The newest trailer for the upcoming Elden Ring, the dark fantasy RPG successor to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, revealed a lot of interesting details about the game after over a year of silence from developers at FromSoftware. Among the vivid footage of horse-riding Tarnished, twisted Demigods, and the glittering Erdtree, the Elden Ring trailer also showed glimpses of some of the magical arts players will be able to wield - some familiar to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls players, other freshly designed to fit this RPG's setting.
Demon's Souls, the first of FromSoftware's action RPGs (which would, along with Dark Souls, go on to to define a generation of "Soulslike" games), introduced players to a world overrun with soul-devouring demons, unleashed by reckless use of "Soul Art" magic. Magic in Demon's Souls is divided into the arts of Spells (a supposedly demonic sorcery focused around conjuring toxic mist, hurling flame, enchanting weapons, and manipulating light) and Miracles (a supposedly divine discipline focused more on healing and protecting).
The Dark Souls trilogy, despite taking place in a completely different universe, expands upon the magic systems from Demon's Souls; Sorcery is the art of manipulating light, created by a scaleless dragon, while Miracles are stories of the gods that can conjure forth healing benedictions, blasts of force, and golden lightning. Dark Souls also introduced Pyromancy, a separate magic system that manipulates flame and heat, as well as "Dark" spells fueled by the latent potential of human souls.
The newest trailer's footage, plus interviews with developers like Hidetaka Miyazaki, have revealed many details about how Elden Ring will build on the magical effects seen in previous Souls games. Currently, it looks like Elden Ring's magic systems will incorporate familiar elements while bringing in some new ideas of its own.
In the newest Elden Ring trailer, there's a brief clip of a knight firing a massive beam of light from a staff seemingly tipped with crystal, similar to the "Soul Stream" Sorcery spell from Dark Souls 3. There's also a shot of a knight sneaking up on some enemies in a castle, then smiting them with a blade of light conjured from a staff or short halberd. Both these shots suggest that Sorcery from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls will be returning in relatively familiar form to Elden Ring.
In another clip from the newest Elden Ring trailer, a Tarnished player character conjures a magical diagram and pillar of light around their sword, then brings it down to smite a boss enemy. This could simply be a magical art tied to the weapon the character wields, or it could be an example of the new kinds of Miracle spells Elden Ring players can use. Miracles have always visually been associated with magical circles and runic diagrams in previous "Soulslike" games, and a school of magic themed around healing and holiness is something most FromSoftware fans will want to see in Elden Ring.
In a recent interview, Hidetaka Miyazaki, chief creative mind behind the Souls franchise, talked about how Elden Ring players will have the ability to summon the spirits of enemies they defeat in the game world as allies to fight by their sides. Besides expanding the "summon cooperator" mechanics of previous Souls games to enemy NPCs, this new school of magic could potentially add an extra layer of strategy to Elden Ring. Players, when faced with difficult foes, could try to seek out and "recruit" creatures and characters to counter their abilities.
The newest Elden Ring trailer shows two bosses who seem to use magic with a bloody hue - a leaping werewolf knight who shoots crimson arcs of energy from their sword, and a boss covered in red tendrils of energy who pulls a player character towards them with a telekinetic power. This doesn't necessarily mean blood magic will be a facet of Elden Ring, but blood magic would be a nice homage to the sanguine powers used by Bloodborne enemies and the blood sacrifice magic seen in George R.R. Martin's Song Of Ice And Fire books.
