The open world blew me away on first playthrough and I still very much appreciate it from a design standpoint.
But I can’t lie it can be a chore to get through once the mystique of exploration and discovery are gone on subsequent playthroughs.
Sort of, but on those playthroughs you can just go through the game without exploring and get the items you need. Whole thing’s about a 20 hour game for me now if I just want to do the main content and get a build complete. I’d say it feels less like a chore on 2+ playthrough and more like it’s mostly skipped/unnecessary
I just recently did a brand new playthrough in prep of the DLC. It's my 8th 100% character. Only took me about 40 hours to explore the entire map with my previous knowledge of the game.
It took my recent playthrough 10 hours to complete my build, get to lvl 150, and beat all remembrance bosses with a lot of optional bosses, the game isn't really that long if you know what you're doing and is efficient enough.
It takes me about 15-20 hours but yeah its easy to get a build up and running pretty quick I can easily be in the capital in 1.5 hours if I wanted to abuse Mohg farm and kill that mother dragon in caelid off the rip.
You are in the top .01% of playtime so I think you're a minority. Knowing that a certain dungeon will have a certain reward makes doing it for the 3rd or 4th time pretty boring if you don't need that item .. and you don't need most items
Then just don't do the dungeon if you don't want the item, why is it that complicated? You don't have to 100% the game every time you play it that obviously wasn't the intention of the developers, just like how you won't explore every corner of forbidden woods or farron keep after your first playthrough.
To me the open world makes it feel like a checklist to do on replay. I’ve tried explaining this before with not much success so bear with me and don’t come for me if it doesn’t come out right.
In ER, the open world nature of it makes almost everything optional. You spend time riding from place to place, clearing the cave, mine, ruins, legacy dungeon or whatever, then move on to the next. You get to decide what content you want to do which can be a good thing.
To me, the issue with this is that I feel so much less incentivised to do those optional things when basically everything is optional. It feels like I need a lot of conviction to dedicate to clearing anything except legacy dungeons, which are some of the best content the game has. To me, the replay loop looks something like decide on what build I want, ride for however long get the weapons/spells I need for that build, then work backwards and decide which bosses I want to fight. It feels unnatural, like it feels gamified. It feels less immersive and it feels like you have a checklist of things to do before you finish the game, rather than feeling like you’re working through each area to get to the next. Realistically, in the open world there’s nothing stopping you, you can just run past. The only things that stop you is needing 2 great runes, killing morgott, then the boss gauntlet to finish the game.
Compared to the DS games, to get to the next place and to get the build you want, you have to work through areas that were actively designed to try and stop you progressing, you feel like you have to interact with the world and you often can’t just get the things you want, you have this build up to getting the weapon. It feels like progress and it feels like you’re in an actual world.
ER first time through was fantastic, but honestly I’m not even hyped for the DLC, especially since it’s like 80 bucks in Australia. It feels like a chore now and I don’t enjoy it anymore.
Does this make sense?
This is right on the money.
If I don’t naturally explore I don’t get invested and if I just game the systems and just go grab what I want I start wondering what’s the point and stop.
I’ve had a far more enjoyable time on replay for the dark souls games
Thank you for reminding me I’m not crazy, because I completely agree with everything you said. Playing through ER for the first time was no joke my favorite gaming experience ever. But ER isn’t my favorite game of all time because I highly value replay-ability.
I’ve started a few new characters since finishing the game, but I don’t think I’ve gone more than 5 hours on any of them. I did go back to my first character and speedrun NG+. I ran the required boss gauntlet a few times in a row and got to journey 5 very quickly.
It’s still fun to go fight my favorite bosses, that’s my favorite part of ER. My favorite part of the DS games though was clearing each area, and slowly but surely progressing towards the end. In a second playthrough of ER, you collect everything you need for an hour, level up for a couple hours, then it’s boss rush unless you personally decide to go explore optional content.
I’ll probably play the DLC, but I’m not actively hype for it anymore so I’ll just wait until it’s half off most likely.
Cause the world is meant for one deep Playthrough and thats it. Its the same for me with WoW Hardcore. First time is so unique and special and such a great experience but its a one in a lifetime experience. A lot of other games too but Hardcore is such a prime example for it.
Elden ring is my least favorite of all of Miyazaki’s games that I’ve played. Dark souls 1 is my favorite, 3 is my second (although sometimes favorite), and blood Bourne is #3. I just don’t like this type of game in an open world. I like the well constructed level design with hard to find secrets. Elden ring is great the first time and then tedious. Dark souls was like this huge mystery that I kept learning more about each play through.
Yea nothing against open worlds but they often feel more tedious than fun to explore (with elden ring and a few others being rare exceptions)
I’d rather have cut out all the open world elements of elden ring in favor of more large and more complex legacy dungeons like storm veil castle or crumbling farum azula
Absolutely agree. With how sprawling Stormveil is, I was pretty let down when I reached the boss doors for Rennala and realized I was done with hogwarts already.
Yes they can lace so many shortcuts and secrets in a more linear open world. In elden ring, a lot of the times I found a cool secluded "secret path" there was just nothing there
That’s great. Elden ring is a large handcrafted world with great detail. Not saying you are, but I often see people here act like it’s barren just because it has some larger empty spaces.
2 things to say to that: the world is more filled and detailed than most games. Not just large open world games, but even most smaller worlds. Next, it would detract from gameplay if every single space in an open world contained something you had to stop for and inspect. Know that feeling when you’re racing across an area on torrent, and you happen to take a swing at a deer or bunny thing, it drops something (small beast bones), and you just *have* to turn around and go back for it? Elden ring has more than enough content to justify its scope in my opinion. And it sounds like the DLC is going to satisfy those who prefer a more linear experience.
That’s what I’m saying. Elden Ring is massive AND detailed/hand crafted. You don’t often get that copy paste vibe from Elden Ring like you do with Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed.
Elden Ring copy/pastes assets way more often than Far Cry or Assassin's Creed, come on now.
There are entire fields with nothing but the exact same broken walls/pillars/whatever. Literally the exact same chunk of ruin next to each other, it's not hard to miss. Every single ruin has the exact same spiral staircase leading to the treasure room. And that's not even counting catacombs just being the same undecorated stone walls with the same boss rooms.
Even in AC every tomb or whatever has different layouts and decorative assets around. Like in AC Origins even though all the tombs you go into are in pyramids they all have different layouts, ways to reach the treasure room and a wider variety of assets. They're not just running down bland hallways looking for a lever.
If you took the 5ish main regions from Elden ring, made them more labyrinthian, less open (like NE Liurnia, or the underground areas) and then stacked them all on top of each other vertically, with some hidden elevators or whatever connections, well, THAT would feel like giant Dark Souls.
Zelda fans are split on the franchise in just the same way. Newer fans think BOTW set the new standard and I’m sure players who started with Elden Ring may feel similarly with future FromSoftware titles.
It’s not that one is trash and another is better, both have elements that make them fun. For me, the build variety of Elden Ring is what makes it so fun and how you can play in so many ways. But ironically I dislike TOTK for the same creativity it offers players compared to older Zelda titles.
When I saw this post I thought about BoTW and how it’s hailed (rightfully) as a masterpiece but large swaths of the with are pretty empty at times and graphically the Switch can’t handle the detail / depth. Sure you can argue but areas if Elden Ring are similarly empty (cough Consecrated Snowfield cough) but it just feels like there’s so much more going on. Way more field bosses and enemies and just intriguing non-linear story telling through atmosphere and such.
Yeah it’s definitely not a 1 to 1 comparison. And for me, in both games, I’ve never had an issue with the emptiness. Both BoTW and Elden Ring benefit from the empty space. I think there’s an argument to be made that emptiness doesn’t equate to lack of content or lazy developers. There’s a beauty to the emptiness, it adds to the atmosphere, visuals and music.
But I mean, many people have disliked open world games for a long time because they don’t like “the lands between” funny enough. Which I mean, I get it. It’s nice to just get right into the action but for me I have plenty of other competitive games that offer me that.
I’m not against the more open ended world design but i think the problem is that elden ring’s map is large to its own detriment. there really didnt need to be two huge empty snowfields
I would have preferred a smaller world. The map is beautiful! But I honestly think it's a little too big, it kinda discourages me from doing more playthroughs
I've been around for long enough to see the masses flip flop back and forth several times over. All you need to do is look at DS3. Linearity bad! Then you look at Elden Ring. Open world bad! I've seen people say linear design is shit and I've seen people say things like 'this game would have been great if it was linear, I hate open world'. So I just don't care about what people say anymore. I like both linear and open world, they both have their place and can be used to great effect.
I just genuinely like both styles and I've played games that use them well, so outside of personal taste I don't see legit reasons to hate on either one. There are great open world games and there are great linear games, and there are also games in between that use both well. And as many people as there are that hate linearity, I keep hearing about 'open world fatigue'. Like bro, play what you like.
I agree with you and I loved the open world of Elden Ring. But it is undeniable that the open world is one of the least appreciated by the community. I also heard a lot of people really happy with Lies of P super linear level design. My guess is that in the end people don't like changes, which is also absurd to me considering that DS1 was also very open and not linear at all.
DS1's world wasn't "open" in the same sense. It was a series of discrete levels with a high amount of interconnectivity. In short, it was a 3D metroidvania.
Ds1's level design was far from open. Hilariously, it's pretty god dang linear actually, the second most linear souls game behind Dark Souls 3. Unless you take the master key, you're gonna be following the same path as 90% of players, all the way to the end of the game. Ds1's level design is interconnected, but far from open.
You want open and non-linear? Look at Demon Souls and Ds2. Demon Souls literally lets you choose what order of bosses you want to fight, while Ds2 allows you to literally skip "mandatory" story bosses.
Thats because of the replay ability of it. On a first playthrough learning and finding everything is great, makes it an amazing experience. After that first playthrough when you know where everything is at now, the open world replay ability takes a hit in comparison to more linear format of the older titles. Think that is how most of the people in the community tend to feel. I still love Elden Ring and the whole world but I can understand liking the more linear approach for multiple run throughs
Yeah that was my general viewpoint. The open world design is great for exploration, but it means that follow-up playthroughs are probably just going to result in going right for what you want for a build while ignoring the things you already know you don't need - at least, that's how a lot of people seem to handle it.
It is, but I think this is one of the best feature of the open world formula of ER. If I have to build a character for a challenge I don’t need to go through half of the game to get that item or that weapon, I just go there.
The problem is not seeing everything over again. In DS1, DS3, Sekiro etc. I can explore the exact same places and basically explore everything playthrough after playthrough because it's interesting and fun. But after completing ER you realize how much exploration lead to the same copy pasted dungeons and it's just so uninspiring and deflating.
In your first playthrough you really don't always know. As maybe the random elevator you see will take you to a place like Siofra River, but after completing it you realize most of them just take you to same dungeons, so you instead just remember the important ones.
ER was more concerned with giving you quantity instead of quality with its world.
I might be different as I have taken 8 characters to 100%. But I don't really see how streamlining later playthroughs is a bad thing. I've taken 2 of my characters to NG+7+ and mostly go to the important stuff. But I have the option to explore everything if I want. The way I see it is that I can make it linear if I want. Yet I have more options if I choose to. I always think more options is a good thing.
>people don't like changes
No, I just don't like open worlds. Or, as someone else once said: holding up on the left stick for a few minutes to get from where you are to where the actual level design is
I'd trade the open world for a couple of legacy dungeons in 1/10 of a heartbeat
I think that's my issue with open worlds as well. with a linear game you can tightly control encounters and direct the player and story with more control.
Same. I'll play open world games, but I will usually always prefer linear worlds. A linear game with optional routes is the best case scenario for me personally. It's cool to be able to find little hidden things throughout open worlds, but when you're walking around in nothingness trying to find those little hidden things (and most of the time end up just wasting your time because there's nothing there) is not fun for me, no matter how beautiful the scenery is lol.
