I’m still not sure any of us knows how open-world this game is exactly. They did make a point of calling it “open-field”.
A vast chunk of landscape is open from the beginning but 20 hours in I’m sensing a return to the classic Souls dynamic that further exploration is a reward for beating bosses. It’s just that instead of like a choice of 2 bosses, the visible map is ringed by a frontier of 10 potential bosses and I get to choose in which direction I want to grow my territory
I think I know which chest you mean. I found one that someone had identified as a trap that emitted a gas cloud, which I avoided by stepping back. Maybe I should try to remember where that was and spring it.
One thing that I find a little disappointing though I know it really can’t be helped at this scale is when I notice an obviously reused design, such as the structure of some of the wooden buildings or the catacomb boss antechamber. In the past, you found this only in Bloodborne’s chalice dungeons. From has always been good at making even a cobblestone walkway or brick wall look varied and this game is largely no exception there, which makes those instances stand out.
The catacombs and tunnels are a bit cheap-looking visually but I do like how fresh and thoughtful the level design always is in them. Impaler’s Catacomb was some SNES Castlevania shit
I definitely feel that for most Souls games - especially Demon’s, 2, and 3 - but part of the reason I like Dark Souls 1 so much is it feels like a connected and well-plotted world. Since there’s so many paths up, down, and through every area, with tons of shortcuts that make geographic sense, it captures the same feeling for me that you describe here; of getting your bearings and having a holistic sense of the play space.
I think that’s why the Elden Ring open world, as fun and cool as it is for the reasons you laid out, isn’t impressing me as much as it is others. It’s making me feel stuff that the series hasn’t in a while, but it’s still feelings I’ve already had.
I will say this is the best open world game I’ve played in a while, even if I’m not as impressed with it as a Souls game. Western developers simply can’t resist the urge to place ten thousand collectibles on the map and an enormous checklist of things to do to maintain engagement. Meanwhile Elden Ring is like “here’s a map with player-placed markers. there’s some NPCs that can tell you what you need to do. have fun” and I’m not overwhelmed with skill trees and loot paradigms and shit. As you say:
This is my big problem with open world games like Horizon or Spider-man or whatever. They are 90% artifice. Polished, well-designed pablum. When I see a skill tree with fifty nodes and I’m not playing Nioh 2, I fall asleep. Elden Ring deftly avoids those pitfalls to emulate classic open-world PC RPGs full of wonder and obtuseness - especially Morrowind - and as a continuation of a genre we don’t get to see very often, I’m very happy with it.
Anyway. Just thinking about it. I really like this game, I just have Restrained Feelings about it since it takes a lot for me to gush about a game these days. Usually something novel, and for all its fun, Elden Ring isn’t very novel for me.
Hmmm… open-field is a nicer term than sandbox.
But even on examples as GTA you have to achieve a certain point in the main story to unlock new areas.
Imo FromSoft uses bosses cause… They are good at it? I can’t remember one that actually had good bosses except… Shadow of Colossus which was all bosses (and you were blocked from the last boss even in that one).
I really think this is a very worthy topic of discussion but in the end, imo, this is not a world made out of paths.
As to the cheapness and re-useness of art resources… I guess it is inevitable to make it more often in a word design of this type. It’s a really big space to fill without clever hiding tricks or anything.
I adore how Caria Manor feels like almost an epilogue to the Liurnia questline – very elegaic to have so much content after the great soul
yeah, I agree with this. it’s not a coincidence that ds1 is the only of those i’ve actually finished.
I feel like this is because most of the areas in DS1 are stapled right against each other, and they need to be because you walk very slowly. The amount of time you would spend in DS1 doing corpse runs and beating your head against enemy placements is instead spent in ER riding to the key points on horseback. The geography in the Lands Between feels natural and sensible, moreso than any Souls game, and transitioning between areas feels roughly the same, just on a wider land area.
