The Elden Ring gameplay trailer is finally here with a January 21 release date

The panda GIF didn't lie.  After 2 years of silence (except for that tiny leak a couple months back), the Elden Ring gameplay trailer is finally here. Debuted during the Summer Games Fest, it shows off what essentially looks like Big Dark Souls, and I'm cool with it.  

A release date of January 21, 2022 was also announced, which means we don't have much longer to wait to play it either. 

There's a lot going on in the trailer, and most of it will feel pretty familiar to anyone that's played a Souls game in the last decade. Elden Ring looks a lot like Dark Souls, with broken cathedrals and grotesque monsters and narrators that could use a glass of water. 

A couple important details to note, or at least stuff that stood out to me:

• Blue Phantoms are back, which indicates PvP and co-op are back in familiar form too. Do we get a phantom horse?
• Our guy does a lot of flips, indicating something like Dark Souls 3's weapon arts system is still here, maybe taking a more elegant Sekiro-inspired form. 
• Mounted combat looks rad—also, our horse can fuckin jump. Skyrim's horses are over. 
• Are we taking a trip to a different reality? It's a common theme in From's games, and the shattered, floating vestiges of a cathedral suggest we'll do the same here. 
• Werewolves and fallen kings—Elden Ring's looking like a Dark Souls and Bloodborne mashup. 

A story synopsis appeared on Bandai Namco's Elden Ring page today as well. It reads:

The Golden Order has been broken.

Rise, Tarnished, and be guided by grace to brandish the power of the Elden Ring and become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between.

In the Lands Between ruled by Queen Marika the Eternal, the Elden Ring, the source of the Erdtree, has been shattered.

Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring known as the Great Runes, and the mad taint of their newfound strength triggered a war: The Shattering. A war that meant abandonment by the Greater Will.

And now the guidance of grace will be brought to the Tarnished who were spurned by the grace of gold and exiled from the Lands Between. Ye dead who yet live, your grace long lost, follow the path to the Lands Between beyond the foggy sea to stand before the Elden Ring.

And become the Elden Lord.

From what I can gather, it sounds like we're going to murder the power hungry demigod kids of a all-powerful god queen, steal their ring shards, reassemble the ring, and take over the joint. Rad. 

And finally, here's a bunch of screens, also provided by Bandai Namco. Check 'em out below.  

• What's up next? Here's the full E3 2021 schedule
• Check out our list of every game at E3 so far