Elden Ring got the same amount of scrutiny as a press release after an IPO
The Original Review
“Bottom line: Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s largest and most ambitious game yet, and that ambition has more than paid off.”
This review starts with a sincere 87-hour confession and immediately graduates into canon: if the path was long and rough enough, the conclusion must be holy. That’s not a method, that’s emotional mileage. It’s like grading a restaurant by counting how many selfies a waiter takes of your entrée — technically related, wildly irrelevant, and suspiciously performative. A real review should test the meal, not worship the chef in absentia.
Saltzman is excellent at enthusiasm, but enthusiasm is not analysis, and here the piece feels like a love letter written by someone who just received the key to the castle and then forgot to check whether the walls were actually load-bearing. He throws in “very little explicit guidance” and “great world design” like confetti, but concrete drawbacks are always reduced to decorative afterthoughts. It has the texture of a lighthouse reviewed by a moth: lots of admiration for the light, zero practical navigation value.
The killer tell is structural, not stylistic. We get a one-note “Where to Buy” and retail funnel right under the verdict, which turns criticism into a storefront brochure. That section is basically a hostage note written by a press release in a nice font: "I reviewed your masterpiece, now please convert." If your critique architecture requires an embedded shopping ad before the final score, that’s not journalism, that’s inventory management.
And yes, if it is good, say it clearly; nobody objects to praise. But “10/10” should be the output of a robust comparison matrix, not a thunderclap of vibes. This review doesn’t interrogate edge cases, does not interrogate platform variance beyond a throwaway line, and gives the reviewer's judgment as if it were a tax stamp on a sermon. We give this review a 2/10. Sponsored by the truth.
