[Update #2]: Elden Ring's previews offer a closer look at the story, combat and mounted exploration.

[Update]: According to FromSoftware's newest developer update, Elden Ring has been pushed back to early 2022.

Back in 2019 FromSoftware announced their next game Elden Ring with a fancy cinematic trailer which, as you might imagine, resulted in a great deal of excitement among their fans. And then, in true FromSoftware fashion, they proceeded to go completely silent about Elden Ring for two straight years!

Thankfully, the long wait is now finally over... or perhaps it has only just begun, all depending on your perspective. The reason I say this is because FromSoftware has not only only unveiled a fancy new gameplay trailer, but also the fact that Elden Ring will be launching onto PC and consoles on January 21, 2022.

First things first, here's the trailer. Needless to say, it's a pretty exciting one!

While the exact details are a little bit muddy, so far it seems like Elden Ring will be tackling its open world exploration in a very Zelda-like fashion. There will be a massive world with six main areas you can explore in (mostly) any order, a trusty horse to help you cross vast distances with ease, as well as an absurd amount of different weapons, armor pieces, skills and magic abilities to uncover and mess around with during your travels. And given that world design is one of FromSoftware's greatest strengths, I must admit my expectations for Elden Ring are currently sky-high.

Much like Sekiro, Elden Ring will feature some stealth-based gameplay as well, though the focus will still be on the tactical combat against powerful enemies. Similarly, there will be a stamina bar, though it will play a far smaller role than in Dark Souls games in order to shift the player's focus more towards being proactive rather than reactive. This has been a trend with FromSoftware games for quite a few years at this point, so I'm also quite excited to see just how refined the whole combat system will be in Elden Ring!

Once we get more information, ideally alongside another juicy gameplay trailer, I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can read a bit more about Elden Ring over at the official website.