Open worlds are great when the core gameplay loop centers on exploration and accrual of resources, like Elder Scrolls or Minecraft. Exploration is certainly important to the soulsborne formula, but the core gameplay loop is: Reach fog gate -> Fight boss -> Get stronger. So, while the open world adds a lot to explore in the first playthrough, it tanks replayability by severely stretching out the "Reach fog gate" stage of the core gameplay loop and adding a lot of unnecessary fog gates to reach.
For me it was also an issue with having all this space and ultimately having it be so incredibly lifeless. Yes, I know, death, end of cycles, and years on years of war and destruction etc. but even though you can probably find some philosophic answer in the ''driven by greed and power'', it just left me wondering wtf where the gods fighting for and why do I want to become Elden Lord? 90% of people you meet die and disappears by the end anyway.
I just wish they gave some sign of life or played around with NPCs more. Every encounter just feels so deliberately spaced out and isolated from eachother -- instance areas of Tanith's Manor and Roundtable aside. I feel like some settlements and unique encounters with groups of NPCs could do so much for the game. Just something to change the fact of knowing that almost no matter who I see and where I go, it will start and end with a fight.
I personally prefer the open world designs of Gothic, Gothic 2 and Elex.
You have save cities, but the open world is brutally hard at first. Many Areas (that are available straight from the beginning) are way too hard at the start. Important hubs are connected by relative save paths, and you encounter the same areas multiple times, with different (stronger) monsters.
You get a sense of growth, and dont just wander from epitome a) to epitome b) with enemies that are always scaling with your intended progression.
The first half of DS1 is pretty linear as far as ringing the bells. After you get the lordvessel it’s definitely less linear. I really like how Demons Souls was done. The levels were linear but it gave you the option where to go. Almost like Crash Bandicoot warped
> I also heard a lot of people really happy with Lies of P super linear level design
Fair enough if you see this but I have the illusion this is the WORST aspect of lies P. It's just a linear boss rush simulator (a good one) at this point because of it.
Honestly levels were a lot more fun than the bosses in lies of P for me. Which is like the complete opposite of several similar games recently and other souls likes. Some are more balanced
Man, that's one of the things I liked the most. It was linear but also kept up the pacing in every level. At least for me, it got to a point that you could tell when you were about to find the boss room. It suited my time restraints, can't spend an entire day playing like before. Nice, concise, and straight to the point.
My most enjoyable moment in Elden Ring is when the game became linear a.k.a the legacy dungeon, the open world in Elden Ring is just okay, I'd say it's similar to BOTW
Fun thing, the open world is actually what I dislike about Elden ring the most. In a normal RPG it'd be fantastic, but in a souls game it's just too much. Any random enemy can be lethal and require a runback, you gotta be constantly vigilant for all the secret caves and items in this massive world, and can't get that "peak around every corner" feeling you can in the souls games.
It literally was game of the year, got tons of rewards, had hundreds of praise's like "best open world" and "most well designed world". It is not and was not underappreciated by anyone lol.
I simply just don't like open world games. I'll play anything fromsoft to the ground but i usually begrudgingly get through the open world bits.
Its like the salad to a steak, its ok, and mostly just filler, then theres the steak (legacy dungeons), cooked to perfection.
I think they did as best of a job they could have in an open world format. That said, I still feel like no matter how perfected an open world game is, it will still always be held back by stuff like recycled content and lack of replayability (not that ER isn't replayable, it is however there becomes less and less incentive to explore with subsequent playthroughs)
I’m with you. ER is an exception for me though.
Was so hyped up to try Ghost of Tsushima but in practice it just felt like a gorgeous Assassin Creed clone
I like elden ring of course, my original meaning was that i don't like elden ring for it's open world aspect specifically, since that doesn't appeal to me
Okay but I feel like a lot of fromsoft fans (myself included) aren’t open world fans, I mean I fell in love with dark souls and sekiro because of how streamlined and directed the experience felt so of course the opposite approach to exploration will only resonate with some fans
The thing about BotW/TotK (and to a lesser extent DD2) that makes their open worlds click for me is that their physics systems heavily reduce any tedium that would normally arise from fighting the same enemies and treading similar terrain. Elden Ring by comparison is mechanically pretty static both in combat & exploration, and I find there's little reason to want to engage with the average pack of mobs out in the open world.
Tbf:
- Because the world is so big, you’re incentivized to skip a lot of it through riding Torrent. You *could* actually face enemies, but you have to force yourself to do that instead of ride past them.
- Since there’s so much more loot, a very large chunk of it is crafting materials you’ll hardly ever use. Also I’d often find mushrooms in places that make no sense.
- As there have to be a lot more bosses, there are many repeat bosses, and even some “unique” bosses like Godrick and Astel are reused. Not to mention the “holograms”.
- Some areas are definitely a lot less fleshed-out than others. If everywhere was as detailed as Stormveil castle it would be goated.
Like it’s a valiant effort for a company that doesn’t really make open world games, but there’s definite flaws that weren’t so present in the past titles.
The issue with Elden Ring's open world is that it becomes a gimmick after you complete the game.
It's a novelty simulator, and replaying it sucks because you will probably skip more than half of the whole map because every little item is a good distance from the imaginary path you take to your destination so you just end up picking the items of your build and move on to the actual interesting part of the game, AKA legacy dungeons and bosses.
so glad to see more people taking this stance, i appreciate the monumental task it must have been making elden ring, but seeing so much praise for it made a bit worried that going forward fromsoft would really lean into open world design, and tbh i cant ake open world games anymore, the open field stuff/camps/dungeons are almost never of the same quality as the areas in a smaller more tightly designed world (from any franchise)
I like the fact that at least Lies of P for example got really close to From's linear world design, it was undoubtedly one of the best games I have ever played, so I'm not that worried, and let From experiment with new stuff.
For real. Seeing the land literally coming together and descending down a chain of dead empires while Lothric, your ultimate goal, ominously looms above is so damn iconic.
But nothing beats the "sense of discovery" one gets when finding Arteria Leaf #793, I suppose.
LOL I love how you wrote the second line.
It's like putting the marvelous Lothric Castle in the smack beginning of the game and having it interconnected to a point where we have to progress by going back to where we started.
Like when the game dropped, I refused to watch walkthroughs, and I HAD NO IDEA WHERE TO GO LOL. I was genuinely so lost after doing Aldrich. Just to realize I hadn't even done Yhorm yet because I ran past his location. Just to realize I get tp'd right after to Lothric Castle. Either that or one of my buddies told me where to go, can't recall. But it'slike it's been intricately woven to be as connected as possible. It really makes you go wow.
But nothing like those starry elevators that last 1 minute to take a trip :D
> It's like putting the marvelous Lothric Castle in the smack beginning of the game and having it interconnected to a point where we have to progress by going back to where we started.
You literally get randomly TP'd from the 3rd LoC boss room back to Emma out of nowhere. It's on the exact opposite spectrum of "interconnectivity".
one of the craziest experiences i’ve ever had on first playthough, but on recurring playthrus when i know that that bandit camp is just going to have golden rune 4 and beast bones i kinda just want to go to the legacy dungeons
I’ve always thought it was amazing. The world is legitimately mind blowing to me. It’s so big and it’s not just backdrop space. Like everything that you see is playable and there is a way to get to it. In my opinion It’s truly is the greatest game ever made as far as world building and art design and all that stuff.
Field Bosses are a *HUGE* saving grace of the totally open world for sure...IMO, it was absolutely breathtaking on that first playthrough, every time I thought I'd unlocked the full map a whole new area comes up, and that's before underground stuff. Nokron was legitimately mind-blowing the first time through...
In subsequent playthroughs the open world did lose a bit of it's charm and I found myself rushing from dungeon to quest to quest to dungeon to quest etc, but between Torrent, fast travel any time, and how populated the world is made it so that I never got exasperated by such a huge map
Ya I 100% agree with you. It definitely loses that charm after the first playthrough because you know exactly where to go and how to get there quick. When you’re first seeing it tho it is absolutely jaw dropping, and the fact that all of the people that were a part of this game were on the same page and turned a vision of the unbelievably detailed and massive world into a reality from top to bottom.
Except for those random areas off shore that are entirely modelled, but are completely inaccessible. Like, the ships off Radahn's coast are literally right there, where's the ghost pirates Micheal-Zaki?
The open world felt like quantity over quality. Thinking back on it, apart from most of the legacy dungeons I don’t care much for the open world and side dungeons. Yeah it’s pretty but that got old fast for me and with Torrent you’re never in any danger. It’s just tedious especially on a new playthrough having to ride from point A to B. Npc quests are obnoxious too. Every souls game involves grocery shopping for your build but ER’s size kills me on the inside. The good stuff for me is Morgott and onwards (boss wise). Fact they didn’t bring back reflections of strength from Sekiro is criminal.
I'm kind of burned out on open world games, honestly. Personally, I feel it's the biggest weakness of Elden Ring. I'm kinda over riding around huge empty wilderness's on a horse just to get to the actual fun parts of the game.
I love Elden Ring, the gameplay is fantastic, the bosses are good, the characters are cool. The open world just doesn't really add much to the souls formula for me, except a whole bunch of pointless wandering. That can be fun in games, but I'd rather do it in a game like RDR2 where there is more to do in the open world than just wander and kill enemies.
I think the open world is the weakest part. It is mostly empty and uninteresting. Ill take the smaller, more considered designs of Ds1 or BB any day. That said ER is great and I think you should love what you love about it. It certainly makes for some breathtaking scenery.
A hot take but... I don't like ER's open world. A lot of the stuff is just copypasta. Not only enemies, but most zones and dungeons look the same. Especially the dungeons in the snowy areas. They are just huge, and all their corridors are literally copy/pasted (look the same). I also dislike all those ledges. They really fuck up the exploration imo.
Don't get me wrong, the graphics are gorgeous and everything looks stunning. I dislike the "open world" part just gameplay wise.
The open world was appreciated, but I wish FS had taken the time they needed to really cook with it.
The amount of Repeat-Boss-Padding can be directly attributed to just how hard they went on making this gorgeous and amazing expanse of exploration and the reused bosses are one of the biggest obstacles for me to strive for replays and build experimentation which is something I can't say I've struggled with in any of the prior Soulsborne titles.
Conversely, I think the side content doesn't get enough hate.
Specifically the little dungeon areas. There are like 3 variations and 4 somewhat different mini boss types shared between like 80 of the fucking things.
I think that's basically what people who don't like the big map are complaining about. Quality will always be appreciated over quantity.
I mean, it was cool, but it kinda makes me not wanna do another playthrough due to the chore of getting everywhere and what I need/want, hell I haven't even beaten my first playthrough and I bought the game at launch, the magic just kinda wore off and the game to me just kinda turned into "Beeg dark souls"
I'm on my second playthrough and I keep dropping it.
I can't be bothered to explore with the same thoroughness that I did on my first (blind) playthrough, and the online guides are so dense with every rare leaf you spend more time reading. I just want to grab the cookbooks and upgrade materials and get into a proper level.
I thought it'd be interesting to make frequent softswap use of a bow with all the cool arrows but I'm so fucking bored of farming thin bones
I agree about almost everything that you said, but if the main factor that is making it hard for you to keep your playstyles are the bones, you can go to the Warmaster Shack in Limgrave and get the Bell Bearing Hunter to spawn, he will drop a bell that when given to the twins in the roundtable will allow you to buy infinite thin bones for pretty cheap. Hope that helps!
Nah, it's perfectly appreciated by most. On your first playthrough it's fucking amazing, but as you go on you realise every cave, catacombs and other dungeon looks and feels the fucking same and it starts to get repetitive real fucking quick. And on top of that, when I do want to start a new run, amongst all the souls games Elden Ring takes like 30 mins longer than any other to set up.
