@atheistpreacher: I used shorthand in a short comment about my mixed feelings about the game. Of course "doesn't respect a player's time" doesn't fully explain the nuances of the concept in every situation because it's quick shorthand. I don't use that phrase in longer critiques, at least not without explaining it.

I also never said From Software were just assholes. I said they were sometimes trolls, and they are, but they make games for a certain audience in a way that audience likes and while at times they are clearly being sadistic and trolly to satisfy themselves they are also trying (and succeeding) in pleasing that audience.

Slippery slope arguments are generally bad. "Not respecting a players time" doesn't mean "not always catering to the most efficient way of delivering what each player individually wants," which is obviously impossible. It's about intentionally doing a bunch of things that either intentionally draw out the experience for the player (like making the game super grindy) or penalize the player huge chunks of time if they make a wrong decision (From games do this.)

I also don't agree that saying something is disrespectful is inherently negative.

Look at the comedian Don Rickles. A lot of his act was saying nasty and disrespectful things to the audience. They loved it. They came specifically to be disrespected in a safe environment so everyone could laugh. Likewise people come to From Software games specifically because they know From doesn't care about their time and is perfectly willing to screw them over in a number of ways (including ways that most people didn't find fun, like opaque stats that could lead to non-viable builds for most people) and they like that sense of actual consequences an demanding environment. Which is fine. They don't want a game that will bend itself to their whims or skill level. But in order to do that From specifically designs games that might be unfinishable for a big chunk of their audience.

That doesn't make them assholes. Though, again, they are definitely trolls.

The assholes I was talking about were some other developers who, for example, use artificial grind to try and get people to buy XP boosters. That's an asshole move.

@frytup: Sure I've played those games too but I'm of the opinion that game design has cemented a number of universally Good Ideas as the medium has aged.

I could go buy a notebook and start an Elden Ring Journal. I could get some graph paper and make my own dungeon maps too in real time.

Or.. it could be a button that I press in the game.

I still thing it's just bad phrasing, period, because again, saying that "From doesn't care about their time" is just inherently untrue from a certain way of speaking about it. If "respecting time" can equally mean "allows you to progress quickly without making you re-do portions over and over" or "gives you a challenge that is difficult enough to be satisfying to overcome" (which are opposed things!), then it's not a useful phrase or concept in the discussion, it's just muddying the waters by adding ambiguity when there are betters ways to communicate your critique.

Which brings me back to what other people have been saying in this thread about that phrase: just stop saying it, it's basically meaningless. You can qualify/explain your use of such a phrase all you want, but that doesn't mean that it still doesn't suck and that there aren't much better ways to say what you want to say. I mean, I feel like From Software respects my time more than any other developer I can think of, specifically because they trust me to figure stuff out without the aforementioned neon signs/map markers, and because they trust that I'll be good enough to overcome a challenge rather than practically defeat it for me after X attempts, as a lot of games do these days. But in saying that, I mean the opposite of what you're saying, so far as I can tell.

Here's an easy way to know how people who don't like or never played dark souls like games will review them...THE GAME IS TOO HARD I died a lot early, gave up. Or beat it forced and hated it cause I forced myself to get good and ignored all the points that make the game good. Or I played a game I have no business playing cause I only play say Bayonetta-like action and got pissed cause I have to watch enemy movements and pay attention to emergent storytelling unlike an FMV of what's going on. Honestly, people who can't get into the methodical combat (which should be tons of people) due to methodical combat being fairly new again after every game rushing too easy or button mashing...most will say or think the game is bad. So if you even slightly think you won't like it...you will not no matter how high it is scored. You watching or looking for hate videos (they will come) pointing out nitpicks that sound hella bad...will only make you hate it more when people are all enjoying it...then you'll pick it up or get it free on ps plus years later and think it's fine...idk don't get pulled into this battle it will go on for years about how the game didn't deserve all the accolades, its overrated etc. Souls games unlike other games are really hard to judge cause its either you like em or don't. Unlike say an fps game where everyone can play if they know a few fps things and can tell what's good for them. souls is just too on its own...and the only way to make more people like em would be to make them less souls like (checkpoints, auto-healing, easy bosses, repeat bosses from continue post (keep boss energy at where it depleted.) all the time respecting stuff in other games XD.

