The most famous of these traps is the swooping dragon found in classic Dark Souls, which briefly hits a wall of a castle and could slash you with its massive teeth if you're hurrying ahead. It's one of the earliest instances of the game teaching you that foolhardiness can be deadly. What immediately came to my mind when I first noticed the Elden Ring Runes bridge, however, is a similar-looking overpass in Dark Souls II. If you're spending too much time on the bridge, a dragon destroys the bridge, sending you hurtling towards the ground.

My brain was racing with thoughts of possibilities. I had read in previous previews that dragons existed in the Elden Ring. Elden Ring, but would FromSoftware really do something this violent just a few minutes after giving you control over your character? Something that would spawn too-long tweets discussing the difficulty of playing? Something that might (gulp) result in Discourse? I peered over an edge on the mountain. I scanned the horizon for any hint that a flying creature of some sort was readying its axe to cut my head off.

Then, I took my first tentative steps on the planks suspended above the vast expanse of empty space beneath me. Nothing. A few more steps. Still nothing. Just as I reached the middle of bridge, I took off in a furious sprint to the other side. I made it safely, though slightly annoyed by my trepidation. That said, as an avid follower of the work of FromSoftware, this learned trepidation is part of the excitement. It's like having a conversation between developer and player, one steeped in decades of tradition and knowledge. "If I only learn from Software's habits," I tell myself, "they won't get me next time."

Then I realized that FromSoftware already had me. The dragon didn't kill me and the bridge didn't collapse however the fact that I'm surrounded by this type of anxiety and stress over something so simple as crossing a bridge, means that Elden Ring Items buy developers have already been successful. My experiences playing King's Field Shadow Tower, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro have made me a Pavlovian dog who is salivating at the idea of dying in a gruesome trap and what's worse, I'm awestruck by FromSoftware and FromSoftware more for it. Those jerks.