Elden Ring: The Board Game – Weeping Peninsula (Stand-Alone Expansion)
Publisher: Steamforged Games Ltd.
Release Date: April, 2025
MSRP: $119.99
Designer: Mat Hart, et al
Format: Board Game Expansion
Number of Players: 1 to 4
Product #: SFER-002
Age Rating: 14 and up
ICv2 Rating: 3 Stars out of 5

When I first learned of Elden Ring: The Board Game, I was not familiar with the IP, so I approached it without any preconceptions about the setting or the style.  I'm happy to say that this did not diminish my experience, though I could see ways in which The Board Game was inspired by a video game.  My question was, does it stand on its own?

Summary:  At first, I assumed that this was yet another in the long history of "dungeon crawl" games, but in all honesty that is not a fair assessment.  There is quite a bit going on inside the box that sets it well apart from that genre.  It would be more accurate to say that it is a "boss battler" game with exploration elements and narrative storytelling attached.  The game plays over a series of scenarios with an on-going story, but not all scenarios are played the same way.  Some are purely storytelling, similar to a "pick your path" book with some random elements.  Others involve exploring the countryside in search of resources or other objectives.  Still others are battlers, facing off against a gauntlet of foes or a powerful boss.  To me, the result felt much like what my experience with electronic role-playing games has been:  The narratives feel like "cut scenes," then you explore the world, interrupted by intense and violent combats that form the core of the experience.  At the risk of dating myself, the experience it most reminded me of was not a dungeon crawl, but more like the old Avalon Hill classic Magic Realm.

In Elden Ring, you choose a character with their own mix of abilities, represented by two decks of cards:  one controls their skills, the other acts as a randomizer to resolve their actions.  The characters are dropped into the story in medias res, and over a series of fourteen scenarios, they will explore their way through the story.  When foes are encountered, the action shifts to a clever, if rather abstract, tactical sub-game played on the pages of game's "Encounter Books."  Between scenarios, players modify their two decks to improve and customize their characters before facing the next challenge.

Originality:  I was pleasantly surprised playing Elden Ring.  It was not what I expected from my first impression, and I found that it cleverly recreated the video-game-RPG experience in a number of interesting ways.  While it is hard to say that a game based on another game can ever be truly original, at least this one offers a different feel than other games-based-on-video-games, which I certainly appreciated.

Presentation:  In a word: dark.  So very, very dark.  I can only assume that this is a carry-over from the source material, and the gameplay and story both explore the darker side thematically, but everything in this game is dark.  The box is dark.  The cards are dark.  The color palette is blacks and browns and tarnished gold.  The quality of the artwork is very good, I just felt that too much of the detail was lost in the shadows, and sometimes gameplay was hampered because some components are difficult to distinguish properly due to the dark colors and graphics.

Quality:  The component quality is, for the most part, excellent.  The box is deep and sturdy.  The rulebook is nice glossy paper with a fine binding.  The rules are surprisingly easy to read and understand, though I really would have liked more examples of play.  The cardboard tokens and tiles are nice and thick, and the cards are lovely, with linen finish and a nice springy stock.  I found the sculpting on the two dozen miniatures to be excellent.  On the downside, the sorting tray could have been better, and some of the models came out a bit brittle, so care should be taken not to break off a weapon when putting them away in the slightly too-tight space allotted for them like I did…

Marketability:  Games based on video games are always a tough beast to categorize.  Are they meant to lure fans of the video game away from their computers to the tabletop?  But the gameplay experience will always be completely different.  Are they then meant to appeal to those who, like myself, are unfamiliar with the IP?  What audience is this game seeking?  But I think that this one takes a pretty good shot, since it does offer interesting and engaging gameplay that could appeal to tabletop players.  However, I think it has some hurdles to overcome.  The aforementioned darkness of the graphics may make this game too easy to overlook on store shelves.  The price point may be justified by the quality of the components and the heftiness of the box (well over nine pounds, according to my scale), but $120.00 is a big bite for a tabletop game these days, especially for an "expansion," even if it is standalone.

Overall:  Translating an idea from another medium into a tabletop game is a tall order, especially if one hopes to create a gameplay experience that is capable of standing on its own, rather than offering a pale echo of the source material or a vapid derivation of well-trod paths.  Elden Ring: The Board Game makes a bold attempt, integrating a variety of gameplay styles together to create an appealing blend of genres.  The system offers meaningful and substantive decisions, and does not feel dominated by random chance.  Definitely more than "yet another" dungeon crawl.

But, the dreary, almost overwhelming darkness of the graphics and the narrow color palette make some of the components difficult to interact with.  While the individual scenarios create interesting opportunities to explore and stretch tactical muscles, the overall campaign storyline feels rigid.  And I worry about replayability once the main campaign has been completed.  But maybe if the experience feels rewarding enough, it would justify investing in the other titles in the series to expand the story.

That's why I'm giving this game 3 out of 5.

- William Niebling

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