The clips below are from my gameplay footage of 2022's popular video game "Elden Ring" on Playstation 4.

If you're unfamiliar with "Elden Ring", here's some quick info:
(Actual post is below this intro info!)

[GAMEPLAY]
In Elden Ring, players control a customizable player character on a journey to repair the Elden Ring and become the new Elden Lord. The game is presented through a third-person perspective, with players freely roaming its interactive open world. Gameplay elements include combat using several types of weapons and magic spells, horseback riding, and crafting. (Source)

[STORY]
Elden Ring takes place in the Lands Between, a fictional landmass ruled over by several demigods. It was previously ruled over by the immortal Queen Marika, who acted as keeper of the Elden Ring, a powerful force that manifested as the physical concept of order. When Marika eventually shattered the Elden Ring and disappeared, her demigod children began warring over pieces of the Ring in an event called the Shattering. Each demigod possesses a shard of the Ring called a Great Rune, which corrupts them with power. In the game, the player character is a Tarnished, one of a group of exiles from the Lands Between who are summoned back after the Shattering. As one of the Tarnished, the player must traverse the realm to repair the Elden Ring and become the Elden Lord.
(Source)

Today's Post is about:

- Ansel River -

An underground region of the Lands Between in ELDEN RING.

Part 1

Ansel River is full of huge GIANT ants. They're terrifying looking from afar and even more scary when they run up on you and start spewing ... stomach acid?

I was calling my character the Barefoot Paladin for a while but now that I've changed my armor and am killing giant ants, I now dub her -- the Bug Zapper!

I've been ambushed by gargoyles, misbegotten, bandits -- but there's no kind of ambush like a giant-ant ambush! Luckily, despite their size, these ants don't do a ton of damage on their own but I'd hate to get bit by a swarm of them.

After getting past more of those pesky huge ants, I found some ruins and a Site of Grace that hinted that things were about to get real and that it was time to save and replenish my potions and powers.

Here's a youtube link to the first 5 minutes of this adventure.

Part 2

I left those ruins and retraced my steps to explore another giant-ant tunnel and found a bunch of bloodstains signifying the death of previous Tarnished before me and saw a whole lot of big eggs.

Venturing inside I realize why all those Tarnished died -- they were melee types and there's a very pregnant giant-ant queen and some giant-ant bodyguards on the ceiling. Thankfully I'm a melee-magic hybrid (who mostly uses magic) so I did what I do when I see bugs on the ceiling: start zapping them!

After hitting the first one on the ceiling, the others started dropping down to see what was going on so I generously shared with them all the same shocking update.

One giant-ant managed to rush me so fast we somehow damaged each other at the same time -- they bit me and I Lightning Speared them.

And perhaps because I didn't get the chance to power up my Lightning attack all the way the ant survived so I was forced to show his face the pointy end of my sword.

After killing the rest of the queen's guards I set my fiery sights on the swollen royal herself and gave her the gift of my bright-eyes attack, Flame Frenzy incantation, which defeated her in one hit. This rewarded me with 10 Golden Runes and 1 Rune Arc. Still no idea what to do with these.

Venturing further I found myself in Uhl Palace Ruins and a swarm of annoying Claymen below me.

So thanks to my high vantage point I lit them up with Flame Frenzy without a care in the world and then ran back to use an elevator.

Unfortunately I was sprinting and there was no elevator so when I got to the platform I fell to my death.

Once I was no longer dead and had respawned, I acted like a normal reasonable person and conducted myself in a safe fashion around the elevator and was able to use it without dying.

Down below I located my fallen runes but also saw something shiny in the dark to my far right near a waterfall.

After grabbing some more Golden Runes from a fallen Tarnished I turned around to see the Claymen had already swarmed the water and that one was quickly tumbling toward me like the annoying Limgrave sheep.

After locating my fallen runes I turned around to see an army of Claymen approaching and began setting them on fire with the Flame Frenzy incantation.

Here's a video link below to the above part two portion of my Ansel River adventure:

Part 3

You know what they say -- "when in Rome" so I started tumbling around all over the place, trying to sheep-dog the Claymen into a nice thick group.

There's so many of them that despite the big fire from this Flame Frenzy incantation I've only wiped out maybe a third of them.

I try to cast the same incantation but get hit by what looks like two iron balls connected by a chain. It does a lot of damage to me and staggers me leaving me defenseless for a second.

And when the dust from the attack clears, a Claymen who had been tumbling toward me in secret -- stabs me to death with a quick strike.

Look at this guy, still stabbing the ground when there's nothing left remaining but smears of my Tarnished character's blood.

Nice one, Claymen. Very well done. I'll give them that ...

... But I'm coming back for those 50 thousand fallen runes of mine!

When I'm back, I run straight for my runes. Can't lose those and see something shiny to my right and go for that too.

I start off by attacking the group near the waterfall due to my Lightning Spear incantation's splash-damage in watery places like this.

No sooner do I do this and I swear the same Claymen that killed me earlier tries to shank me again but thankfully I roll out of the way.

Sorry guys, looks like 30 is the upload image limit for PeakD because I keep getting Error 500 messages.

If you want to see the rest of part 3 of my Ansel River adventure -- here's a video link below with the mini boss fight at the end.

It was kind of crazy to fight some kind of hanging gravity-demon with horns that threw a hyper-tunnel of rocks at me lol.

Hope you all enjoy!