Overall, it's going to take a while to process, but I'm pretty comfortable with saying that this is From Software's best game yet, and an obvious 10/10. Despite everything that's been written about it already, I still don't think the gaming world has had the chance yet to properly appreciate its significance, and, like Dark Souls, I'm sure it will have a monumental influence on games for years to come. It's not perfect - the pacing in the final act is comparatively weak, and the Havok engine the game is built on is definitely starting to show its age in places.

Ultimately, however, those things don't matter. Elden Ring is a work of untethered ambition and brilliant execution, particularly when you consider that the game is 130 hours long. As an English teacher, I often teach my students about the Romantic concept of the sublime, defined by Edmund Burke in the 18th century as a sort of crossroads between beauty, terror and overwhelming awe, and something that the likes of Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats all tried to capture in their poetry. Hyperbole aside, in this sense, I honestly feel that Elden Ring is frequently sublime: it's scary, gorgeous and staggering, all at the same time, with an unparalleled sense of scale. Many are the moments where it's left me entirely bewildered, almost incredulous, but not once in the six weeks since I started it have I wanted to play anything else. It's possibly the one most compelling piece of media I've ever consumed: I just had to play it, and I couldn't possibly entertain doing anything other with my time.

Now that I'm done, however, I'm consciously not going to jump straight into NG+. I'm going to let the experience of my first run sit and percolate for a while, safe in the knowledge that this has to be one of the best videogames ever made.

In short, praise the Elden Ring!