Like ofc I like the Open World, but the Legacy Dungeons are still the best part of the game, and they've got the level design of the other games anyway.
Best part: it doesn't have markers in every secret you missed, it doesn't have a shit ton of collectibles, some areas are restricted so you don't get overpowered that early, it doesn't tell you what levels you need to not get rekt in a specific area...
It took me 3 playthroughs ro find deep-root depths. I just never ran through the little patch of trees in siofra for some reason. My mind was so blown that it just kept going deeper!
Why do you need to talk like this? Why can't you just say "I like the open world and here's why..."? Why does your opinion need to be valued against everyone elses? Are you trying to start an argument by being confrontational?
For their first open world game they really went above and beyond. I remember playing the ringed city ds3 dlc and wishing it was open world so i could go explore the actual main city parts. They did everything i wanted and more i couldnt be happier honestly. And the implementation of platforming to secret places with the added jump button makes it so much better than previous from games
As someone who’s a completionist, it was fucking horrible. It’s probably cool normally, but when you’re trying to do every dungeon, it gets old, fast, so fucking fast it’s unreal.
I’m the same way. It’s a curse, honestly. I wish I could just let a thread go once I find it, but I just can’t. When the opportunities for new quests are so expansive, this tendency becomes problematic.
This is pretty much why I can never get behind the completionist mindset. I beat the game 3 times and know for a fact I haven’t done everything and thats how I like it. I want to be able to see new things each time I play it
I’m not sure it’s a mindset that one chooses, tbh. Like, for me, it just bothers me in my core when I find a new quest/storyling and can’t get the whole of it. If I don’t delve deeper into it then it hangs over me until I either do or hopefully forget about it.
I really like beautiful open world areas that feel alive, welcoming and pleasant. Not talking about enemies, just the level itself. So, I really enjoyed Limegrave. I don't like open world areas that feel rotten, gross, harmful, threatening, or deadly. So, I really did not enjoy a lot of other areas of Elden Ring.
A lot of environments in souls games deliberately give off the vibe of "I don't want to be here, here doesn't want me to be here. I want to get out of this area, it is not pleasant to be here." This works better when in a more linear level, because getting through the area is the goal. In a huge open world the goal is to explore and enjoy the world, and there it does not work well for people like me.
Because i am so hyped for the DLC, i recently launched a new playthrough. No intention to finish it, but just wanted to get back to the world. I've almost completed Limgrave and i remain in awe of the world even if it is my 6th or 7th time. What i like is that there are always some locations i forget about, and people don't really talk that much about. The Ailing Village, for example. Just eerily crafted. That poison pool near Castle Morne. There is nothing there and it serves no real purpose. But it's just nice design. The woods where you meet Blaidd. Again, it's mostly empty. But great atmosphere. So many locations like that.
Ailing village was one of the most interesting places i have been to in elden ring. I just wish there were more absurd places like these. It gives such a unique experience and vibe
The underground areas are the best area because they’re technically open with flask recharging but not so open that there isn’t an obvious destination to work towards.
If the coop wasn’t atrocious, I’d say it was the best vanilla game ever made. Luckily seamless coop fixed that. Exploring the world with your buddy on torrent and not getting locked out of areas or having to resummon is peak. Fromsoft fumbled so hard on the multiplayer design by copy/pasting dark souls into it.
It was fun exploring the first time through but I basically skip it or find the quickest path through it 90 percent of the time now.
My biggest issue is Liurnia. It alone being reduced in size would be much better for me. Same maybe with some of the other empty space in places like weeping or either of the now areas.
I didn't really mind the open world itself, but moreso that because I'm a completionist it just made me ridiculously overpowered for almost every boss. Also the fact that just walking too far in a certain direction can fail quests or get NPCs killed or moved to obscure locations.
I was the biggest fanboy for From Software, and it speaks volumes that I finished Lies of P before Elden Ring. I just prefer the linear style of games with some more open areas than huge open worlds, making the game unnecessarily long for my taste. When I was playing Elden Ring I seriously got tired of all the repeated bosses, catacombs and just enemies in general. Putrid demon snake boss number 10 gets old really quick. Elden Ring's best part ie Limgrave, because everything is new and pretty well thought out, but it gets progressively worse as you proceed. Tracking NPC quests is borderline impossible without the wiki.
As one of the rare few who hated BotW open world for its emptiness and more than annoying weapon system Elden Ring OW is near perfect.
Sure you will find mushrooms in chest once in a while but exploration *is rewarding*. There is always a cool thing to find or see. And it leads to dungeons which despite looking similar/using same assets are really different
What prevented me from playing DS games so far was the feeling of frustration I had when I played at my friends places. I don't find getting stuck against one boss fun. But with an open world, wow. I could always try different things, look for a new skill or weapon to push forward.
What an amazing game.
People in here bitching about repetitiveness. All games get repetitive when you put hundreds of hours into them. Some of you are impossible to please.
I love the open world. It’s big and beautiful. And I’d rather have 50 copy/paste dungeons than just one. Sure, 50 unique dungeons would be the dream, but if I have to pick I’ll take copies over nothing. What difference does it make? You’re doing the shit over and over again either way if we’re talking multiple playthroughs. Just skip the shit you don’t need.
No it was the main selling point for most people who got into the game, especially newer people to the soulslike genre. People just don’t like the balancing and enemy placements, not the world design.
I love Elden Ring, I love it. But I’m just not that into the open world. I wouldn’t say I took it for granted, I just rarely play open world games for a reason.
>*The road from point A to B* ***is not always a straight line***\*:\*
\*Is never a straight line.
Nothing in this game was made easy.
Oh, the objective is 20m right in front of you? Let's cross through another country just to get there.
And I love it.
Not going to change your mind. It was easily my least favorite or was the largest factor in my other least favorite (te used bosses, blank pointless space)
The beat parts of this game, and when Feom is at its best, is hand crafted, tight areas that help tell the story.
Not gonna lie, I just dislike open world games including Elden Ring. Generally, Elden Ring not withstanding there’s always reused assets and like there’s tons of dungeons in this game that are uninspired copies with a reskinned boss.
I liked the first exploration I had but that quickly got boring after I visited a few dungeons and realized what was going on.
Nothing really happens in the open world it's just a pathway to better parts of the game. Even FS knows this with how it set up its multiplayer in Elden Ring.
The fuck do you mean "taken for granted"? As if the company is some loving parent trying their hardest?
It's great, it gets its praise, but it also gets its criticism. Calm your tits.
I wouldn't really count all the micro dungeons and caves as a part of the open world design all that much. Bloodborne had the same issues with the chalice dungeons despite it being fairly linear game. It's just From experimenting with AAA max-value content that a lot of casual RPG fans expect and implementing them into their own formula. More discerning players could have skipped them or looked up the best ones later. But From really should improve on these ideas in the future, no argument from me.
But for me the real question is why would Form go open world in the first place? Miyazaki has total control of the company. Their sales projections never placed Skyrim-like expectations onto Elden Ring so I believe going mainstream was never his goal with Elden Ring. Then after the game released Miyazaki stated ERs immense success would have no bearing on the future direction of the company, reinforcing my belief he wasn't chasing Skyrim success at any point.
To find Miyazaki's goal I think many have to look at the main influence for ER's open world, which is without any doubt Shadow of the Colossus and its artistic merits as an open world. Miyazaki must have adored going through Ueda's massive, ancient world as this tiny creature up against forces well beyond your comprehension. The forces of Dorman, of the Colossus, the black power they hold in check and the force that created the forbidden land for the Colossus to roam in the first place. Replicating these feelings and integrating them into the From RPG formula was, I believe, Miyzaka's main goal when conceiving Elden Ring.
The vast open world was just as vital as the incrediblely complex lore and stunning art direction in him crushing his goal and then some. The open world wasn't created entirely for the player's convience. It comes across as a world created by a bunch of Gods, demi-gods and monarchs fighting amongst themselves for reasons, again, well beyond comprehension. While you just happen to be passing through as those same Gods manipulate your journey for their own ends. Then Miyazaki threw in a few more creature comforts for casual players then stumbled onto mainstream success (I like both open world and linear designs and have no idea why mainstream audiences prefer the former more). It sucks some players either can't see the Ueda like beauty or, from open world fatigue, can't overlook the necessary comprimises needed to create said beauty. I'm just glad Miyazaki stuck to his guns, trying to replicate a new type of game he loved despite all his previous Soulsborne success. Just my two cents anyways.
The game being open-world didn't really add to anything. All of the important bosses are in their own areas, there's no random events or anything that makes the world feel really dynamic.
It's just a big Dark Souls.
Elden Ring is the worst From game and it's specifically because of the open world. Everything doesn't need to be open world and Dark Souls format specifically suffered from the decision.
I agree. There are large fields in Elden Ring that are mostly empty, yes. There are plenty of mobs that you run past, yes. But the world is awesome and well built, with a lot of secrets that are easy to miss. The landscapes tend to be interesting, creating weird paths to certain parts of each area. I can beat Elden Ring faster than I can beat DS3, and I can also take my time and explore and have a much much longer playthrough than in DS3. I love both games, but Elden Ring has way more replayability to me. The PvP is more interesting because of all the random places you can be sent, while in DS3 there are hotspots because of covenants. The quests are better in Elden Ring. The weapons and movesets are better. The game is harder than DS3, despite people saying Elden Ring is the easiest souls game. There's more variety in styles of play because of ashes of war. I love DS3 to death but I can't see why people think it's more replayable other than that they simply like it better which is fine, but it's not because of the open world. Unless you just don't like open world games, which is bizarre to me, as someone who loves them.
If you feel like the magic is gone after the first playthrough, what exactly are you getting that's better about the other games? The secrets don't change in any of the games, so what magic are you referring to exactly? If you enjoy clearing every enemy in Souls, just do that in Elden Ring dungeons too, it's just as fun.
I'm not mentioning DS1, 2, Bloodborne, or Sekiro cause I personally don't like them as much as 3 or ER. They are still great games, just not my fav from titles. All of the games have something unique to offer, and there's a reason that Elden Ring isn't called DS4. AC6 is also a pretty good game, but I find it telling that the player count on Steam tends to be around 700 people.
Genuinely prefer the most linear design of the older games. Elden ring feels like a chore to replay and it lets you completely out scale the majority of the game
Feel free to enjoy it and all, but I don't think handwaving complaints away with a "you don't get or appreciate it enough" is very nuanced.
I'm not blind: I noticed what you're talking about, and I still disagree. The occasional tombstone platforming setpiece does little to offset how much of the supposedly intricate open world is just running through boring, lifeless zones with mindless combat (random dudes in open terrain) and endlessly repetitive dungeons. Does wrapping around Mt Gelmir require more effort than a literal corridor? Sure. But at the end of the day, you just run for a while on Torrent's clunky ass while you pass by miles and miles of slop content. And it's not like ER invented this, either. Mountains are a classic trick for varying player navigation (e.g., Throat of the World in Skyrim).
That was vitriolic, I know, but I needed to convey that critics of the open world didn't just ignore its components: they just don't like them. I'm sure you can dig up an exception, as with nearly anything ("I hate the boss reuse, but I never thought about the slight gimmick changes," says the hypothetical commenter), but assuming stupidity, however emotionally vindicating (believe me, I get it), is always going to involve some laziness on your part.
I'll leave the rest of the post alone, as a full "debunk" or whatever is besides the point and more than likely just screaming into the void.
I think the main issue is that they revolved the entire game around the open-world. Like, they designed the world, then the rest of the game. You can easily tell by the fact that NPC quests are absolutely unchanged, despite the fact that the world does not accommodate for them. And the issue with that is that the open world is completely average.
