Watching the Elden Ring Symphonic Adventure is the closest I’ll ever get to finishing the game

Try as I might, I’ve never managed to bring myself to complete a full playthrough of Elden Ring. The universally acclaimed FromSoft RPG may demonstrably be the most accessible in the studio's extensive library of back-breaking adventures, but there’s something about the scale and obtuseness of its wider mechanics that leaves me in the dust with each attempt. Even adopting the game into my portable lifestyle didn’t help matters much when I first got my Steam Deck.

Despite my several failed attempts, I still feel as though I’m missing out on something extraordinary - a shared experience that millions of gamers have had, but one that I, for whatever reason, find impenetrable.

That was until this weekend when I was invited to attend the matinee performance of the Elden Ring Symphonic Adventure at the Royal Albert Hall in London. After witnessing a celebration of the game through one of the most artistically rich facets of the medium, I feel comfortable in saying that this will likely be the closest I’ll ever come to finishing Elden Ring.

Tales of Tarnished

Prior to this performance, I’ve only ever attended one other orchestral performance in tandem with another piece of media, and that was a performance of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. I knew what to expect there, as the talented orchestra essentially performed the entire score of the movie with the visuals playing in the background.

Going into the Elden Ring Symphonic Adventure, I wasn’t sure exactly how it would all be structured. How would it all work when video game tracks are usually woven together during gameplay? Would tracks be played in isolation from each other? Elden Ring is over 50 hours in length, and I certainly can’t hold a wee for that long.

It turned out that the production team had painstakingly gone through Elden Ring and carved out the most important plot points from the game. This meant taking down each of the main bosses, plus a few optional ones, and recording it all in-engine from both the player's perspective and some cinematic free-camera shots.

The result was essentially a condensed sub-three-hour cinematic movie that tells the key plot points of the Elden Ring's main questline, following the Tarnished from the moment they step out into Limgrave, right up to when they become the next Elden Lord. All of this was scored in real-time by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Crouch End Festival Chorus, which did an unbelievable job of recreating FromSoftware’s masterpiece of a soundtrack.

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Whether it was the solemn nature of Renalla, Queen of the Full Moon, or something more raucous like Mohg, Lord of Blood, the performance from the musicians on stage was unparalleled. The Crouch End Choir in particular did a fantastic job of encapsulating that gothic nature that FromSoftware always brings to its soundtracks. Meanwhile, the brass, strings, and percussion sections were cooking overtime to provide a sense of tension that’s usually only felt while gripping the controller in gameplay.

It wasn’t all just boss tracks, though. While they did take up the bulk of the run-time, there were plenty of scenes during which the Tarnished was shown traversing the lands of the Weeping Peninsula, Atlus Plateau, or even Caelid. These moments of brief reprieve provided an elevated appreciation for FromSoft’s work, with the cinematic cameras focusing on minute details of world-building, backed by the quiet strings and atmospheric effects conjured by the orchestra.

The best tutorial the game doesn’t have

Witnessing Elden Ring in concert didn’t just give me a newfound appreciation for its soundtrack - it helped me decode some of the obtuseness that I’d previously associated with the game, too. When playing, I felt that Elden Ring would signpost its main questline using the most subtle of subtext. Meanwhile, this presentation of the game essentially serves as an excellent tutorial for those who want to experience it themselves, providing an ideal blueprint of where to go and what to do.

It’s well documented that I’m not the only one who charged straight into Caelid off the bat, only to be humbled by a swift ego-check. On a more recent playthrough attempt, I managed to find the hidden underground area with half an hour of wandering Limgrave - an area that the Symphonic Adventure didn’t touch until well after the interval.

The condensed story of the Elden Ring Symphonic Adventure picks out the perfect sequencing of events, telling you exactly which order you should face each boss for the game to make the most sense from both a narrative and gameplay point of view.

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What’s more, I discovered far more gameplay techniques that I didn’t even know were possible while watching this show. Seeing the Tarnished jump over incoming attacks, blocking blows without equipping a shield, and calling upon spells and summons that seemed to originate from something much more sci-fi - I’ve clearly only scratched the surface of what’s possible in this gargantuanly ambitious game.

Of course, the visual presentation of the Symphonic Adventure has been curated and produced in a way that’s supposed to make the game look appealing - easy, even. But while it may not have automatically levelled up my skills, it’s certainly given me a newfound appreciation for the artistic effort that’s gone into crafting this exceptional world.

It’s highly likely that I’ll never reach the end of Elden Ring under my own steam - but the power of its music has inspired me to at least try.

GGRecon was gifted a ticket to the Elden Ring Symphonic Adventure by Bandai Namco.