Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition Feature Scores
Explore all 90 feature scores for Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition, organized into pros and cons.
Scores by Feature
Summary
90 reviewed features-
Very positive 4.5-5.051 (57%)
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Positive 3.5-4.417 (19%)
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Neutral 2.5-3.49 (10%)
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Negative 1.5-2.413 (14%)
Pros
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Exploration is the most consistently celebrated part of the experience: distant landmarks invite detours, hidden areas reward curiosity, and repeated playthroughs still reveal places, quests, and encounters reviewers missed before.
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Replay value is exceptional: alternate builds, missed quests, hidden areas, New Game Plus, and the new starting gear give veterans repeated reasons to return.
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The open world is almost universally praised for freedom, density, verticality, and the way it turns difficulty into a choice to explore elsewhere. Reviewers repeatedly describe it as a benchmark for open-world action RPG design.
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Combat remains one of the package’s biggest strengths, combining precise timing with shields, dodges, magic, summons, weapon skills, mounted fighting, and an enormous range of builds. Reviewers repeatedly describe victories as demanding but deeply satisfying.
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The base game and Shadow of the Erdtree together offer an enormous amount of playtime, commonly described as well over 100 hours and potentially hundreds for thorough explorers or repeat runs.
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Portability is the edition’s defining advantage. Most reviewers enjoy exploring, grinding, or tackling shorter objectives in handheld mode, though battery drain, small text, darker scenes, and Joy-Con comfort can limit very long sessions.
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Build freedom is exceptional: players can reshape stats, weapons, spells, armor, and playstyle with very little long-term commitment to the starting class. The new classes add more useful starting points rather than locking players into fixed roles.
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The art direction remains one of the game’s clearest strengths: dramatic vistas, strange creatures, monumental architecture, and a distinctive dark-fantasy style survive the Switch 2 downgrade exceptionally well.
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Shadow of the Erdtree is repeatedly treated as a huge, high-quality inclusion that makes the package feel exceptionally complete. The smaller Tarnished Pack extras draw more mixed reactions, especially when judged as paid content on other platforms.
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The Lands Between remains one of the game’s signature achievements, combining environmental storytelling, mythology, strange characters, and memorable regions into a world reviewers describe as unusually rich and coherent.
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Despite the punishment, reviewers repeatedly describe the game as exhilarating, addictive, and hard to put down, with combat victories and exploration delivering sustained enjoyment.
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Legacy Dungeons, layered open spaces, underground regions, and the expansion’s vertical layouts are consistently praised as intricate, surprising, and among FromSoftware’s best work.
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For newcomers, the base game plus Shadow of the Erdtree is repeatedly called a huge amount of high-quality content for the price. Existing owners have a weaker case to rebuy because the Tarnished-specific extras are comparatively small.
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The final port is dramatically improved from the disastrous 2025 demo and many reviewers call it an impressive technical achievement. Experiences still range from near-faultless to noticeably rough in demanding areas, so optimization is strong but not uniformly flawless.
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The combination of sparse interface, atmospheric art, sound, scale, and discovery makes the world exceptionally immersive even after hundreds of hours.
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Reviewers overwhelmingly see the shipped edition as polished and dramatically improved over early demos, with remaining rough edges rarely overwhelming the core experience.
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The complete package is enormous, with weapons, armor, spells, builds, regions, bosses, dungeons, and the full expansion offering exceptional breadth. The edition-specific extras are much smaller, so returning owners may find the genuinely new material modest.
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Reviewers consistently praise the mournful, oppressive, mysterious atmosphere. Even technical compromises rarely diminish the strong sense of place across the Lands Between and Realm of Shadow.
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Distinct biomes, intricate armor, architecture, foliage, underground areas, and dense scenery make the world feel richly authored. Even with Switch 2 reductions, reviewers still find the environmental detail striking.
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Boss fights are widely admired for spectacle, challenge, and payoff, though some reviewers criticize late-game difficulty spikes, repeated encounters, or weaker bosses in specific regions.
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The game is brutally demanding, but the open world, summons, build changes, leveling, and alternate routes give players many ways to respond to a wall. Some late-game and DLC encounters still draw criticism for spikes or mechanics that feel overly punishing.
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The game offers an enormous range of viable weapons and builds, and several new Tarnished weapons are enthusiastically praised. Some new options are clearly outclassed by later DLC gear, while a few may be unusually strong early on.
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The lore is repeatedly described as dense, strange, and rewarding for players willing to read item descriptions and connect environmental clues, even when the main story remains deliberately opaque.