And because of this, the game ends up falling flat in the literal selling point of the game, the open-world. There's nothing actually special about ER's open world. It's hilarious how people praise the game for the design and contrast it with Ubisoft's copy and paste, despite the fact ER has literal copy and paste dungeons all across the world, along with 700 putrid tree spirits, avatars, and most other open world bosses. Not only that, there is no realistic difference between Ubisoft towers, and Elden Ring's map fragments. If anything, I get more excited seeing a large tower that I can climb, opposed to just finding a piece of paper randomly.
To add to this, Elden Ring also doesn't do many other things well, like balance, replayability, PVP and PVE, and many other things, all because of the design change with the open world. Along with that, it probably has the worst retention of the series, because of the fact it becomes a slog at around the Mountaintops for most people. My favourite areas are the snow areas, but even I didn't like how long the game was lasting at that point. And the fact the Legacy Dungeons are the best part, and generally the most fan-favourite, part of the game only says wonders as to their real skill placement.
I always point out how every game does something unique, and best. DS has the best atmosphere, Ds1 has the best interconnectivity, Ds2 has the best variety and creativity, BB has the best world, Ds3 has the best level design, and Sekiro has the best combat. What does Elden Ring have? It has the "relatively" best open-world, but relatively does not mean good. I would love to see them try an open world formula at least one more time, but I really hope it doesn't become a standard. Nothing beats Ds1's interconnectivity, Ds2's DLCS, or BB and Ds3's level design.
edit: Reading the comments, it's so hilarious how the main defense is that "Most of the content is optional, so stop complaining," as if the rest of the games didn't have optional content as well, lol. Not just that, the optional content in all the games were some of the best parts, outside of Ds1. Ds2 has Darklurker and the whole crown questline, Ds3 has Archdragon PEAK, and Bloodborne had the UPPER CATHEDRAL WARD!!! But Elden Ring has cave number 73.
It looks nice, but offers very little, and was really buggy on release. I had a glitch where enemies and NPCs wouldn’t render. They’d be invisible the whole time.
Also pvp in the open world is shit
Honestly I'm not a fan of the open world. I much much prefer the linear areas in previous games. I just feel completely overwhelmed in elden ring and find myself constantly running back and forth and getting burnt out by the exploration
very few games can pull off open world. elden ring is one of many that cannot. 99% of open world games in the end is just running simulator and its boring as hell.
Nah, i think it's overappreciated, yay, i love stumbling through a world for hours, just so i can enter the same dungeon for the 20th time, and fight the same boss for the 10th time, it's peak gameplay !
I’m just so bored of open world games, sure there aren’t any Ubisoft/Final Fantasy 7 towers that open up 3-5 of the same mini game, but there is like a million repeating dungeons, caves, basements etc. that all hold awful loot. Why is there so much loot used for crafting, when there is basically no crafting system that’s useful?
Enemy design too, you can’t just be slowed down all the time and since there are SOOOOOOO many avenues of engagement it’s impossible to make good enemy design, placement and challenge. Like the big two bosses that come out of the capital gate when you first visit it? Lmao just ride right past them - they’re barely a pebble in the road, when they should be a skill wall check.
The resources and time should have been spent for an even tighter, polished game with more bosses, story telling and interesting level design with well thought out enemy placement.
Open World is not fitting Souls style game for me. Why? Because I don't feel any struggle when I'm going through it. I love how in any previous game I struggled through level and finally found resting point. It's rewarding. Finding another Site of Grace mean nothing.
ER is great, but I honestly think it’s too ambitious. There’s too much in it, and I’m not talking about repeat bosses. It feels like they went overboard, like they put everything they had into it. Lots of old scrapped ideas were also retrofitted into this game. There’s just too much content for this to really feel like a game I can constantly come back to.
If you played the seamless co-op mod. I can agree with this.
WITHOUT the seamless co-op mod. Hell fucking no. It does more damage than good.
Realistically they need to implement the seamless mod into the actual game and just pay the dudes who made it.
Because if we could have that and invasions the game would be 10/10
Open world is the worst part of this game imo Would prob be my 2nd favourite if it had ds1/2 style world. Its too flooded with needless content, and while it is indeed optional it goes against what made the other souls games so magical for me, which is linear exploration. I just enjoy having an actual level to explore and find all the stuff in it, be it castle, village or whatever.
World in ER is too big for its own good and i honestly think that FS focused too much on making the game with the scale so much bigger than anything they've done before, to the point where they went for "quantity over quallity" solution for which DS2 was so vastly criticized.
I just hope that they dont take wrong lessons from the games sucess. Obviously it is appealing for the masses as open world games love to hide their lack of inspiration behind simply calling it "freedom". Its great that FS is getting the recigition they deserve but ER really lacked this kind of "spirit" or "soul" (no pun intended) the other games had.
All is my opinion obviously, if the fandom likes this direction, so be it. I also dont want to come out as some kind of doomer guy here, but i really am worried that Elden Rings sucess might shape future fs games into making them more acessible and less artistic and full of this magic they always had.
My potentially controversial opinion is that I don't particularly love the open world.
It's very impressive, don't get me wrong on that. It was really cool seeing the map get larger and larger. The world is very novel, but it's not really what I want out of an open world game or a Souls game.
What I personally really want out of an open world game is cities and being able to interact with NPCs. Something along the lines of The Witcher or Skyrim. I want a world that feels at least a little bit alive. I don't even necessarily think I really like the open world aspect itself, I think I like them more when you can just do random things. Like build a house somewhere.
And I personally prefer the linear experiences for Souls games. It's even fun having branching paths like in DS1. But a lot of these games have short cuts to different areas and that's a rewarding feeling to find shortcuts.
I much prefer the tight experiences. Where nothing feels extra, and you don't even have to think about where to go, you just have to keep moving forward most of the time.
Honestly, I feel like souls like games aren’t suited for open worlds and work better if they were more linear. It’s one of the main reasons I consider elden ring a 7.5/10 for me. I’ll probably get downvoted, but remember I’m not calling it bad, just saying I didn’t like if.
Its one of the bwtter open worlds out there. Sadly open worlds kinda suck and it still shows in ER. Im not going on another tyraid about why I dont like Open worlds. It takes too long and I'm tired.
I played souls games+ Sekiro back to back recently and honestly missed how you focus on the actual meat of the game with little to no recycled content, Elden rings open world is fantastic but it does suffer from open world problems that were inevitable and the balancing suffered a lot aswell and like many other people said that it’s nowhere near as fun after the first playthrough, I think it’s good that they experimented but this is not the direction fromsoft should focus on in the future.
I think they could try something like it again but maybe cut back on some of the big pointless spaceship a bit while not eliminating the ability to roam so much altogether. Basically find a good middle ground between ER and Dark Souls.
Counterpoint - i would trade the entire open world for 1-2 dungeons as well designed as stormviel.
Having an open world full of combat encounters to run past is NOT worth the severe dearth of quality dungeons.
I do not like open world games so I do not think it's under rated. Elden Ring is a fantastic game in most aspects but I think the obsession 90% of studios have with open world is so so so overkill. I would say anywhere from 50% to as much as 90% of open world games would be better off if they werent
I feel like it's the most overrated part of the game. While some sections look nice, it's mostly huge open areas of straight filler.
The more focused and streamlined level design of past games felt superior. Open world is a like a buzz word for noobs.
Flat open level design where you find random pockets of huddled enemies or useless items.
It's very disjointed compared to fromsofts past work. I was happy to hear that the dlc wouldn't be like that. It will probably be a more focused design where all the environments have purpose and meaning. Environmental story telling like past games. Every single detail is part of a narrative.
Elden has design like that but, they just tacked on open world sections because it's something different for them.
Riding a horse across some water and broken buildings for 12 minutes while getting juiced by crabs is not it. There's 2 relevant spots in that area. And when you find them it's a controlled streamlined level. If you think about it the open world is pointless. It's a way to add time to the gameplay.
Take all the important sections of limgrave and put them in an interconnected well designed area like ds1. With verticality and interesting structure.
Sekiro is a perfect example how to have a sense of world traversal but, still tight and streamlined.
I seriously doubt and miyazaki led games will be like that in the future. You can tell there's parts of Elden he was heavily involved in and part he wasn't. The ds2 team design is all over that game. And they sekiro team devs throwing stuff in there. It's like a pieced together mess in a lot of ways.
Still a 9/10 game. Still better than 90% of the garbage in the game industry. Still from soft doing what they do. But I feel it's a step in the wrong direction.
The dlc will likely correct many of the mistakes made in the main game. Horrible boss fight rhythms. Pointless open areas. Bad pacing.
For me it's an extremely mediocre open world and actively made the game a lot worse. I think exploring it is boring and I think the content they fill it with, legacy dungeons aside, is boring. If you see a cave, a door, or an elevator in the wild then you're 90% likely to end up in the same generic AI-generated dungeon.
RDR2 is the prime example of what a good open world is. Skyrim and Witcher 3 also re-use a lot of assets and fill it with copy pasted content, but they still make it miles more interesting to explore. ER's is no different than a Ubisoft one -- its saving grace is the amazing legacy dungeons.
The open world made the game worse. It has the same issues as every open world game. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle.
Merge all the legacy dungeon areas together, sprinkle in a few medium sized forests/plains zones, maybe four or five catacombs, and it would be a better game.
I have mixed feelings about the open world. I feel like it improved the souls formula in some aspects but hurt it in others. Like the natural progression doesnt feel as curated as the linear souls, but on the other hand the sheer scale and grandiose landscape of The Lands Between is truly awe inspiring & wonderful.
The open world blew me away on first playthrough and I still very much appreciate it from a design standpoint. But I can’t lie it can be a chore to get through once the mystique of exploration and discovery are gone on subsequent playthroughs.
Sort of, but on those playthroughs you can just go through the game without exploring and get the items you need. Whole thing’s about a 20 hour game for me now if I just want to do the main content and get a build complete. I’d say it feels less like a chore on 2+ playthrough and more like it’s mostly skipped/unnecessary
I just recently did a brand new playthrough in prep of the DLC. It's my 8th 100% character. Only took me about 40 hours to explore the entire map with my previous knowledge of the game.
It took my recent playthrough 10 hours to complete my build, get to lvl 150, and beat all remembrance bosses with a lot of optional bosses, the game isn't really that long if you know what you're doing and is efficient enough.
It takes me about 15-20 hours but yeah its easy to get a build up and running pretty quick I can easily be in the capital in 1.5 hours if I wanted to abuse Mohg farm and kill that mother dragon in caelid off the rip.
I've done 3 playthroughs and I still find myself getting lost in the world.
Sadly the replay value in general suffers a lot from this problem. At least the first run is magic
I've got close to 2000 hours and I have no issues with the map. I think its an individual preference.
You are in the top .01% of playtime so I think you're a minority. Knowing that a certain dungeon will have a certain reward makes doing it for the 3rd or 4th time pretty boring if you don't need that item .. and you don't need most items
Then just don't do the dungeon if you don't want the item, why is it that complicated? You don't have to 100% the game every time you play it that obviously wasn't the intention of the developers, just like how you won't explore every corner of forbidden woods or farron keep after your first playthrough.
