound like an Assassin's Creed game. Elden Ring could conceivably keep you busy for dozens of hours, so if it sounds interesting, now is the best time to get started. You can level up your character any way you see fit, and outfit him or her with a variety of inspired gear. But the flip side is that the combat is beautifully precise, and encourages you to build up your skills and strategies over time. Bosses can kill you in one or two hits, and regular foes need only three or four. Like other FromSoftware games, Elden Ring is incredibly difficult.

You play as an adventurer called a Tarnished, on a deadly quest to defeat four demigods and reconstruct a powerful artifact called the Elden Ring. Instead of a series of open-ended levels, Elden Ring takes place in a huge open world, with tons of optional areas to explore and secrets to discover. Elden Ring is a spiritual successor to the Dark Souls series, with roughly the same moment-to-moment gameplay, but a very different structure.

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