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Players are free to change builds, choose routes, delay bosses, use summons, or approach encounters in very different ways, making the game unusually accommodating of personal playstyle.
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Switch 2 preserves the game’s visual identity surprisingly well, especially in handheld mode, but resolution softness, reduced draw distance, pop-in, simpler textures, and a clear gap versus PS5/PC are recurring caveats.
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Crash stability is excellent in the reviews that address it directly, with multiple long sessions reporting no crashes or major failures.
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Spirit Ashes are repeatedly praised as capable helpers that make difficult fights more approachable without removing the satisfaction of winning.
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Loading is generally acceptable to very fast on Switch 2, especially around fast travel and death, though a few reviewers notice longer waits than on more powerful hardware.
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The opening is more approachable than earlier Souls games thanks to an optional tutorial, flexible starting classes, and many routes to power. Some reviewers still want clearer explanations of classes and core systems.
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The soundscape is praised for reinforcing loneliness, menace, and the weight of combat. Handheld speakers can sound thinner, but the underlying audio design remains strong.
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Most reviewers find combat inputs responsive enough that mistakes still feel like the player’s own, which is crucial for Elden Ring’s timing-heavy fights. A few note lower-frame-rate feel or stick dead zones as minor compromises.
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The new Idus and Heavy Knight starts are generally viewed as strong, useful options for newcomers and repeat runs. A few reviewers think their early equipment can be powerful enough to soften the opening challenge.
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The cycle of exploring, fighting, discovering gear, experimenting with builds, and returning stronger is repeatedly praised as absorbing and difficult to put down.
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The breadth of creatures is praised as staggering, helping exploration stay surprising across a very large world.
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Fast travel is treated as a major quality-of-life strength, letting players escape areas they are not ready for and quickly return after upgrading or changing strategy.
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Music is strongly praised for elevating major encounters and strengthening the world’s dramatic, haunting identity.
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Runes, flexible stat allocation, upgrades, respec options, and the expansion’s separate progression create strong build freedom. Some DLC-specific progression mechanics remain divisive.
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Frame-rate impressions are genuinely mixed. Many reviewers report a mostly stable 30fps experience with only occasional dips, while others encounter choppiness or severe drops in busy open areas and certain boss fights.
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Sites of Grace are generally placed close enough to major fights that failed attempts do not require long runbacks, keeping repeated boss attempts focused on the fight itself.
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The interface is intentionally restrained and mostly effective, while additions such as a recent-items view make it easier to track newly collected lore and gear.
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Story reactions are mixed: lore-focused reviewers admire its depth and environmental storytelling, while others find the central narrative too sparse or easy to lose track of during free exploration.
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The one reviewer who directly tested co-op reported smooth back-and-forth summoning and found fighting bosses with a friend highly enjoyable.
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Crafting earns strong praise and is useful enough that the reviewer who focuses on it wants FromSoftware to expand the system in future games.
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Finally overcoming a boss after repeated failures is singled out as one of the game’s most powerful rewards, creating a strong sense of relief and accomplishment.
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Shadow of the Erdtree is praised as exceptional endgame content, adding a full new map, demanding fights, and fresh progression for high-level characters.
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The experience remains firmly true to its Souls-like roots, preserving the demanding combat and learning-through-failure identity longtime players expect.
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The overall gameplay design is described as deeply satisfying, with exploration, combat, build experimentation, and progression reinforcing one another.
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One returning reviewer specifically praises how easy it is to dive back in without facing a long, sluggish grind, while exploration and flexible leveling let players strengthen naturally.
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One reviewer specifically praises the tactile feedback, finding the controller response effective enough to strengthen the feel of combat.
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The open-world reinvention is still described as revolutionary years later, especially in how it turns traditional Souls difficulty into freedom to explore elsewhere and return stronger.
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Matchmaking is remembered as easy and fluid during periods of high player activity, helping the online experience feel effortless.
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The recent-items tab is a meaningful quality-of-life improvement, making newly collected lore and gear much easier to track.
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Even when its fantasy influences are recognizable, reviewers praise the game for transforming them into a distinctive dark-fantasy identity of its own.
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Returning to the Lands Between still feels easy to settle into without a long grind or sluggish open-world pacing getting in the way.
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Optional questlines and their recurring characters are praised as a major source of charm, rewarding players who wander beyond the critical path.
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Recurring side characters give the smaller questlines much of their charm, helping the world feel personal despite its enormous scale.