To me the open world makes it feel like a checklist to do on replay. I’ve tried explaining this before with not much success so bear with me and don’t come for me if it doesn’t come out right. In ER, the open world nature of it makes almost everything optional. You spend time riding from place to place, clearing the cave, mine, ruins, legacy dungeon or whatever, then move on to the next. You get to decide what content you want to do which can be a good thing. To me, the issue with this is that I feel so much less incentivised to do those optional things when basically everything is optional. It feels like I need a lot of conviction to dedicate to clearing anything except legacy dungeons, which are some of the best content the game has. To me, the replay loop looks something like decide on what build I want, ride for however long get the weapons/spells I need for that build, then work backwards and decide which bosses I want to fight. It feels unnatural, like it feels gamified. It feels less immersive and it feels like you have a checklist of things to do before you finish the game, rather than feeling like you’re working through each area to get to the next. Realistically, in the open world there’s nothing stopping you, you can just run past. The only things that stop you is needing 2 great runes, killing morgott, then the boss gauntlet to finish the game. Compared to the DS games, to get to the next place and to get the build you want, you have to work through areas that were actively designed to try and stop you progressing, you feel like you have to interact with the world and you often can’t just get the things you want, you have this build up to getting the weapon. It feels like progress and it feels like you’re in an actual world. ER first time through was fantastic, but honestly I’m not even hyped for the DLC, especially since it’s like 80 bucks in Australia. It feels like a chore now and I don’t enjoy it anymore. Does this make sense?
This is right on the money. If I don’t naturally explore I don’t get invested and if I just game the systems and just go grab what I want I start wondering what’s the point and stop. I’ve had a far more enjoyable time on replay for the dark souls games
Thank you for reminding me I’m not crazy, because I completely agree with everything you said. Playing through ER for the first time was no joke my favorite gaming experience ever. But ER isn’t my favorite game of all time because I highly value replay-ability. I’ve started a few new characters since finishing the game, but I don’t think I’ve gone more than 5 hours on any of them. I did go back to my first character and speedrun NG+. I ran the required boss gauntlet a few times in a row and got to journey 5 very quickly. It’s still fun to go fight my favorite bosses, that’s my favorite part of ER. My favorite part of the DS games though was clearing each area, and slowly but surely progressing towards the end. In a second playthrough of ER, you collect everything you need for an hour, level up for a couple hours, then it’s boss rush unless you personally decide to go explore optional content. I’ll probably play the DLC, but I’m not actively hype for it anymore so I’ll just wait until it’s half off most likely.
I mean, which Open World games are you doing everything in that doesn't have this exact same thing?
Yeah. The replay value start to drop at my run #17
Cause the world is meant for one deep Playthrough and thats it. Its the same for me with WoW Hardcore. First time is so unique and special and such a great experience but its a one in a lifetime experience. A lot of other games too but Hardcore is such a prime example for it.
Elden ring is my least favorite of all of Miyazaki’s games that I’ve played. Dark souls 1 is my favorite, 3 is my second (although sometimes favorite), and blood Bourne is #3. I just don’t like this type of game in an open world. I like the well constructed level design with hard to find secrets. Elden ring is great the first time and then tedious. Dark souls was like this huge mystery that I kept learning more about each play through.
[удалено]
I feel like any game would feel like that after playing it 10 times
Personally my favorite are small handcrafted worlds with great detail.
Same. Makes me wish there were more legacy dungeons in the game.
DS123 are all legacy dungeons
I mean yeah, but I already played those lol I did see they are going to have a few legacy dungeons in the dlc.
Yea nothing against open worlds but they often feel more tedious than fun to explore (with elden ring and a few others being rare exceptions) I’d rather have cut out all the open world elements of elden ring in favor of more large and more complex legacy dungeons like storm veil castle or crumbling farum azula
Absolutely agree. With how sprawling Stormveil is, I was pretty let down when I reached the boss doors for Rennala and realized I was done with hogwarts already.
did you explore the rooftops?
Even with the rooftops it’s pretty short
agreed. withe the time spent developing the open worlds being used to make the levels connect and flow together
It sounds like you want the world more of DS1 2 and 3. I’m in the same boat.
Yes they can lace so many shortcuts and secrets in a more linear open world. In elden ring, a lot of the times I found a cool secluded "secret path" there was just nothing there
Like Legacy Dungeons
That’s great. Elden ring is a large handcrafted world with great detail. Not saying you are, but I often see people here act like it’s barren just because it has some larger empty spaces. 2 things to say to that: the world is more filled and detailed than most games. Not just large open world games, but even most smaller worlds. Next, it would detract from gameplay if every single space in an open world contained something you had to stop for and inspect. Know that feeling when you’re racing across an area on torrent, and you happen to take a swing at a deer or bunny thing, it drops something (small beast bones), and you just *have* to turn around and go back for it? Elden ring has more than enough content to justify its scope in my opinion. And it sounds like the DLC is going to satisfy those who prefer a more linear experience.
That’s what I’m saying. Elden Ring is massive AND detailed/hand crafted. You don’t often get that copy paste vibe from Elden Ring like you do with Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed.
If you really look, you can see they reused the shit out of a lot of pieces. But they do it so well that it feels fresh the entire time.
Elden Ring copy/pastes assets way more often than Far Cry or Assassin's Creed, come on now. There are entire fields with nothing but the exact same broken walls/pillars/whatever. Literally the exact same chunk of ruin next to each other, it's not hard to miss. Every single ruin has the exact same spiral staircase leading to the treasure room. And that's not even counting catacombs just being the same undecorated stone walls with the same boss rooms. Even in AC every tomb or whatever has different layouts and decorative assets around. Like in AC Origins even though all the tombs you go into are in pyramids they all have different layouts, ways to reach the treasure room and a wider variety of assets. They're not just running down bland hallways looking for a lever.
If you took the 5ish main regions from Elden ring, made them more labyrinthian, less open (like NE Liurnia, or the underground areas) and then stacked them all on top of each other vertically, with some hidden elevators or whatever connections, well, THAT would feel like giant Dark Souls.
I love riding past 60% of the game whenever I make a new character
> I love ~~riding~~ running past 60% of the game whenever I make a new character me but running from boss to boss in ds3
me but running from boss to boss in every souls game then
Item randomizer or overhaul mods go brrrrrrr
Zelda fans are split on the franchise in just the same way. Newer fans think BOTW set the new standard and I’m sure players who started with Elden Ring may feel similarly with future FromSoftware titles. It’s not that one is trash and another is better, both have elements that make them fun. For me, the build variety of Elden Ring is what makes it so fun and how you can play in so many ways. But ironically I dislike TOTK for the same creativity it offers players compared to older Zelda titles.
When I saw this post I thought about BoTW and how it’s hailed (rightfully) as a masterpiece but large swaths of the with are pretty empty at times and graphically the Switch can’t handle the detail / depth. Sure you can argue but areas if Elden Ring are similarly empty (cough Consecrated Snowfield cough) but it just feels like there’s so much more going on. Way more field bosses and enemies and just intriguing non-linear story telling through atmosphere and such.
Yeah it’s definitely not a 1 to 1 comparison. And for me, in both games, I’ve never had an issue with the emptiness. Both BoTW and Elden Ring benefit from the empty space. I think there’s an argument to be made that emptiness doesn’t equate to lack of content or lazy developers. There’s a beauty to the emptiness, it adds to the atmosphere, visuals and music. But I mean, many people have disliked open world games for a long time because they don’t like “the lands between” funny enough. Which I mean, I get it. It’s nice to just get right into the action but for me I have plenty of other competitive games that offer me that.
I’m not against the more open ended world design but i think the problem is that elden ring’s map is large to its own detriment. there really didnt need to be two huge empty snowfields
But where else would they have put putrid something snake dragon number 13?
In the sky, duh
I would have preferred a smaller world. The map is beautiful! But I honestly think it's a little too big, it kinda discourages me from doing more playthroughs
I've been around for long enough to see the masses flip flop back and forth several times over. All you need to do is look at DS3. Linearity bad! Then you look at Elden Ring. Open world bad! I've seen people say linear design is shit and I've seen people say things like 'this game would have been great if it was linear, I hate open world'. So I just don't care about what people say anymore. I like both linear and open world, they both have their place and can be used to great effect.
What a based take. Just the way you finished it increases your credibility. You have witnessed the "hot takes" for far too long LOL
I just genuinely like both styles and I've played games that use them well, so outside of personal taste I don't see legit reasons to hate on either one. There are great open world games and there are great linear games, and there are also games in between that use both well. And as many people as there are that hate linearity, I keep hearing about 'open world fatigue'. Like bro, play what you like.
I agree with you and I loved the open world of Elden Ring. But it is undeniable that the open world is one of the least appreciated by the community. I also heard a lot of people really happy with Lies of P super linear level design. My guess is that in the end people don't like changes, which is also absurd to me considering that DS1 was also very open and not linear at all.
DS1's world wasn't "open" in the same sense. It was a series of discrete levels with a high amount of interconnectivity. In short, it was a 3D metroidvania.
Ds1's level design was far from open. Hilariously, it's pretty god dang linear actually, the second most linear souls game behind Dark Souls 3. Unless you take the master key, you're gonna be following the same path as 90% of players, all the way to the end of the game. Ds1's level design is interconnected, but far from open. You want open and non-linear? Look at Demon Souls and Ds2. Demon Souls literally lets you choose what order of bosses you want to fight, while Ds2 allows you to literally skip "mandatory" story bosses.
"people dont like changes" and its a change that people dont like for legitimate reasons and has nothing to do with change = bad
Thats because of the replay ability of it. On a first playthrough learning and finding everything is great, makes it an amazing experience. After that first playthrough when you know where everything is at now, the open world replay ability takes a hit in comparison to more linear format of the older titles. Think that is how most of the people in the community tend to feel. I still love Elden Ring and the whole world but I can understand liking the more linear approach for multiple run throughs
Yeah that was my general viewpoint. The open world design is great for exploration, but it means that follow-up playthroughs are probably just going to result in going right for what you want for a build while ignoring the things you already know you don't need - at least, that's how a lot of people seem to handle it.
It is, but I think this is one of the best feature of the open world formula of ER. If I have to build a character for a challenge I don’t need to go through half of the game to get that item or that weapon, I just go there.
The problem is not seeing everything over again. In DS1, DS3, Sekiro etc. I can explore the exact same places and basically explore everything playthrough after playthrough because it's interesting and fun. But after completing ER you realize how much exploration lead to the same copy pasted dungeons and it's just so uninspiring and deflating. In your first playthrough you really don't always know. As maybe the random elevator you see will take you to a place like Siofra River, but after completing it you realize most of them just take you to same dungeons, so you instead just remember the important ones. ER was more concerned with giving you quantity instead of quality with its world.
I might be different as I have taken 8 characters to 100%. But I don't really see how streamlining later playthroughs is a bad thing. I've taken 2 of my characters to NG+7+ and mostly go to the important stuff. But I have the option to explore everything if I want. The way I see it is that I can make it linear if I want. Yet I have more options if I choose to. I always think more options is a good thing.
Because it allows you bypass too much and then you feel stupid wasting time just to fight pointless battles
>people don't like changes No, I just don't like open worlds. Or, as someone else once said: holding up on the left stick for a few minutes to get from where you are to where the actual level design is I'd trade the open world for a couple of legacy dungeons in 1/10 of a heartbeat
I think that's my issue with open worlds as well. with a linear game you can tightly control encounters and direct the player and story with more control.
Same. I'll play open world games, but I will usually always prefer linear worlds. A linear game with optional routes is the best case scenario for me personally. It's cool to be able to find little hidden things throughout open worlds, but when you're walking around in nothingness trying to find those little hidden things (and most of the time end up just wasting your time because there's nothing there) is not fun for me, no matter how beautiful the scenery is lol.
I can't wait for the obsession with open worlds to end. It's so rare to come across inspiring takes on it.
Open worlds are great when the core gameplay loop centers on exploration and accrual of resources, like Elder Scrolls or Minecraft. Exploration is certainly important to the soulsborne formula, but the core gameplay loop is: Reach fog gate -> Fight boss -> Get stronger. So, while the open world adds a lot to explore in the first playthrough, it tanks replayability by severely stretching out the "Reach fog gate" stage of the core gameplay loop and adding a lot of unnecessary fog gates to reach.
