Elden Ring is actually pretty funny

gamepur.com:

Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s latest — and by many accounts, greatest — offering, is finally out. Much has been made of the game’s trademark challenge and the beautiful and intimidatingly large open world, charting the similarities and differences between it and previous Soulsborne games. But there’s one thing that not enough people are talking about, something that firmly cements Elden Ring’s place in the Soulsborne pantheon: it’s got a mischievous sense of humor.

Sure, ‘funny’ probably isn’t the first thing that springs to mind as you explore the map or die for the hundredth time. The Lands Between are filled with powerful enemies and deadly traps, and it is alarmingly easy to shuffle off this mortal coil as you explore. Drill past the surface level of grit and gravitas, though, and you’ll find a soft chewy center of bizarre comedy.

Take the encounter design, for example. Elden Ring, following in the style of creator Hidetaka Miyazaki’s previous games, delights in subverting players’ expectations. Many encounters with enemies in the game world are set up almost like an elaborate prank. On completing the game’s opening section and stepping out into Limgrave, one of the first things you’ll see is likely to be the Tree Sentinel, a hulking knight on an armored horse. It’s pretty tempting to take a crack at fighting him — after all, it’s literally the beginning of the game. How bad could it be? After being swiftly and unceremoniously squished flat, you realize you’ve been had, and that Miyazaki is probably out there somewhere laughing his ass off. 

Dozens of fights are structured much like this, the equivalent of a bucket of water perched atop a slightly-ajar door. An attempt to take out a few tiny crab enemies