Ring of Elden is the most recent Soulsborne title to come out of FromSoftware, the creators of the genre, and it shows in a variety of ways. Not only does the game add a number of new features, but it also approaches the premise of struggling to survive in a dark fantasy world filled with terrifying monsters from a new, more hopeful angle. Now a Ring of Elden fan celebrates the game’s more upbeat tone with a gorgeous harp cover of the final boss’s music.
Previous FromSoftware titles have leaned into the gloomy tone of their soundtracks, often resulting in end boss themes that sound downright depressing. It is suitable for games like transmitted by blood which end on a deliberately ambiguous note. However, Ring of Elden is something else, and it takes a different approach to the final boss theme.
The final boss of Ring of Elden is fought to the sound of “The Final Battle”, composed by Tsukasa Saitoh. This epic song is a remix of the game’s iconic theme with all the vocals, horns and strings that entails. YouTuber Anna Ellsworth decided to try and capture the song’s epic momentum with a single acoustic instrument in a video titled “elden ring – the final battle // harp cover”.
Usually the song is played by what appears to be an entire orchestra, with all instruments cheering the player as they prepare to slay a deity. While the end goal of slaying gods isn’t exactly new to the FromSoftware catalog, the overall sense of hope certainly is. Anna Ellsworth’s take on the song is much softer and a bit darker, but it also reads as surprisingly hopeful. It can serve as a reminder to players of all the good people they’ve met in Ring of Elden–the characters they fight for when facing the final boss.
In the video, Anna Ellsworth sits at the harp and is shown plucking the strings, her eyes fixed on the instrument. It both proves that the cover was actually playing and serves as a surprisingly atmospheric demonstration of the effort required to do so. A little like Ring of Elden requires incredible effort from the players to get clear, playing the songs in the game also requires skill and mastery. The YouTuber states in the video description that this cover added a significant amount of reverb to try and mimic the OST version of the soul. Either way, the result is something the Elden Beast would probably be happy to play during their boss fight.
Ring of Elden is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.