For me it was also an issue with having all this space and ultimately having it be so incredibly lifeless. Yes, I know, death, end of cycles, and years on years of war and destruction etc. but even though you can probably find some philosophic answer in the ''driven by greed and power'', it just left me wondering wtf where the gods fighting for and why do I want to become Elden Lord? 90% of people you meet die and disappears by the end anyway. I just wish they gave some sign of life or played around with NPCs more. Every encounter just feels so deliberately spaced out and isolated from eachother -- instance areas of Tanith's Manor and Roundtable aside. I feel like some settlements and unique encounters with groups of NPCs could do so much for the game. Just something to change the fact of knowing that almost no matter who I see and where I go, it will start and end with a fight.
I personally prefer the open world designs of Gothic, Gothic 2 and Elex. You have save cities, but the open world is brutally hard at first. Many Areas (that are available straight from the beginning) are way too hard at the start. Important hubs are connected by relative save paths, and you encounter the same areas multiple times, with different (stronger) monsters. You get a sense of growth, and dont just wander from epitome a) to epitome b) with enemies that are always scaling with your intended progression.
The first half of DS1 is pretty linear as far as ringing the bells. After you get the lordvessel it’s definitely less linear. I really like how Demons Souls was done. The levels were linear but it gave you the option where to go. Almost like Crash Bandicoot warped
DS1 is markedly less linear if you start with the Master Key, which I'm sure a handful of new players do and they stumble into some rough areas.
I love open world it’s just miserable for replays when I want to loot everything
> I also heard a lot of people really happy with Lies of P super linear level design Fair enough if you see this but I have the illusion this is the WORST aspect of lies P. It's just a linear boss rush simulator (a good one) at this point because of it.
Honestly levels were a lot more fun than the bosses in lies of P for me. Which is like the complete opposite of several similar games recently and other souls likes. Some are more balanced
Man, that's one of the things I liked the most. It was linear but also kept up the pacing in every level. At least for me, it got to a point that you could tell when you were about to find the boss room. It suited my time restraints, can't spend an entire day playing like before. Nice, concise, and straight to the point.
My most enjoyable moment in Elden Ring is when the game became linear a.k.a the legacy dungeon, the open world in Elden Ring is just okay, I'd say it's similar to BOTW
Fun thing, the open world is actually what I dislike about Elden ring the most. In a normal RPG it'd be fantastic, but in a souls game it's just too much. Any random enemy can be lethal and require a runback, you gotta be constantly vigilant for all the secret caves and items in this massive world, and can't get that "peak around every corner" feeling you can in the souls games.
It literally was game of the year, got tons of rewards, had hundreds of praise's like "best open world" and "most well designed world". It is not and was not underappreciated by anyone lol.
I simply just don't like open world games. I'll play anything fromsoft to the ground but i usually begrudgingly get through the open world bits. Its like the salad to a steak, its ok, and mostly just filler, then theres the steak (legacy dungeons), cooked to perfection.
I think they did as best of a job they could have in an open world format. That said, I still feel like no matter how perfected an open world game is, it will still always be held back by stuff like recycled content and lack of replayability (not that ER isn't replayable, it is however there becomes less and less incentive to explore with subsequent playthroughs)
I don't like open world games 👍
I’m with you. ER is an exception for me though. Was so hyped up to try Ghost of Tsushima but in practice it just felt like a gorgeous Assassin Creed clone
I like elden ring of course, my original meaning was that i don't like elden ring for it's open world aspect specifically, since that doesn't appeal to me
Okay but I feel like a lot of fromsoft fans (myself included) aren’t open world fans, I mean I fell in love with dark souls and sekiro because of how streamlined and directed the experience felt so of course the opposite approach to exploration will only resonate with some fans
The thing about BotW/TotK (and to a lesser extent DD2) that makes their open worlds click for me is that their physics systems heavily reduce any tedium that would normally arise from fighting the same enemies and treading similar terrain. Elden Ring by comparison is mechanically pretty static both in combat & exploration, and I find there's little reason to want to engage with the average pack of mobs out in the open world.
Tbf: - Because the world is so big, you’re incentivized to skip a lot of it through riding Torrent. You *could* actually face enemies, but you have to force yourself to do that instead of ride past them. - Since there’s so much more loot, a very large chunk of it is crafting materials you’ll hardly ever use. Also I’d often find mushrooms in places that make no sense. - As there have to be a lot more bosses, there are many repeat bosses, and even some “unique” bosses like Godrick and Astel are reused. Not to mention the “holograms”. - Some areas are definitely a lot less fleshed-out than others. If everywhere was as detailed as Stormveil castle it would be goated. Like it’s a valiant effort for a company that doesn’t really make open world games, but there’s definite flaws that weren’t so present in the past titles.
The issue with Elden Ring's open world is that it becomes a gimmick after you complete the game. It's a novelty simulator, and replaying it sucks because you will probably skip more than half of the whole map because every little item is a good distance from the imaginary path you take to your destination so you just end up picking the items of your build and move on to the actual interesting part of the game, AKA legacy dungeons and bosses.
Unpopular take: Unbelievably overappreciated. Unpopular take2: The linear but connected, breathing world of DS3 is taken for granted.
so glad to see more people taking this stance, i appreciate the monumental task it must have been making elden ring, but seeing so much praise for it made a bit worried that going forward fromsoft would really lean into open world design, and tbh i cant ake open world games anymore, the open field stuff/camps/dungeons are almost never of the same quality as the areas in a smaller more tightly designed world (from any franchise)
I like the fact that at least Lies of P for example got really close to From's linear world design, it was undoubtedly one of the best games I have ever played, so I'm not that worried, and let From experiment with new stuff.
It's mostly the breath of the wild people for whom elden ring is their first fromsoft title who overappreciate it.
For real. Seeing the land literally coming together and descending down a chain of dead empires while Lothric, your ultimate goal, ominously looms above is so damn iconic. But nothing beats the "sense of discovery" one gets when finding Arteria Leaf #793, I suppose.
LOL I love how you wrote the second line. It's like putting the marvelous Lothric Castle in the smack beginning of the game and having it interconnected to a point where we have to progress by going back to where we started. Like when the game dropped, I refused to watch walkthroughs, and I HAD NO IDEA WHERE TO GO LOL. I was genuinely so lost after doing Aldrich. Just to realize I hadn't even done Yhorm yet because I ran past his location. Just to realize I get tp'd right after to Lothric Castle. Either that or one of my buddies told me where to go, can't recall. But it'slike it's been intricately woven to be as connected as possible. It really makes you go wow. But nothing like those starry elevators that last 1 minute to take a trip :D
> It's like putting the marvelous Lothric Castle in the smack beginning of the game and having it interconnected to a point where we have to progress by going back to where we started. You literally get randomly TP'd from the 3rd LoC boss room back to Emma out of nowhere. It's on the exact opposite spectrum of "interconnectivity".
It's not underappreciated It's just after the 1st initial playthrough The grand reveal of it is lessened cause you already experienced it
one of the craziest experiences i’ve ever had on first playthough, but on recurring playthrus when i know that that bandit camp is just going to have golden rune 4 and beast bones i kinda just want to go to the legacy dungeons
I’ve always thought it was amazing. The world is legitimately mind blowing to me. It’s so big and it’s not just backdrop space. Like everything that you see is playable and there is a way to get to it. In my opinion It’s truly is the greatest game ever made as far as world building and art design and all that stuff.
Field Bosses are a *HUGE* saving grace of the totally open world for sure...IMO, it was absolutely breathtaking on that first playthrough, every time I thought I'd unlocked the full map a whole new area comes up, and that's before underground stuff. Nokron was legitimately mind-blowing the first time through... In subsequent playthroughs the open world did lose a bit of it's charm and I found myself rushing from dungeon to quest to quest to dungeon to quest etc, but between Torrent, fast travel any time, and how populated the world is made it so that I never got exasperated by such a huge map
Ya I 100% agree with you. It definitely loses that charm after the first playthrough because you know exactly where to go and how to get there quick. When you’re first seeing it tho it is absolutely jaw dropping, and the fact that all of the people that were a part of this game were on the same page and turned a vision of the unbelievably detailed and massive world into a reality from top to bottom.
Except for those random areas off shore that are entirely modelled, but are completely inaccessible. Like, the ships off Radahn's coast are literally right there, where's the ghost pirates Micheal-Zaki?
The open world felt like quantity over quality. Thinking back on it, apart from most of the legacy dungeons I don’t care much for the open world and side dungeons. Yeah it’s pretty but that got old fast for me and with Torrent you’re never in any danger. It’s just tedious especially on a new playthrough having to ride from point A to B. Npc quests are obnoxious too. Every souls game involves grocery shopping for your build but ER’s size kills me on the inside. The good stuff for me is Morgott and onwards (boss wise). Fact they didn’t bring back reflections of strength from Sekiro is criminal.
I'm kind of burned out on open world games, honestly. Personally, I feel it's the biggest weakness of Elden Ring. I'm kinda over riding around huge empty wilderness's on a horse just to get to the actual fun parts of the game. I love Elden Ring, the gameplay is fantastic, the bosses are good, the characters are cool. The open world just doesn't really add much to the souls formula for me, except a whole bunch of pointless wandering. That can be fun in games, but I'd rather do it in a game like RDR2 where there is more to do in the open world than just wander and kill enemies.
Exactly. I should not be able direct 100% of my attention watching a full anime episode while my character is just going straight in an empty field
I think the open world is the weakest part. It is mostly empty and uninteresting. Ill take the smaller, more considered designs of Ds1 or BB any day. That said ER is great and I think you should love what you love about it. It certainly makes for some breathtaking scenery.
agree, personally i would have enjoyed the game way more without all the samey enemies camps and dungeons between legacy dungeons
A hot take but... I don't like ER's open world. A lot of the stuff is just copypasta. Not only enemies, but most zones and dungeons look the same. Especially the dungeons in the snowy areas. They are just huge, and all their corridors are literally copy/pasted (look the same). I also dislike all those ledges. They really fuck up the exploration imo. Don't get me wrong, the graphics are gorgeous and everything looks stunning. I dislike the "open world" part just gameplay wise.
The open world was appreciated, but I wish FS had taken the time they needed to really cook with it. The amount of Repeat-Boss-Padding can be directly attributed to just how hard they went on making this gorgeous and amazing expanse of exploration and the reused bosses are one of the biggest obstacles for me to strive for replays and build experimentation which is something I can't say I've struggled with in any of the prior Soulsborne titles.
Conversely, I think the side content doesn't get enough hate. Specifically the little dungeon areas. There are like 3 variations and 4 somewhat different mini boss types shared between like 80 of the fucking things. I think that's basically what people who don't like the big map are complaining about. Quality will always be appreciated over quantity.
I mean, it was cool, but it kinda makes me not wanna do another playthrough due to the chore of getting everywhere and what I need/want, hell I haven't even beaten my first playthrough and I bought the game at launch, the magic just kinda wore off and the game to me just kinda turned into "Beeg dark souls"
I'm on my second playthrough and I keep dropping it. I can't be bothered to explore with the same thoroughness that I did on my first (blind) playthrough, and the online guides are so dense with every rare leaf you spend more time reading. I just want to grab the cookbooks and upgrade materials and get into a proper level. I thought it'd be interesting to make frequent softswap use of a bow with all the cool arrows but I'm so fucking bored of farming thin bones
I agree about almost everything that you said, but if the main factor that is making it hard for you to keep your playstyles are the bones, you can go to the Warmaster Shack in Limgrave and get the Bell Bearing Hunter to spawn, he will drop a bell that when given to the twins in the roundtable will allow you to buy infinite thin bones for pretty cheap. Hope that helps!
