Elden Ring is even more chock-full of Berserk references than usual for the Souls series

Last May, mangaka Kentaro Miura, best known for Berserk, passed away at the age of 54. from 1989 until Miura’s death. The influence of the creator can be seen in many games developed in Japan, but especially in the Souls games.

Since Demon’s Souls fans have been happy to choose enemy and environment designs that seem to be “inspired” by Berserker, many of FromSoftware’s aesthetic works are straight from the manga. It’s not just about things like swords: Enemies big and small, like the bone wheel skeletons, one of the series’ most infamous challenges, come straight from Berserk. Not to mention the thematic parallels of betrayal, revenge, free will, and the arrogance of power.

Elden Ring may have always been meant to be this way, but there’s an unmistakable feeling here that since Miura’s death, the Berserker tribute has become more explicit than ever. The giant tree forever looming in the background is visually inspired by Berserker’s world spiral tree, and a regular feature of the open world is “graveyards” of swords with a giant two-handed sword in the middle, which is unmistakably owned by the dragon slayer Guts. They are scattered in many different configurations, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that this landscape is one gigantic monument and an a to Miura’s work.