@topcyclist: First off, I feel like your comment is incredibly inconsiderate for people with disabilities who continue to need to advocate for some of the most basic quality of life features just to be able to play the most hyped and advertised games of the year. Even Jim Sterling is on Twitter pointing out how the game's lack of a quest log is an issue for them due to their struggles with ADHD. So, yes, there is a way to challenge the identity and design decisions of this franchise in a way that benefits everyone.

Second, just as you wouldn't want me to categorize everyone who likes Elden Ring as being a hardcore gaming gatekeeper, the same applies to how you're describing and categorizing those that want a more welcoming and accessible Souls game or Souls-like. There's a way to allow more stakeholders into the conversation without impugning on the fun of other people. It has been done before with other games and it can and probably should be done here.

@efesell: I think it's not only good, but great. I want an open world where I make my story. I see a game like Horizon and it's Ubisoft-level of icons littering every inch and it immediately turns me off.

There's an ocean between Nothing and Ubisoft in regards to this.

There's also a lot of games that have a menu option for "Hey turn this shit off" and that's another great choice.

@zombiepie: fair and sorry, My post was tongue-in-cheek hyperbole but it's hard to do over the net. I feel for people with disabilities. Heck, the community does even if they get overlooked at and labeled gatekeepers and try hards, etc. There have been plenty of examples of people showing you can beat souls games in the most unorthodox of ways. The idea that they're some monolithic beast of difficulty was really a selling point but they're not much harder than say ninja Gaiden on Xbox 1. That said difficulty is subjective so ill ignores it. I wouldn't care if people called the souls people gatekeepers some are. It's just their way of interacting with the community. Their badge of honor even if it's for some reason more its more accepted to say you beat and got 100 percent achievements in say rocket league than say you beat the difficult (via word of mouth) dark souls game. Overall, it's just a way people parade the game around good or bad. It sadly makes people who play it really nervous or something about looking bad or dying a lot, idk, the frustration even if you ignore running back to a boss, something about dying in dark souls makes people pissed vs say Mario 2d games and their older final levels even if their both considered hard. Obviously overlooking the other things people hate, unorthodox storytelling, controls, animations, etc. All the things fans like and nonfans usually dislike from afar or up close. All fair IMO but it runs into the camp of say why some like Trentino movies and others don't. The reason people hate them (say weird unordinary storytelling) is the quality that makes people also love them. Fix a Trentino and you have another movie you've seen a lot in the bare bones of it all. don't necessarily like Trentino just using it as an example.

I saw this on stream and I couldn't believe how much it looked like all the other Soulsborne games. If they had told me that this was the Demon's Souls remake I would have 100% believed them. And I do think that it puts these scores into some doubt. I obviously haven't played it yet and can't comment if there are any profound changes in the gameplay, I had hoped that this game would be somehow a next step for the genre, and then it comes out looking identical to the last 5 entries (perhaps excluding Sekiro), it makes me considerably less excited for it.

Watching Dan's brief hour of gameplay about 22 hours in and it just further cements for me that I can't relate at all to the people gushing all over the "find your own narrative" effect, especially in an open world. He's still scrolling across a map constantly, hovering over icons to remind himself of what this or that place looks like or contains, fast traveling to this or that waypoint. Literally the only difference is there's not an icon slightly to the left or right reminding him that there's a thing to the left or right he has or hasn't already done. Paired with Schreier's tweet of advice to make a journal to track your progress...I just feel like games solved for this by including icons on the map and quest logs.

I hate to be The Horizon Guy right now, but I'm playing that game by exploring. Wandering off towards interesting looking locations or paths I don't recognize and stumbling across activities to do in the process. Sometimes I notice the question mark icon on my compass, sometimes I don't, but the presence of that question mark never gets in the way of me seeing an activity then doing that activity. It only helps remind me that it's there. Or that it was there and I've done it, no need to go back. Or, at it's most ... "mediocre", I suppose, points me in the way of activities to do if I want to pause the main quest for a while or just need a quick bump in XP to unlock some skill. Two days ago I was thinking that was all I was doing when I suddenly found myself in the midst of collecting materials to craft a new, seemingly pretty overpowered weapon that clearly would be completely missable if you never did the quest. That...sounds like I stumbled onto something just by exploring the world? Who cares if I put a waypoint on a question mark to get there? The result was still a surprise.