I think Elden Ring so far has been more dense and thoughtfully planned than DS1. It just took me until beating a couple major bosses and uncovering several areas to realize this, because I took for granted my knowledge of every little secret in DS1, forgetting just how long it actually took me in gameplay hours to uncover all of these areas and secrets in the first place. Instead of being funneled into a place through a pinhole, I get to freely roam to it, and I appreciate that breathability. They’re different games for sure, DS is meant to feel like a suffocating series of branching tunnels, and ER takes that same connected design sensibility and stretches it.
If you’re bored by ER’s world design and comparing it to DS1 in this regard, it’s probably because you’re an expert on Dark Souls and completely new to this one. Mostly speaking from my own experiences being bored by ER’s beginning, because now I love it. If I’m comparing my first playthrough of DS to this, I’m progressing at the same rate and finding even more shit per square mile 
I’ll probably sound mean but it made smile a bit…
Who isn’t? =P
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I actually forgot to say what I intended D=.
I do agree this game feels like it has the same thoughful space design (even if in different standards) as DS1 and Bloodborne (they really tried… Failed… But their and I feel it shows).
But even on the other titles they has some pretty sweet places/dungeons.
And as new and fresh it feels this game, it might be obscuring how good or not are the “dungeons”.
I’m actually surprised at how pleased I am with the random hole in the ground or cliff dungeons. Short and sweet.
But the castle at the south of the starting area felt a bit… Underwhelming? And the Stormthing castle I wasn’t able to make any sense of it.
In fact I was terrified of advancing not for some sense of terror or survival… But afraid that I wouldn’t be able to come back and take that other path that I didn’t took.
It was really provoking a bit of choice panic.
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had kind of a bad time with Loretta tbh, that was like an hour of constantly dying with two hits left
i got to the part where you help cookie and cream fix their armored core but i think i’m supposed to meet them at the king’s field and fight someone named raikoh and i can’t find where that is. at least killing the steel battalion boss got me a cool weapon called the ninja blade that’s always an enchanted arm. think i’m going to backtrack and try to beat the another century’s episode portable
It took me a long time to read the landscape in Elden Ring and understand the signals it was telling me about where to try exploring. The beginning of the game felt empty because I kept running in random directions and finding nothing but crafting materials, while managing to bypass key points of interest like the first Tunnel.
Since this game has neither climbing nor a glider, the exploration needs to be a lot more planful. In BotW I used to just spot a tower in the distance and go there in a straight line. In Elden Ring I tried doing that with the Minor Erdtrees, but I almost never reached them.
The map items are really valuable mostly for the topological information they give you. I’ve started setting multiple waypoints for one single trip, planning a route through ravines and around cliff faces.
Worth noting that I’m not bored by Elden Ring - quite the opposite! very delighted - just thinking about what I personally prefer or find unique about Souls games. Dark Souls is a layer cake; Elden Ring is an enormous pizza.
I wanted to make a joke about this having an inverted castle in the post games symphony of the night style then i found THE ACTUAL INVERTED CASTLE HERE.
the storytelling in this one around the mid-game is really rather good and mysterious, it seemed like they were not in a hurry to let you in on any of the real plot threads until after your first Great Soul but I am actually sort of playing for the plot at this point
and even that is well supported by the narrative in that it’s implied the tarnished round table kind of thinks you’re full of shit until you kill two major bosses and then they’re like hmmmmm yeah okay
dang i’m trying to get into this, and am usually not a stickler for this kind of stuff, but so far anytime moderate action happens i get all kinds of choppy going on. a quick search revealed a multitude of remedies but none of them conclusive, i didn’t have the patience to try many but none seemed effective
also it has xbox button prompts while i’m using a playstation controller, which is actually kinda tough for my brain and is really messing me up
Great Rune seems to be a synonym for one of the five shards of the Elden Ring.
My current lore interpretation is that it’s the source of all power in the Lands Between, and even the runes you get by killing squirrels are some tiny aspect of the Elden Ring
you probably found this one but there’s a spirit in the magic academy that drops a gravity spell that pulls enemies towards you