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Asynchronous messages and easy matchmaking helped make the original shared-world experience feel unusually lively and communal.
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Voice performances are strongly praised and fit the broader enthusiasm for the game’s heavy, atmospheric audio presentation.
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The world is packed with encounters, treasure, NPCs, and unexpected threats, giving exploration a strong sense that something is always happening nearby.
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Environmental storytelling is strongly praised, with the world’s finer details doing much of the narrative work without relying on conventional exposition.
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The sparse HUD is often praised for keeping the screen readable and letting the world dominate the presentation, though small handheld text can make some information harder to read.
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One reviewer sees the starting-class stat spreads as useful for min-maxing, while also flagging the possibility that certain new gear could be unusually strong in PvP.
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One reviewer finds the Switch 2 controls responsive enough that traversal and combat movement still feel dependable during demanding play.
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Stealth is not the main focus, but sneaking through dangerous areas is described as a fun and useful alternative to direct combat.
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The expansion’s additional upgrade paths are viewed positively, adding fresh ways to strengthen characters and experiment with builds.
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Large-scale lighting, spells, particles, and environmental effects remain impressive on Switch 2, though the busiest scenes can coincide with performance drops.
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Online activity, messages, summons, and the broader player community can make the world feel more alive, but platform separation and DLC compatibility concerns reduce that benefit for some players.
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The expanding map supports discovery well, but its limited guidance can be both freeing and daunting depending on how much direction a player wants.
Cons
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The Tarnished Pack’s paid cosmetic-and-starting-gear approach worries some reviewers because it departs from FromSoftware’s usual pattern of more substantial paid expansions or free minor updates.
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The Switch 2 version benefits from portability and some hardware support, but reviewers miss options such as a performance mode, stronger HDR behavior, and broader online compatibility.
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The camera remains a recurring weakness, especially in tight spaces or during hectic encounters. Several reviewers describe it as awkward enough to be noticeable even when the rest of combat works well.
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The Game-Key Card approach disappoints reviewers who want the complete game stored on the physical card, since a substantial download is still required.
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Switch 2’s lack of cross-platform multiplayer is a clear limitation, keeping co-op and invasions separated from the larger PlayStation, Xbox, and PC populations.
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One analysis highlights a mismatch between circulated 60fps claims and the shipped 30fps-class performance, making pre-release performance messaging a notable point of skepticism.
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Missed jump inputs on Joy-Cons can make precision platforming frustrating, especially in a game where a failed input may mean falling to your death.
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The tutorial draws sharp criticism from one reviewer, who finds it poor despite the ability to revisit help information later.
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The game is more flexible than earlier FromSoftware titles, but dedicated accessibility accommodations remain limited for players who need broader options.
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Shadow of the Erdtree’s older exploration rewards are criticized as underwhelming, with later updates improving what players receive for some discoveries.
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The small paid DLC is criticized for potentially breaking existing mods and forcing modders to support split configurations.
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The online systems remain useful, but Switch 2’s isolated matchmaking pool is viewed as a meaningful loss for a game built around summons, invasions, and asynchronous interaction.
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One reviewer reports an annoying suspend-and-resume reconnection loop that repeatedly returns the player to menus before restoring the session.
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Online maintenance can force the game offline and prevent planned multiplayer sessions, making availability a practical inconvenience when it occurs.
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Enemy lock-on can feel less reliable on Switch 2 than on other versions, making target tracking less precise in some encounters.
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Sleep-mode behavior can force online players back to the title screen and create an unpleasant risk of losing recent progress when stepping away.
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Controller impressions depend heavily on setup: the Pro Controller earns praise, while stock Joy-Cons can feel cramped or tiring during long, demanding fights.
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The game remains demanding to learn, and some systems are communicated too subtly for newcomers. Its open-world structure and plentiful guides make that curve easier to manage than in earlier Souls games.
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Animation holds up most of the time, but large groups can cause distant enemies to animate in a noticeably choppy, stop-motion-like way.
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Limited build resources can discourage experimentation, with one missed opportunity being a safe training space before committing materials to a setup.
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Battery results vary by test, but most reports land around a couple of hours to roughly two and a half hours. Some reviewers found that acceptable for a game this demanding, while others considered the drain a notable portable drawback.
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The shipped port is far cleaner than its rough preview build, with many reviewers seeing few serious issues. Pop-in, lighting glitches, resume quirks, and occasional odd bugs still appear in some playthroughs.