An even better example is Red Dead Redemption 2 which to my mind is still the most impressive balance of map bloat and emergent storytelling and probably will be for a while. Sure, as you notice that photographer standing in a field muttering to himself an icon pops on your minimap alerting you to a side story, but what's the harm in a little nudge?

I'm not even saying that I'm an advocate for map bloat - I'm just confused as to why it's something worth criticizing or praising depending on where an open world's map falls on the scale. I'm currently playing Demon's Souls PS5 as well and loving that I have no idea what's around the corner or where I'm going, same as I did in Bloodborne, and that I have/had to remember what was where to make proper progress. Clearly from dungeon to dungeon and area to area that's what's going on with Elden Ring and I'm sure it's just as charming. But as I watch more people play this game, it just doesn't look at all different from how I play Red Dead, The Witcher, Tsushima, GTA or Horizon other than a lack of reminders that you have or haven't done or discovered a thing yet.

To me that doesn't feel like a positive or negative decision, simply a decision. Am I alone in this? Because I didn't find "discovery" to be a specific charm of Breath of the Wild, either.

@apewins: I have been wondering if people were only allowed to show footage/screens from one specific area for this exact reason. I'm excited for it, but it really does just look like dark souls with crafting. Like, literally all the locations I've seen have looked like another souls game. But people keep reiterating how big the game is, so I'm thinking there must be something that looks new eventually.

Either way, I've already installed it on my ps5 and can't wait to get into it over the weekend. I've just still kept expectations a little lower because of how it just looks like dark souls to me.

i'm tempted to start a separate thread about the various flavors of 'open world' people seem to have Noted Opinions on- but i have a working theory (that some might consider flip) as to why critics cut from the same cloth as young Daniel R. put such a premium on the BotW-esque experience (and why everything is now relative to the One True Game).

it's Minecraft- or even an MMO, but cloaked in a design language they're more receptive to. raw exploration, crafting, following a map, 'making your own fun.'

at least that's how it went for me. i first played Minecraft circa 2012 and was honestly floored by the notion of chasing the horizon as gameplay. but by the time i got to BotW- it wasn't a wholly novel concept. it can be a pretty magical thing when you first encounter it- which i think might help explain why so many critics that focus on traditional iterative games might be wowed by it.

speaking personally- these days i'm more attracted to the reasons devs drop in their giant world rather than exploring for exploring's sake - but i can understand how it might be The Thing for some.

I can't read Schreier's "Make an Elden Ring journal" tweet without a Okay Grandpa Let's Get You To Bed.

I am OK with the previous games in the series, being of a linear-ish fashion, not having a map or any markers or waypoints. A large part of the reason those games are engaging is because it's up to you to decide how much you want to explore every nook and cranny for secrets, items, hidden paths, etc.

For an open world game, however, I think I would be incredibly annoyed by having to remember where everything is. Unless you play this game for hours every single day, without missing a beat or taking a break, how the heck are you supposed to keep all that in your head? I highly doubt the game has sufficient manual map-marking tools to make up for the lack of preset icons. For previous games that last a fraction of the time, this is far more manageable.

I've been playing the first Horizon recently in the hope I can get through it before spoilers for its ending are everywhere due to the end of statute of limitations, and even in that game, which features all the hand-holding you could ever want (which can thankfully be customized to your preference to some extent), I sometimes forget where the heck I left off after spending a few days playing or doing other stuff. If I came back to it after being away for a week and opened an empty map screen with no direction beyond what I had marked myself, and no idea what quests I'd started or left unfinished, I'd probably just never come back to it.

I was always wary that the idea of taking a franchise/style of game that is known for intricate level design and shoving open-world and crafting stuff onto it would severely dilute its core strengths while adding to the tedium and confusion, and nothing I've seen here or elsewhere has convinced me that this is not exactly what happened. This could potentially be mitigated by having the game keep track of what NPCs have requested of you as well as notable locations or persons you have already discovered, but apparently that would offend the core fans who pine for the days where games expected you to devote 100% of your time and attention to remembering every single little detail.

