Summary
Despite the widespread critical acclaim thatElden Ringhas received since its release in early 2022, there is always room for improvement and tweaks to make the game’s experience even more polished. The sheer size of the title and the variety of its in-game items and play-styles will always bring up questions surrounding optimization and balancing, with From Software often releasing updates to push the game’s quality of life even further.
Of course,Elden Ringlaunched its massive narrative expansion,Shadow of the Erdtree, back in June, only increasing the overall scope of the title’s content. This has only increased the amount of content that can be further polished forElden Ring, with October’s 1.15 update bringing a huge range of performance improvements and balancing changes to some of the game’s most notorious weapons and bosses.
Elden Ring’s 1.15 October Update Brings a Wide Range of Changes
The 1.15 update forElden Ringwas made available on October 2 across all platforms, coming with a download size that averages out at about 250MB. While the 1.15 update covers a wide range of different improvements,many of the changes concern theShadow of the Erdtreeexpansion, with some clear areas of focus being obvious to see.
For example,many of the 1.15 changes concernElden Ring’s Golem Fist weapon. Introduced inShadow of the Erdtree, theGolem Fistmay seem like an attractive weapon at first glance, but a range of bugs and general under-performance have made the weapon a notoriously problematic one. The 1.15 update attempts to address these criticisms, with a bug being fixed that prevented the Golem Fist from doing any damage when the player was under the influence of certain special effects. Another bug has been removed that significantly reduced the one-handed heavy attack power for the Golem Fist, with the weapon now hopefully being in a much more usable state thanks to the 1.15 update.
Bugs have also been ironed out across the likes of the Thorns incantation and the Smithing Talisman, with their effects sometimes being unintentionally blocked prior to the update. These improvements extend to specific bosses and locations, withthe behavior of Rellana, Twin Moon Knightnow being much more consistent and ashes now being usable across the entire Scadutree Avatar battle arena. The 1.15 update has also smoothed out player interaction with the Shadow Keep Church District, with the location’s introductory cutscene no longer incorrectly playing again with each re-visit.
Optimization is Just As Important as Bug Fixes in Elden Ring’s 1.15 Update
Away from bug fixes,Elden Ring’s 1.15 update has done a lot to further the polish and optimizationof the title. Improvements to enemy rendering and certain sound effect overhauls are just one example of this, with the PC version of the game getting a lot of attention in this regard. The update has identified a lot of potential performance issues for PC, with Ray Tracing randomly being activated and third-party applications having an unexpectedly large impact on the title. Alongside the performance improvements of 1.15, PC players are advised to verify the integrity of the game’s files before restarting the title to further streamlineElden Ring.
Blanket improvements have also been made to general enemy behavior, with the game’s end-game credits even receiving further fixes.The passion and attention to detail that FromSoftware has placed intoElden Ringover the yearsspeaks for itself, and the October 1.15 update is a further testament to just how committed the studio is to making the title as polished and balanced as it can possibly be.
