I have also experienced hard crashes. For some unfathomable reason, the game comes with HDR turned off by default. You need to start / load a save, press start

I have also experienced hard crashes. For some unfathomable reason, the game comes with HDR turned off by default. You need to start / load a save, press start -> system -> video -> enable HDR (you cannot do that in the main menu for some reason). This improves visual fidelity significantly and makes it feel at least like something resembling a PS4-era game. Coming from Horizon: Forbidden West, the graphics of Elden Ring still feel very dated, with low-res shadows & textures, flat lighting, low draw distance and constant frame drops. The UI is also rather clanky - this is the first game in a decade I actually had too look-up instructions for equipping items. Even with that, I find the atmosphere and experience very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to exploring the world in more depth. I also love the lack of artificial level scaling/gating - go unprepared to the wrong spot and you are dead.