Edit: I want to emphasize that I am not asking for the game to reveal itself to me before I have discovered things on my own. Starting with an empty map sounds pretty exciting actually. However, the notion that I'm supposed to do the game's job for it and keep a journal of where I've been and who I've talked to is ridiculous. That might have been acceptable in Morrowind decades ago, but I have zero patience for that sort of thing nowadays.

I can't read them without laughing my ass off at the outraged responses.

Poor babies.

See, I hate making my own fun. I thought Legos were stupid as a kid. With a steady income and wider variety of interests, I couldn't be compelled to play the THPS remake past completing the final level's tasks over and over and over the way I did as a kid just to get higher scores. I don't just goof off in GTA games anymore. I wouldn't hunt in Red Dead if there weren't cosmetic items dangling on the other end of those hunts - and I think the cosmetic items are stupid, but it's something to be working toward (I almost tried using this as justification to keep playing THPS before also realizing my hands hurt while playing that game and I could just get most of that clothing in real life, lol). Pyre eventually shipped with an independent versus mode, and I'm the weirdo that liked their combat basketball distortion and I never touched it.

Unlike the old days when I could easily play a sports game's franchise mode for multiple seasons, content to just follow the stats and trying to win a title, now I need the "tangible" reward of ultimate team cards to give me a reason to keep playing (and as such I play the baseball game rather than the basketball game despite being far more passionate about basketball because the basketball game has a shit ultimate team mode). And these are all my examples of "making my own fun" because I scrolled all the way to the very depths of my PSN profile and, at least in the PS4/5 era I haven't played any true make your own fun games other than, I guess, Breath of the Wild. And guess what? That game had a quest log!

But I do like the experience of discovery in Demon's Souls or Bloodborne (or even, say, The Witness, which I only played for about 5 hours because I'm a dunce). It's not that I need a map or icons to have a good time with a game, nor think it's a bad design choice to not guide the player along. It's that I don't experience any sense of lost wonder or curiosity because a game does have those things, and when I watch people play Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring it looks exactly like how I play Red Dead Redemption or Shadow of Mordor, you know? I wasn't any less awed by the dragon maze in God of War because there was a minor hint on a map that it was over there - I was still navigating a maze with a fucking dragon perched over it!

To quote one of my favorite rewatchables, for me the action is the juice, and I don't mind if a game wants to nudge me towards that action. It doesn't change in any way what the interaction with the game is, especially because these games don't tell you what a thing is until you've gotten to them, and even then the best of them (to my mind, RDR and now Horizon with Witcher hanging out at the bar) are often hiding really cool shit behind seemingly familiar scenarios and activities. Do I think it's super awesome that I stumbled across a house with a light on in the middle of the country in RDR and found a ManBearPig inside? Yes! I'm glad I got to just fumble my way into that room out of sheer curiosity.

But it wouldn't have changed the shock of that room at all if I'd followed a question mark to that house. I'm an empath as the Life Is Strange: True Colors writers would say so I can understand how players might not be able to maintain their excitement over an activity if they know an activity is present, but I can't help feeling like it's really overblown when that element of surprise is incorporated into an open world because whether there's a marker or not, at the end of the day you still never expected exactly what you got when the activities are done cleverly.

Alright, so I ended up caving and buying it a couple days ago, despite my best hardware being a 7+ yr old i5 gtx970 8gb ram PC. It runs better than I thought it would, anyway. I put on the low settings @1080p and so far, in the open world section, I seem to hover around 45-50fps. I am thinking about capping at 45-50 and see how that runs--and also considering grabbing some more ram since its cheap.

