Elden Ring players vote for their favorite (and least favorite) everything in this revealing survey

A survey of Elden Ring players has revealed what we love most about FromSoftware's open-world RPG, from our favorite weapons and spirit ashes to our most cherished NPCs, areas of the map, and boss battles, of course.

Commissioned by the developer and conducted by Famitsu (thanks to FrontlineJP for the translation, via NME), the survey took the views of about 1700 players to gauge what they think of the game, as well as other helpful data, such as their in-game level - most respondents were level 150 or above - and in-game play-time, the average of which was between 100-150 hours.

Most participants seem to have played as a Vagabond and prioritized leveling up their Vigor over anything else, and fewer went for a Faith build. Almost all said they loved Elden Ring's open-world design, citing Caelid as the most memorable location on the map, followed by Limgrave and Leyndell, Royal Capital respectively. Mountaintops of the Giants was seemingly the least memorable area.

Our favorite Elden Ring NPCs were voted as Ranni, Iron Fist Alexander, and Blaidd, whereas the most popular "enemies" - which seemingly includes boss fights - were Starscourge Radahn, Malenia, and Margit, the Full Omen. It looks as though Katanas were the weapons most of us used to put them down (although few Tarnished seemed to have much time for Great Claws).

There are plenty more stats to soak up so pop over to see the full survey results, but I'll leave you with news that is unlikely to shock anyone: Mimic Tear was our favorite Spirit Ashes. The top-voted weapon skill/ashes of war was Bloodhound Step, and Comet Azur was the top choice for those that love a little sorcery. 

Proud of your Elden Ring accomplishments, Tarnished? Well, here's something to make you feel bad about your own paltry efforts: someone has completed a full three-hour run without getting hit. Meanwhile, this world-record-holding speedrunner has completed the entire game in less than seven minutes. That's right: Seven. Minutes. Well, six minutes and 46 seconds, to be precise.

Elden Ring is now the best-selling game of 2022 in the US to date. According to the NPD Group, a market research company that frequently publishes game-related research, FromSoftware's latest title now doubles as February's best-selling title of the month and the best-selling game of 2022 so far.

Did you catch the news that an Elden Ring dataminer has uncovered a series of messages in the game files that appear to reference a faction system which is not currently available?

The covenant system in the original Dark Souls similarly offered a number of factions with ranks you could progress through, most of them focused on co-op or PvP. These messages refer to things like "bloody finger rank advanced" and "recusant rank advanced", while others make reference to ranks for "hunter," "duelist," and "furled finger." These are all references to multiplayer functions in Elden Ring, and hint that some sort of faction system may have been planned for the game at some point. 

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