Four years have passed since Elden Ring landed on our consoles, and FromSoftware continues to squeeze its formula. The base game is already a cultural phenomenon, and the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, the Nightreign spin-off, and an upcoming live-action film confirm that Miyazaki's Middle-earth isn't going anywhere. But what has happened to its graphics engine and performance throughout this journey?
FromSoftware and its engine: the same patch, four years later 🎮
FromSoftware's proprietary engine remains the same as in 2022, albeit with gradual improvements in lighting and texture loading. Shadow of the Erdtree introduced more precise dynamic shadows and a revised particle system, but performance on base consoles remains locked at unstable 60 fps. Nightreign, for its part, leverages the multiplayer experience to optimize network synchronization, although asset pop-ins in the open world persist. The promise of a native PC version with ray tracing remains just that: a promise.
The movie: when lag becomes art 🎬
A live-action film has been confirmed, and we all know what that means: someone is going to try to cram Elden Ring's story into two hours. The director will surely promise fidelity, but we'll end up watching an actor in plastic armor running in slow motion while an epic soundtrack tries to cover up the fact that the script is a YouTube summary. The best part is that if the film has editing flaws, they'll call them artistic decisions. Just like in the games, you know.