Elden Ring

[Rob_Haines]

Ahead of the forthcoming DLC, I've been diving back into Elden Ring over the past few weeks, with two goals: to set up a new faith-build character suitable for the DLC, and to do an in-game photography project that I've wanted to do since I realised how absolutely beautiful this world is.

Slash-cut to me trying to play Elden Ring without the HUD, and regularly jumping off my horse and backing my butt up against nearby rocks so I can force the camera to clip through my character and I can get nice clear screenshots xD

A few examples (with only *very* early-game spoilers):








~ Rob

[Jubal]

Oh, that's all wonderfully pretty. You're quite into screenshot projects, right? I seem to remember you doing something for Outer Wilds on a similar basis.

Elden Ring is on that list of games that I'd sort of like to play but the mechanics, some of the vague vibes of the theming (I don't actually know much about the setting in depth at all) and bits of FromSoft's general attitude and reputation, kind of put me off. I don't generally deal well with the sort of combat that is about pacing and timing: I eventually taught myself some systems for a couple of more action-driven games like The Witcher 3 and Hades, but the reputation of the Souls/Elden Ring genre is rather a step beyond that. Also I dunno how well they work as mouse and keyboard games and I've never liked using controllers.

[Rob_Haines]

Yeah, I find doing in-game photography is a great excuse to spend more time in a videogame world I enjoy, once I'm technically done with it. And going back to Elden Ring at this stage has really given me a fresh appreciation for how breathtakingly gorgeous it is.

(And yeah, I did a similar Outer Wilds project back in 2022 [Caution: contains game-ruining spoilers for anyone who hasn't played Outer Wilds]: Link )

I think Elden Ring is definitely the most approachable FromSoft game so far; it does require a degree of learning, and there's a real mindset of "progress until you run into a roadblock, then if you get frustrated, there's a thousand other things to explore" that it helps to cultivate. That said, I think the core design is superb, the dungeons iterate in wildly imaginative ways, and - as FromSoft's first open world game - it avoids almost all the pitfalls of boilerplate open worlds.

[Jubal]

Yeah, I've heard it's more approachable before... I guess I should probably give it a go sometime.

Do you tend to approach these projects in a planned "I want this set of shots" way, or do you have more of a "let's go and see what's fun to snap" approach?

[Rob_Haines]

*Very* occasionally, I have an idea of a specific shot I want to achieve and set things up accordingly, but those shots are pretty unusual.

My approach is generally to immerse myself in the world, to explore with a little more depth than I usually would playing the game, trying to find lighting or angles that result in interesting compositions. Half the time this involves parkouring around buildings, or trying to make it onto precarious cliffedges so I can get angles I wouldn't normally see in game I don't particularly want to just reproduce concept art, so it's more fun finding angles that the devs never intended, and I get to see the game from a new viewpoint.

[Rob_Haines]

Oops, just realised rebuilding my website may break some of those image links. Tried a different approach xD

A few more of my recent favourites (CW: mild body horror/corpses):