Elden Ring shares plenty of things in common with FromSoftware's previous games, such as the Dark Souls games, including its challenging difficulty. Like the Dark Souls games before it, Elden Ring is no cakewalk, but plenty of players help each other master the combat and succeed in the game.
As part of the game's combat, parrying is a key element for players to use against enemies in Elden Ring. However, despite sharing some similarities, both Elden Ring and the Dark Souls games, particularly Dark Souls 3, do differ in their combat. One online player points out some significant differences between how parrying works in both games.
Reddit user YoruTsubasa made a post in the Elden Ring subreddit with a video showing the differences they noticed with parrying in Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3. The video by YoruTsubasa explores two key differences between how parrying works in both games, specifically the timing and the attack range needed to parry.
The video showcases the differences by using boss battles with Bell Bearing Hunter from Elden Ring and Iudex Gundyr from Dark Souls 3 for comparison. The video starts with timing, first by showing in the boss battle with Gundyr, the timing for parries in Dark Souls 3 connect much later than expected. This is shown when one of Gundyr's strikes is already passing through the player character before the parry kicks in and knocks him back.
Then the video shows how the timing doesn't work the same way in Elden Ring as it does in Dark Souls 3 in the boss battle with Bell Bearing Hunter. This is demonstrated when the strikes from Bell Bearing Hunter hit the player character when they try to parry like in Dark Souls 3, showing that players have to parry quicker in Elden Ring. The video even has a side-by-side comparison between the two demonstrations to highlight the timing difference for parrying in the games.
Then the video covers the second difference with the attack range. It demonstrates with Gundyr by showing how as long as any sort of contact with the weapon is made, a player can parry against Gundyr. Even if they barely connect with the blade of his ax. Then the video shows that's not the case with Elden Ring as the player character has to be very close to Bell Bearing Hunter to parry. To YoruTsubasa, this is why parrying in Elden Ring is riskier than in Dark Souls 3, since players have to get close and personal with enemies to successfully parry. On top of that, there are some moves from enemies in Elden Ring that players can't parry. So, they need to determine which move will be used, which leaves them vulnerable to an attack.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.