Elden Ring Needs A Photo Mode
Elden Ring is a big hit, the biggest ever from developers FromSoftware. The game is massive. I finished it in 80 hours, more than double my normal playtime in a FromSoftware game. The Lands Between is massive and striking. A tree, The Erdtre, towers over the land invoking the mythical Yggdrasil. Its branches scattered all across the sky repressing the shattering of the titular Elden Ring. The game is truly wonderful to look at. However, there is no way to capture that beauty. What Elden Ring needs is a photo mode.
My current method of taking screenshots is using the save screenshot button on my PlayStation 4. I turn off the HUD and I turn on HDR. I don’t have a capture card, just the basics. Most of the photos turned out to be just fine. Nothing exceptional. My character is always in the center of the frame. Sometimes I do a profile shot, other times it is just a portrait. Emotes can add some flair into the picture, but it rarely changes the composition of the photo.
The composition of shots is a real bummer without a photo mode. It feels like I am replaying Pokémon Snap where I need to put the subject in the center of the frame. At least in Pokémon I have the freedom to take the photos I want even if the photos score badly. But in Elden Ring there is no internal system to even take a screenshot. If I wanted to frame a subject in any way I have to buy the game on PC and install a mod.
For all the modernization FromSoftware has done for Elden Ring, they are still missing this key component. What is lost without a photo mode? Scale. Let’s take this image of my character looking off into the distance at this walking mausoleum:
First off, without the means of changing the depth of field the image looks very flat. Everything is perfectly in focus and bland. Creating a mood outside of the game’s context is next to impossible. It does not help that I cannot change the composition of the shot without using wonky camera controls. The sense of scale is lost without the means to change the field of view. It is hard to communicate that behind the mausoleum there is a magical academy looming over the land. Raya Lucaria is not imposing next to the mausoleum. An option to adjust the time of day or fog density would be icing on the cake. The image is a fine screenshot but a boring picture.
Whenever I think of a great photo mode I think of No Man’s Sky. With its robust photo mode I am able to change the time of day, aspects of the lens, use filters with adjustable coloring, change the cloud coverage on a planet and much more. This can create fun group shots with friends or simple but effective shots of my base. No Man’s Sky is a massive game. I am just a small space traveler. Scale is easier to define. With my Elden Ring screenshots that sense of scale is lost. Which is a damn shame, because Elden Ring nails a sense of scale. Charging against a massive dragon while golden rays of lights cascade across the sky is awesome. I just wish I could convey that with a photo.
I truly enjoy Elden Ring. I love taking screenshots of the game too. It is fun to work against the limitations of the game to capture something fun. But, Elden Ring removed frictions that were present in the previous iterations. Gone are the blood vials of Bloodborne. Hitting a skill wall is very rare thanks to the open world. If I am having an issue I just wander and grind dungeons out. If FromSoft is going to soften the edges of their games the least they can do is give us a proper photo mode.
