Ever since it was revealed during E3 2019, Elden Ring has been one of gaming’s most anticipated releases of all time. FromSoftware, the studio behind games with a similar formula such as the Dark Souls series, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, has been on something of a winning streak with their games and it seems like Elden Ring will just keep adding to the studio’s list of successes. Even though the title has been known for so long, concrete information regarding what the game will actually be like has only started surfacing over the past year or so, but one of the game’s best aspects is still to be seen: speedruns.
Speedrunning, or the art of beating games in record time, has started gaining mainstream popularity in recent years with organizations like Games Done Quick and all of its events, helping to bring more exposure to the practice and to individual speedrunners. FromSoftware games are some of the most popular for fans to run and with each new release, runners are constantly finding ways to skip sections and perfect routes. Once it releases, there’s likely going to be a lot of discourse surrounding the ideal Elden Ring run and it might end up being the most exciting FromSoft game to watch.
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The Excitement of Soulsborne Speedruns
There’s something about watching speedrunners complete FromSoftware games in record time that’s cathartic for viewers making them some of the most popular in all of speedrunning. Perhaps it has something to do with watching the seemingly insurmountable challenges of Dark Soulsget obliterated in a matter of hours. Either way, each new game changes things up just enough so that the runs are entirely unique and require different strategies but still share the same Soulsborne-brand level of difficulty that viewers at home can recognize.
It’s because of how challenging FromSoftware titles are that makes its speedruns feel like a delicate balance between risk and reward that each individual runner has spent so long perfecting. That’s why when new games are released, the speedruns are that much more interesting as runners need to be comfortable enough with the game to be willing to try different strategies in search of better routes while also playing safe enough to not lose everything and waste a run. Elden Ring seems like it’s going to be treading similar Soulsborne territory, however, one thing will drastically set it apart from the rest of the series: its open world.
Routing the Fastest Elden Ring Run
Elden Ring’s open-world seems like it’s going to be a wildcard for speedrunners as they’re going to be able to tackle the numerous different areas of the game in whatever order they like. Because of this, speedrunning Elden Ring won’t necessarily be done in a straight line, instead, runners will need to choose their own routes and decide what order they’re going to complete each world for maximum efficiency.
When watching other FromSoft speedruns, each runner is likely going to be using similar routes as others as each title is relatively linear and straightforward once a runner knows exactly where to be headed. On the other hand, Elden Ring might have a handful of different routes depending on the runner and their preference for which worlds should come in what order. It might breathe some fresh life into the FromSoftware speedrunning community as runners would be able to customize their optimal route depending on what each world is like. It’s worth pointing out that there’s potentially still going to be one fastest route that most runners will follow, however, it’ll still take some time for runners to find it which might be the most interesting time in Soulsborne speedrunning yet.
Elden Ring is set to release January 21, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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