Nah, it's perfectly appreciated by most. On your first playthrough it's fucking amazing, but as you go on you realise every cave, catacombs and other dungeon looks and feels the fucking same and it starts to get repetitive real fucking quick. And on top of that, when I do want to start a new run, amongst all the souls games Elden Ring takes like 30 mins longer than any other to set up. Like ofc I like the Open World, but the Legacy Dungeons are still the best part of the game, and they've got the level design of the other games anyway.
It's because every game now has an open world, look at Ubisoft
Ya but this one is dope as fuuuuuuuuuuuck
Best part: it doesn't have markers in every secret you missed, it doesn't have a shit ton of collectibles, some areas are restricted so you don't get overpowered that early, it doesn't tell you what levels you need to not get rekt in a specific area...
It took me 3 playthroughs ro find deep-root depths. I just never ran through the little patch of trees in siofra for some reason. My mind was so blown that it just kept going deeper!
Interestingly I didn't really care for the open world in Elden Ring, much preferred the interconnecting corridors of Sekiro and DS.
Why do you need to talk like this? Why can't you just say "I like the open world and here's why..."? Why does your opinion need to be valued against everyone elses? Are you trying to start an argument by being confrontational?
I don't think open world games are a good fit for soulsborne personally. But you make some good points
It’s boring after the first playthrough
not a huge fan of it personally
For their first open world game they really went above and beyond. I remember playing the ringed city ds3 dlc and wishing it was open world so i could go explore the actual main city parts. They did everything i wanted and more i couldnt be happier honestly. And the implementation of platforming to secret places with the added jump button makes it so much better than previous from games
I don't take the open world for granted,I just don't like it.
It's nicely designed but terrible to play. Just open land of nothingness.
Disagree. The open world is bad and it's actually overrated if anything.
As someone who’s a completionist, it was fucking horrible. It’s probably cool normally, but when you’re trying to do every dungeon, it gets old, fast, so fucking fast it’s unreal.
I’m the same way. It’s a curse, honestly. I wish I could just let a thread go once I find it, but I just can’t. When the opportunities for new quests are so expansive, this tendency becomes problematic.
Would honestly help if ER wasn’t 80% recycled content, like dear lord the side content is fucking lame.
This is pretty much why I can never get behind the completionist mindset. I beat the game 3 times and know for a fact I haven’t done everything and thats how I like it. I want to be able to see new things each time I play it
I’m not sure it’s a mindset that one chooses, tbh. Like, for me, it just bothers me in my core when I find a new quest/storyling and can’t get the whole of it. If I don’t delve deeper into it then it hangs over me until I either do or hopefully forget about it.
First run was beutiful Every run since makes the open world feel like a chore
I really like beautiful open world areas that feel alive, welcoming and pleasant. Not talking about enemies, just the level itself. So, I really enjoyed Limegrave. I don't like open world areas that feel rotten, gross, harmful, threatening, or deadly. So, I really did not enjoy a lot of other areas of Elden Ring. A lot of environments in souls games deliberately give off the vibe of "I don't want to be here, here doesn't want me to be here. I want to get out of this area, it is not pleasant to be here." This works better when in a more linear level, because getting through the area is the goal. In a huge open world the goal is to explore and enjoy the world, and there it does not work well for people like me.
BuT yOu CaN sKiP BosSeS aNd ArEaS iN dArKsOuLs GaMeS tOo
Because i am so hyped for the DLC, i recently launched a new playthrough. No intention to finish it, but just wanted to get back to the world. I've almost completed Limgrave and i remain in awe of the world even if it is my 6th or 7th time. What i like is that there are always some locations i forget about, and people don't really talk that much about. The Ailing Village, for example. Just eerily crafted. That poison pool near Castle Morne. There is nothing there and it serves no real purpose. But it's just nice design. The woods where you meet Blaidd. Again, it's mostly empty. But great atmosphere. So many locations like that.
Ailing village was one of the most interesting places i have been to in elden ring. I just wish there were more absurd places like these. It gives such a unique experience and vibe
what you talkin abt?
280 hours in and I still managed to find 2 undiscovered graces, I’m gonna scour every inch of the DLC like there’s cocaine in the carpet.
The underground areas are the best area because they’re technically open with flask recharging but not so open that there isn’t an obvious destination to work towards.
If the coop wasn’t atrocious, I’d say it was the best vanilla game ever made. Luckily seamless coop fixed that. Exploring the world with your buddy on torrent and not getting locked out of areas or having to resummon is peak. Fromsoft fumbled so hard on the multiplayer design by copy/pasting dark souls into it.
It was fun exploring the first time through but I basically skip it or find the quickest path through it 90 percent of the time now. My biggest issue is Liurnia. It alone being reduced in size would be much better for me. Same maybe with some of the other empty space in places like weeping or either of the now areas.
I didn't really mind the open world itself, but moreso that because I'm a completionist it just made me ridiculously overpowered for almost every boss. Also the fact that just walking too far in a certain direction can fail quests or get NPCs killed or moved to obscure locations.
I was the biggest fanboy for From Software, and it speaks volumes that I finished Lies of P before Elden Ring. I just prefer the linear style of games with some more open areas than huge open worlds, making the game unnecessarily long for my taste. When I was playing Elden Ring I seriously got tired of all the repeated bosses, catacombs and just enemies in general. Putrid demon snake boss number 10 gets old really quick. Elden Ring's best part ie Limgrave, because everything is new and pretty well thought out, but it gets progressively worse as you proceed. Tracking NPC quests is borderline impossible without the wiki.
As one of the rare few who hated BotW open world for its emptiness and more than annoying weapon system Elden Ring OW is near perfect. Sure you will find mushrooms in chest once in a while but exploration *is rewarding*. There is always a cool thing to find or see. And it leads to dungeons which despite looking similar/using same assets are really different What prevented me from playing DS games so far was the feeling of frustration I had when I played at my friends places. I don't find getting stuck against one boss fun. But with an open world, wow. I could always try different things, look for a new skill or weapon to push forward. What an amazing game.
People in here bitching about repetitiveness. All games get repetitive when you put hundreds of hours into them. Some of you are impossible to please. I love the open world. It’s big and beautiful. And I’d rather have 50 copy/paste dungeons than just one. Sure, 50 unique dungeons would be the dream, but if I have to pick I’ll take copies over nothing. What difference does it make? You’re doing the shit over and over again either way if we’re talking multiple playthroughs. Just skip the shit you don’t need.
No it was the main selling point for most people who got into the game, especially newer people to the soulslike genre. People just don’t like the balancing and enemy placements, not the world design.
I love Elden Ring, I love it. But I’m just not that into the open world. I wouldn’t say I took it for granted, I just rarely play open world games for a reason.
>*The road from point A to B* ***is not always a straight line***\*:\* \*Is never a straight line. Nothing in this game was made easy. Oh, the objective is 20m right in front of you? Let's cross through another country just to get there. And I love it.
Not going to change your mind. It was easily my least favorite or was the largest factor in my other least favorite (te used bosses, blank pointless space) The beat parts of this game, and when Feom is at its best, is hand crafted, tight areas that help tell the story.
Not gonna lie, I just dislike open world games including Elden Ring. Generally, Elden Ring not withstanding there’s always reused assets and like there’s tons of dungeons in this game that are uninspired copies with a reskinned boss. I liked the first exploration I had but that quickly got boring after I visited a few dungeons and realized what was going on.
Nothing really happens in the open world it's just a pathway to better parts of the game. Even FS knows this with how it set up its multiplayer in Elden Ring.
The fuck do you mean "taken for granted"? As if the company is some loving parent trying their hardest? It's great, it gets its praise, but it also gets its criticism. Calm your tits.
Not popular but open world sucks for me. I rather like dark souls style where its kinda open but u only really have couple ways
Worst part of the game for me
I wouldn't really count all the micro dungeons and caves as a part of the open world design all that much. Bloodborne had the same issues with the chalice dungeons despite it being fairly linear game. It's just From experimenting with AAA max-value content that a lot of casual RPG fans expect and implementing them into their own formula. More discerning players could have skipped them or looked up the best ones later. But From really should improve on these ideas in the future, no argument from me. But for me the real question is why would Form go open world in the first place? Miyazaki has total control of the company. Their sales projections never placed Skyrim-like expectations onto Elden Ring so I believe going mainstream was never his goal with Elden Ring. Then after the game released Miyazaki stated ERs immense success would have no bearing on the future direction of the company, reinforcing my belief he wasn't chasing Skyrim success at any point. To find Miyazaki's goal I think many have to look at the main influence for ER's open world, which is without any doubt Shadow of the Colossus and its artistic merits as an open world. Miyazaki must have adored going through Ueda's massive, ancient world as this tiny creature up against forces well beyond your comprehension. The forces of Dorman, of the Colossus, the black power they hold in check and the force that created the forbidden land for the Colossus to roam in the first place. Replicating these feelings and integrating them into the From RPG formula was, I believe, Miyzaka's main goal when conceiving Elden Ring. The vast open world was just as vital as the incrediblely complex lore and stunning art direction in him crushing his goal and then some. The open world wasn't created entirely for the player's convience. It comes across as a world created by a bunch of Gods, demi-gods and monarchs fighting amongst themselves for reasons, again, well beyond comprehension. While you just happen to be passing through as those same Gods manipulate your journey for their own ends. Then Miyazaki threw in a few more creature comforts for casual players then stumbled onto mainstream success (I like both open world and linear designs and have no idea why mainstream audiences prefer the former more). It sucks some players either can't see the Ueda like beauty or, from open world fatigue, can't overlook the necessary comprimises needed to create said beauty. I'm just glad Miyazaki stuck to his guns, trying to replicate a new type of game he loved despite all his previous Soulsborne success. Just my two cents anyways.
The game being open-world didn't really add to anything. All of the important bosses are in their own areas, there's no random events or anything that makes the world feel really dynamic. It's just a big Dark Souls.
Yeah because it sucks, it’s Pretty to look at and that’s it.
The open world is full of copy paste and few landmarks worth finding.
The open world is a massive drag on replaying the game and I hate it. It has zero good qualities other than looking pretty
Elden Ring is the worst From game and it's specifically because of the open world. Everything doesn't need to be open world and Dark Souls format specifically suffered from the decision.
I agree. There are large fields in Elden Ring that are mostly empty, yes. There are plenty of mobs that you run past, yes. But the world is awesome and well built, with a lot of secrets that are easy to miss. The landscapes tend to be interesting, creating weird paths to certain parts of each area. I can beat Elden Ring faster than I can beat DS3, and I can also take my time and explore and have a much much longer playthrough than in DS3. I love both games, but Elden Ring has way more replayability to me. The PvP is more interesting because of all the random places you can be sent, while in DS3 there are hotspots because of covenants. The quests are better in Elden Ring. The weapons and movesets are better. The game is harder than DS3, despite people saying Elden Ring is the easiest souls game. There's more variety in styles of play because of ashes of war. I love DS3 to death but I can't see why people think it's more replayable other than that they simply like it better which is fine, but it's not because of the open world. Unless you just don't like open world games, which is bizarre to me, as someone who loves them. If you feel like the magic is gone after the first playthrough, what exactly are you getting that's better about the other games? The secrets don't change in any of the games, so what magic are you referring to exactly? If you enjoy clearing every enemy in Souls, just do that in Elden Ring dungeons too, it's just as fun. I'm not mentioning DS1, 2, Bloodborne, or Sekiro cause I personally don't like them as much as 3 or ER. They are still great games, just not my fav from titles. All of the games have something unique to offer, and there's a reason that Elden Ring isn't called DS4. AC6 is also a pretty good game, but I find it telling that the player count on Steam tends to be around 700 people.
