Review of Elden Ring: The Board Game

Few games in the last ten years have captured the public’s imagination quite like FromSoftware’s Elden Ring. As video games increasingly inspire board game adaptations, it was a natural progression for this colossal title to make its way to tabletop gaming. Enter Steamforged Games, the team behind other notable game adaptations such as Resident Evil, Monster Hunter World, and the iconic Dark Souls. They’re the ones bold enough to bring Elden Ring to a board game format. Following a tremendously successful crowdfunding effort in 2022, Elden Ring: The Board Game is finally making its way to backers and is up for preorder for everyone else. Prepare yourself, Tarnished. The time for battle is now.

Elden Ring: The Board Game invites players into a campaign-style experience where you and your companions tackle various scenarios, building up your characters and enhancing their abilities as you navigate the storyline. Steamforged Games has laid out three distinct campaigns for players, named Realm of the Grafted King, The Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil Castle. The Grafted King acts as the primary game, while the other two serve as independent expansions. You can dive into them individually or as continuations after conquering The Grafted King, offering a chance to further develop your characters’ prowess throughout your journey. Each campaign box brings its own selection of classes. In The Grafted King, for example, players can choose from the Vagabond, Samurai, Astrologer, and Prophet. The Weeping Peninsula features the Hero, Prophet, Astrologer, and Bandit, while Stormveil Castle offers the Confessor, Prisoner, Samurai, and Vagabond.

With Elden Ring comes an impressive array of components. The hefty boxes include terrifying monster miniatures, piles of cards, cardboard markers, tiles, and plenty of manuals laying out the rules and scenarios. It’s both an awe-inspiring and daunting addition to any collection. Even with just one campaign box, the game’s scale is striking, and that’s not to mention the other two campaigns or optional boss additions available. For a game of this magnitude, Steamforged has done a stellar job with production details, delivering highly detailed miniatures, tactile cards, and durable components.

The game keeps players engaged with a variety of scenario types, ensuring there’s always something new to tackle. However, not all scenario formats hit the mark equally. Narrative scenarios, for instance, involve reading sections of story and making choices—sometimes involving skill checks—and drawing cards to determine outcomes. These scenarios are well-crafted and skill checks add a layer of interaction, but if you’re after a more action-focused game, they might feel a bit too much like a novel or a session of Dungeons & Dragons.

Personally, I gravitate towards the Exploration scenarios, which truly capture the magic of discovery and the sensation of uncovering the unknown—the essence of Elden Ring. During these scenarios, you and fellow players traverse the map, revealing random tiles as you embark on quests. Some tiles present enemies, items, or special elements like Sites of Grace, each offering different advantages. I’ve always appreciated the “build as you explore” mechanic seen in games like Betrayal at House on the Hill or Clank! Catacombs, which significantly enhances the unpredictability and replayability due to the randomness of tile placements. These scenarios masterfully mix Elden Ring’s combat, storytelling, and exploration elements without losing balance.

On the other side, there are three combat-centric scenarios: Gauntlet, Dungeon, and Boss battles. Gauntlets challenge players with tough enemy groups under special conditions, while Dungeons are similar but culminate in a big boss showdown. The Boss scenarios demand that you and your allies face formidable challenges, testing your strategic abilities and teamwork. This focus on combat fits perfectly given how engaging and well-designed these encounters are.

Combat unfolds on grids made from ring-bound notebooks that come with the game. Some battles require linking multiple pages to craft expansive battlefields, where strategic movement is key to gaining the upper hand. Spells and weapon strikes come with range considerations, and your position can provide strategic advantages like increased damage or better defense. This often led my friends and me into discussions about positioning, trying to survive brutal enemy strikes. Ah, the enemies are merciless!

Each basic enemy comes with a card detailing their actions, such as attack patterns and movement. Although initially, the symbols can be confusing, they become easier to handle over time. Once an enemy completes its turn or passes if it can’t act, the action moves on. Bosses, conversely, present a fearsome challenge. They come with entire decks of action cards and varying positions within the initiative order. Sometimes their attacks are delayed, while other times they strike unexpectedly. It’s intense but fair, with health pools scaling for player numbers, ensuring an even playing field. The boss battles consistently deliver thrilling, edge-of-your-seat moments.

Perhaps surprisingly, Elden Ring eliminates dice in favor of a card-driven, deck-building system. Players use a deck based on their equipped items, skills, and stats, while damage calculations and effects utilize a different Attribute deck. These cards factor in attributes like Strength and Dexterity, with attack and defense decks weighted toward specific symbols.

Progressing characters is key in Elden Ring, closely mirroring the video game’s mechanics. Leveling up provides new skills and options to customize weapons, armor, accessories, and Attribute cards, while also upgrading overall statistics through Trait cards. The Rune system acts as an inventory limit, expanding as you proceed through the campaign. Yet, the current Rune tracking method—using small cards—is insufficient and adds to the card clutter. A simple physical tracker would be more effective, and I hope Steamforged or the gaming community develops a better method.

My first dive into Elden Ring was tricky—not due to the game quality, but because I commenced with Stormveil Castle, a third campaign expansion. Although it’s designed for standalone play, it assumes you’ve previously completed earlier tasks, complicating setup for newcomers. For those new to the game, I strongly recommend starting with Realm of the Grafted King to avoid similar headaches.