Elden Ring’s totally innocuous rat cave chest is a great tone-setter

destructoid.com:

Elden Ring has seen a lot of new Tarnished litter the Lands Between over the last weekend. Many players kicked off their journey last Friday, and if they decided to venture east from their starting locale, they probably ran into one of its best early tricks: a totally normal rat cave.

Once you’ve cleared the tutorial cave and made your way out into the great wide world above, it’s mostly up to you how you’d like to progress. Sure, some signposts are there if you want to follow a determined path. And you might want to avoid the big fella and his lumbering steed.

Me? I went east, and fought some pretty normal enemies. Some big bat monsters and an oversized dragonfly. A group of human-ish enemies and their meddling pups, feeling as right in Elden Ring as they would in the middle of Bloodborne. After I cleared out their campsite, I noticed a dip in the ground; some stairs, leading to something, and I had to find out what.

Elden Ring early game spoilers follow.

FromSoftware are no strangers to oversized rats in a cave. And unlike the other dungeons I’ve found in my early hours with Elden Ring, this was not a multi-room or puzzle-driven affair. It was just a room, with some rats. And at the other end of it, there was my prize: a glorious chest, filled with potential boons to help me fell that big guy roaming about outside.

If you’ve opened this chest already, well, you (quite literally) know where this is headed.

FromSoftware are also no strangers to traps and treasure chest surprises. Everyone remembers their first mimic. But rather than being greeted by a gnashing maw of teeth, I got blasted by a fog. A whiff of hazy gas drifted out, and I was soon spirited away.

When the screen loads back in, I’m in a shack. Venture