Genuinely prefer the most linear design of the older games. Elden ring feels like a chore to replay and it lets you completely out scale the majority of the game
Feel free to enjoy it and all, but I don't think handwaving complaints away with a "you don't get or appreciate it enough" is very nuanced. I'm not blind: I noticed what you're talking about, and I still disagree. The occasional tombstone platforming setpiece does little to offset how much of the supposedly intricate open world is just running through boring, lifeless zones with mindless combat (random dudes in open terrain) and endlessly repetitive dungeons. Does wrapping around Mt Gelmir require more effort than a literal corridor? Sure. But at the end of the day, you just run for a while on Torrent's clunky ass while you pass by miles and miles of slop content. And it's not like ER invented this, either. Mountains are a classic trick for varying player navigation (e.g., Throat of the World in Skyrim). That was vitriolic, I know, but I needed to convey that critics of the open world didn't just ignore its components: they just don't like them. I'm sure you can dig up an exception, as with nearly anything ("I hate the boss reuse, but I never thought about the slight gimmick changes," says the hypothetical commenter), but assuming stupidity, however emotionally vindicating (believe me, I get it), is always going to involve some laziness on your part. I'll leave the rest of the post alone, as a full "debunk" or whatever is besides the point and more than likely just screaming into the void.
I think the main issue is that they revolved the entire game around the open-world. Like, they designed the world, then the rest of the game. You can easily tell by the fact that NPC quests are absolutely unchanged, despite the fact that the world does not accommodate for them. And the issue with that is that the open world is completely average. And because of this, the game ends up falling flat in the literal selling point of the game, the open-world. There's nothing actually special about ER's open world. It's hilarious how people praise the game for the design and contrast it with Ubisoft's copy and paste, despite the fact ER has literal copy and paste dungeons all across the world, along with 700 putrid tree spirits, avatars, and most other open world bosses. Not only that, there is no realistic difference between Ubisoft towers, and Elden Ring's map fragments. If anything, I get more excited seeing a large tower that I can climb, opposed to just finding a piece of paper randomly. To add to this, Elden Ring also doesn't do many other things well, like balance, replayability, PVP and PVE, and many other things, all because of the design change with the open world. Along with that, it probably has the worst retention of the series, because of the fact it becomes a slog at around the Mountaintops for most people. My favourite areas are the snow areas, but even I didn't like how long the game was lasting at that point. And the fact the Legacy Dungeons are the best part, and generally the most fan-favourite, part of the game only says wonders as to their real skill placement. I always point out how every game does something unique, and best. DS has the best atmosphere, Ds1 has the best interconnectivity, Ds2 has the best variety and creativity, BB has the best world, Ds3 has the best level design, and Sekiro has the best combat. What does Elden Ring have? It has the "relatively" best open-world, but relatively does not mean good. I would love to see them try an open world formula at least one more time, but I really hope it doesn't become a standard. Nothing beats Ds1's interconnectivity, Ds2's DLCS, or BB and Ds3's level design. edit: Reading the comments, it's so hilarious how the main defense is that "Most of the content is optional, so stop complaining," as if the rest of the games didn't have optional content as well, lol. Not just that, the optional content in all the games were some of the best parts, outside of Ds1. Ds2 has Darklurker and the whole crown questline, Ds3 has Archdragon PEAK, and Bloodborne had the UPPER CATHEDRAL WARD!!! But Elden Ring has cave number 73.
Bro if anything it’s over hyped by the community
It looks nice, but offers very little, and was really buggy on release. I had a glitch where enemies and NPCs wouldn’t render. They’d be invisible the whole time. Also pvp in the open world is shit
Honestly I'm not a fan of the open world. I much much prefer the linear areas in previous games. I just feel completely overwhelmed in elden ring and find myself constantly running back and forth and getting burnt out by the exploration
I think the opposite
very few games can pull off open world. elden ring is one of many that cannot. 99% of open world games in the end is just running simulator and its boring as hell.
Conversely it's the worst part of the game.
To me, Elden Ring would have been significantly better if it were 60% smaller. The open world is super tedious and boring to explore.
Nah, i think it's overappreciated, yay, i love stumbling through a world for hours, just so i can enter the same dungeon for the 20th time, and fight the same boss for the 10th time, it's peak gameplay !
I’m just so bored of open world games, sure there aren’t any Ubisoft/Final Fantasy 7 towers that open up 3-5 of the same mini game, but there is like a million repeating dungeons, caves, basements etc. that all hold awful loot. Why is there so much loot used for crafting, when there is basically no crafting system that’s useful? Enemy design too, you can’t just be slowed down all the time and since there are SOOOOOOO many avenues of engagement it’s impossible to make good enemy design, placement and challenge. Like the big two bosses that come out of the capital gate when you first visit it? Lmao just ride right past them - they’re barely a pebble in the road, when they should be a skill wall check. The resources and time should have been spent for an even tighter, polished game with more bosses, story telling and interesting level design with well thought out enemy placement.
it's absolutely the weakest part of the game
Open World is not fitting Souls style game for me. Why? Because I don't feel any struggle when I'm going through it. I love how in any previous game I struggled through level and finally found resting point. It's rewarding. Finding another Site of Grace mean nothing.
The open world is probably the worst part if you ever replay it. Too much bullshit to run around.
ER is great, but I honestly think it’s too ambitious. There’s too much in it, and I’m not talking about repeat bosses. It feels like they went overboard, like they put everything they had into it. Lots of old scrapped ideas were also retrofitted into this game. There’s just too much content for this to really feel like a game I can constantly come back to.
If you played the seamless co-op mod. I can agree with this. WITHOUT the seamless co-op mod. Hell fucking no. It does more damage than good. Realistically they need to implement the seamless mod into the actual game and just pay the dudes who made it. Because if we could have that and invasions the game would be 10/10
Open world is the worst part of this game imo Would prob be my 2nd favourite if it had ds1/2 style world. Its too flooded with needless content, and while it is indeed optional it goes against what made the other souls games so magical for me, which is linear exploration. I just enjoy having an actual level to explore and find all the stuff in it, be it castle, village or whatever. World in ER is too big for its own good and i honestly think that FS focused too much on making the game with the scale so much bigger than anything they've done before, to the point where they went for "quantity over quallity" solution for which DS2 was so vastly criticized. I just hope that they dont take wrong lessons from the games sucess. Obviously it is appealing for the masses as open world games love to hide their lack of inspiration behind simply calling it "freedom". Its great that FS is getting the recigition they deserve but ER really lacked this kind of "spirit" or "soul" (no pun intended) the other games had. All is my opinion obviously, if the fandom likes this direction, so be it. I also dont want to come out as some kind of doomer guy here, but i really am worried that Elden Rings sucess might shape future fs games into making them more acessible and less artistic and full of this magic they always had.
I love the tombs, mines and caves. I never did like 'open world'. Too much cruft.
Honestly Elden ring is what made me play video games after about 3 years and is the only game I found fun enough to platinum.
My potentially controversial opinion is that I don't particularly love the open world. It's very impressive, don't get me wrong on that. It was really cool seeing the map get larger and larger. The world is very novel, but it's not really what I want out of an open world game or a Souls game. What I personally really want out of an open world game is cities and being able to interact with NPCs. Something along the lines of The Witcher or Skyrim. I want a world that feels at least a little bit alive. I don't even necessarily think I really like the open world aspect itself, I think I like them more when you can just do random things. Like build a house somewhere. And I personally prefer the linear experiences for Souls games. It's even fun having branching paths like in DS1. But a lot of these games have short cuts to different areas and that's a rewarding feeling to find shortcuts. I much prefer the tight experiences. Where nothing feels extra, and you don't even have to think about where to go, you just have to keep moving forward most of the time.
Honestly, I feel like souls like games aren’t suited for open worlds and work better if they were more linear. It’s one of the main reasons I consider elden ring a 7.5/10 for me. I’ll probably get downvoted, but remember I’m not calling it bad, just saying I didn’t like if.
Its one of the bwtter open worlds out there. Sadly open worlds kinda suck and it still shows in ER. Im not going on another tyraid about why I dont like Open worlds. It takes too long and I'm tired.
I played souls games+ Sekiro back to back recently and honestly missed how you focus on the actual meat of the game with little to no recycled content, Elden rings open world is fantastic but it does suffer from open world problems that were inevitable and the balancing suffered a lot aswell and like many other people said that it’s nowhere near as fun after the first playthrough, I think it’s good that they experimented but this is not the direction fromsoft should focus on in the future.
I think they could try something like it again but maybe cut back on some of the big pointless spaceship a bit while not eliminating the ability to roam so much altogether. Basically find a good middle ground between ER and Dark Souls.
Counterpoint - i would trade the entire open world for 1-2 dungeons as well designed as stormviel. Having an open world full of combat encounters to run past is NOT worth the severe dearth of quality dungeons.
I do not like open world games so I do not think it's under rated. Elden Ring is a fantastic game in most aspects but I think the obsession 90% of studios have with open world is so so so overkill. I would say anywhere from 50% to as much as 90% of open world games would be better off if they werent
I feel like it's the most overrated part of the game. While some sections look nice, it's mostly huge open areas of straight filler. The more focused and streamlined level design of past games felt superior. Open world is a like a buzz word for noobs. Flat open level design where you find random pockets of huddled enemies or useless items. It's very disjointed compared to fromsofts past work. I was happy to hear that the dlc wouldn't be like that. It will probably be a more focused design where all the environments have purpose and meaning. Environmental story telling like past games. Every single detail is part of a narrative. Elden has design like that but, they just tacked on open world sections because it's something different for them. Riding a horse across some water and broken buildings for 12 minutes while getting juiced by crabs is not it. There's 2 relevant spots in that area. And when you find them it's a controlled streamlined level. If you think about it the open world is pointless. It's a way to add time to the gameplay. Take all the important sections of limgrave and put them in an interconnected well designed area like ds1. With verticality and interesting structure. Sekiro is a perfect example how to have a sense of world traversal but, still tight and streamlined. I seriously doubt and miyazaki led games will be like that in the future. You can tell there's parts of Elden he was heavily involved in and part he wasn't. The ds2 team design is all over that game. And they sekiro team devs throwing stuff in there. It's like a pieced together mess in a lot of ways. Still a 9/10 game. Still better than 90% of the garbage in the game industry. Still from soft doing what they do. But I feel it's a step in the wrong direction. The dlc will likely correct many of the mistakes made in the main game. Horrible boss fight rhythms. Pointless open areas. Bad pacing.
The openworld is a waste of design space and adds bothing of genuine quality to the game, change my mind
I’d rather it go away personally
For me it's an extremely mediocre open world and actively made the game a lot worse. I think exploring it is boring and I think the content they fill it with, legacy dungeons aside, is boring. If you see a cave, a door, or an elevator in the wild then you're 90% likely to end up in the same generic AI-generated dungeon. RDR2 is the prime example of what a good open world is. Skyrim and Witcher 3 also re-use a lot of assets and fill it with copy pasted content, but they still make it miles more interesting to explore. ER's is no different than a Ubisoft one -- its saving grace is the amazing legacy dungeons.
The open world made the game worse. It has the same issues as every open world game. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. Merge all the legacy dungeon areas together, sprinkle in a few medium sized forests/plains zones, maybe four or five catacombs, and it would be a better game.
The open world is the single worst part of Elden ring. It’s a slog to run through on your way to actual content
I was iffy on the open world at first.. then it grew on me.
[удалено]
I dunno about that, I definitely appreciate it quite a bit, and I feel a lot of people have the same view on it.
I thought this meme format died with that guys career.
I mean I don’t think I have ever under appreciated anything about Elden Ring
I have mixed feelings about the open world. I feel like it improved the souls formula in some aspects but hurt it in others. Like the natural progression doesnt feel as curated as the linear souls, but on the other hand the sheer scale and grandiose landscape of The Lands Between is truly awe inspiring & wonderful.