To this day, very little is known about FromSoftware's upcoming Elden Ring. Fans are excited for how similar, but different, this title could be from other Souls games. Interestingly, it seems like Elden Ring will be more like a Dark Souls game than anything else, based on the recently leaked footage. This is despite the incredible sales of Sekiro and Bloodborne, but it seems that the more open field-design of the Dark Souls series might be more compelling for the upcoming game.

While it remains to be seen exactly how it connects or differentiates, Elden Ring is not the first time the Souls formula has been entirely blown apart. Dark Souls mods first appeared when the game launched on PC. Since this point, different mods of the series have thrived, and the most popular of these mods are always ones that radically alter the game.

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Some modders refer to these as "remixes," and that is true to an extent. Mods like Daughters of Ash for Dark Souls or Cinders for Dark Souls 3 definitely shuffle around items, enemies, and encounters to give the game a fresh feeling for veteran fans. Interestingly, this is not the only addition Dark Souls mods make. For incredibly deep mods like Cinders, the very nature and tone of the game itself shifts. Cinders opens up the game by connecting more areas, introducing new character classes, and even creating new intertwining questlines. When mods are this good, they can sometimes suggest what games are missing, or what their successors Should add. In the case for Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3's Cinders mod does just that.

The Dark Souls series is known for its class system. Choosing a different character class changes the game radically, with some of the most interesting Dark Souls classes coming with key items that let players sequence-break the game. One of the many things that Cinders does to Dark Souls 3 is add a whole host of new classes. The best classes in Dark Souls 3 have very exciting spells and items, and Cinders adds so many more.

In this case, "many more" means 19 new character classes in the game. Included in this list are Priests, Outcasts, Captains, Hunters, and even the corrupted cleric class "Skeptic." This would be good to take into Elden Ring, expanding on all the classes Souls games have featured in the past.  With Soulslike class options like "peasant," Cinders allows for players to be characters that fit into a "low fantasy" setting a lot more comfortably, as well as live up to the dark fantasy of the franchise. Rather than sticking to traditional fantasy archetypes, Elden Ring could, and should, adopt the wide range of character options available in Cinders to allow for characters with more personal stakes in its potentially more gritty world.

Much has been written about Elden Ring's open-field concept, and it seems like the game is gesturing towards a larger, more open design than previous games from the developer. Sekiro's environments were indeed vast and can be accessed in various orders, but the speed of the game's travel makes this distance rather trivial. In comparison, most Soulsborne games do not feature grand, open spaces, as even games like Dark Souls, often praised for its inter-connected world, do not generally have wide-open spaces to explore. This makes sense, as the collapsed world are ones naturally limited by the entropy of time.

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Dark Souls 3, while it received widespread praise, did attract some criticism for somewhat linear paths around its world. In Cinders, one of the mod's more ambitious additions is creating more interlinking passages between areas. In total, there are 11 new ways to move between different areas, nearly doubling the original available paths. Dark Souls 3 has some areas with a truly epic scale, but adding these linkages makes these areas much easier to access, giving the game a much more open feel. With Cinders populating the more plentiful wider areas of Dark Souls 3 with many more paths around the environment, it emulates the ideal open design that Elden Ring promises.

What is the eponymous Elden Ring? Looking at the fantasy mainstays that it might draw from, it is reasonable to assume that it is an item. In fact, a Skyrim Elden Ring mod adds "the ring" as a wearable item in game. As such, it appears that most fans do expect to see the ring as an object in game, so perhaps it will be a wearable ring, like some of the best items in the Soulsborne series. On the other hand, it may be more like the Lord Vessel, an essential quest item that radically shifts the game in a way that has not been since Dark Souls 1.

Cinders takes the items of Dark Souls 3, and bestows them with much more importance. For instance, the burial gifts chosen at the start of the game are not simply stat increases or ways to access obtuse late-game lore. At the very beginning of the game, players can opt to take an item that can automatically unlock a warp to a bonfire in the game. This means that a player could jump to near endgame content from the first moment, radically altering the corresponding playstyle. A mechanic like this is so wildly different to the careful progression of the usual game, it can even alter how the world feels to play. Using items in such a radically different way would be a great boon for Elden Ring, allowing players to craft their own unique path and place into the game's world, should it take any inspiration from mods like this.

Elden Ring is in development, with PC, PS4, and Xbox One as confirmed platforms.

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