I put around an hour into it so far just to see how it ran and get a slight feel for it. I'm saying it now, if you didn't like Souls before, you aren't likely to get far in this. Even the one streamer I follow( he has the most popular Soulsborne guides on Youtube) says this was harder than DS3 for him--solo of course. Now I'm sure folks mileage will vary but its worth noting none the less. It really truly feels like DS3 in an open world with some changes to a few systems. Many I just saw in the network test and have yet to experience. I'm sure my overall opinion will change but so far I can't say I'm as excited as I hoped I'd be. A lot just feels so familiar. Many enemies are definite reskins of previous games enemies. The weapons handle nearly identical, though there are expanded move sets and other qualities you can add.

I am very curious how I am going to feel about the open world by the end. I'm already feeling like its somewhat detrimental. I worry that it looks very samey throughout and I hope its just because they've only ever shown earlier footage. Soulsborne has always had a breadth of cool areas in their games and I personally liked the smaller, more contained areas better. However some of the emergent stuff that I've seen in videos and previews look really neat as well. I suppose it will come down to how much variety stems from the activities and discovery. Time will tell. I'll be back with an update after the weekend hopefully.

Back in 2014, aka Ryckert's first 6 months with Giantbomb, he could not shout up about his enjoyment of Dark Souls 2. He could not shout up about it on Gameinformer before his departure. So he is very much a Souls guy.

@infantpipoc: I mean the thing I referenced was also Dan saying that he was not so you know easy mistake I guess.

Nothing I ever said matters anymore, this game has earnestly titled one of its main (?) characters Dung Eater. Game of the Year.

Edit: And you can leave a message that says "Praise the dung". Game of the millenium.

The minor frame drops on PS5 are quite noticeable although it's really nothing different than playing Bloodborne.

Still, at least on performance mode, I would have hoped From could have moved away from this kinda problem. Hopefully a patch at least caps the Quality mode at 30 at some point.

@nodima: I know there is no universe in which this is true, but I'm choosing to believe this was an original name supplied by George R. R. Martin.

I played for a few hours and my main takeaway is that Unsheathe fuckin' whips ass. My entire build is going to wind up centering on this skill.

Riding the horse around is really funny because it's like you suddenly start playing a different game and a lot of the enemies are still playing Dark Souls. They have a hard time understanding how to deal with you unless its another mounted enemy.

I am interested, but have bounced off Dark Souls and Bloodbourne due to having terrible hand eye coordination, being crap at games requiring precision of any kind, and I have Autism.

I love the look of these games, but they are just too much for me to play, regardless of the fact they are right up my alley subject matter wise.

Also my wife is super deep into Animal Crossing, so the good tv is usually taken as soon as she gets in from work.

The least expected thing of all is that this is probably the best implementation of a horse in an open world game. It's just an item and it summons it instantly.

No weird whistle or waiting for pathfinding, just Horse Button.

And it double jumps!

@stealydan:

How much of the map have you seen? From what I've played, it seems like it works a lot like Breath of The Wild's - you unlock segments of it at a time, Sites of Grace (bonfires) are clearly marked and can be fast traveled to from pretty much anywhere, and you can place up to a hundred markers with several different varieties of icon anywhere you want. The map itself isn't lacking in ways to keep track of locations, though you do have to place most of those icons yourself.

Lacking a journal is a different story. I never much cared for the sidequests in Dark Souls - I was there for the environments, the character builds, the boss fights, the atmosphere, etc. - but in Elden Ring it's a baffling omission. It's a very easy and efficient way to give a player some direction without sacrificing any of that feeling of discovery.

As a more general post... I like this game a lot. I think they've accomplished a lot here and I'm looking forward to playing a lot more of it later today. I'm not sure if I'd give it the "instant classic GOAT everyone play this now" treatment, though. Thus far, it's been open world Dark Souls 3 and pretty much all that phrase might bring to mind. It's a little bit more accessible than previous games, though still pretty difficult. It has some real performance issues that need attention ASAP - this hasn't happened to me but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

But I have stumbled across several hidden areas with bosses and traps of their own that you could totally just miss, even if you were wandering off the beaten path, and that's a big part of what I was interested in. Wandering around and finding a bunch of stuff in an open world game where the map doesn't come pre-loaded with icon vomit is great and if developers should take anything from this game, it's "please God make your open world games less about running to icons on a map and doing a thing and more about subtly directing your players to what they feel like are their own discoveries".

Boy uh... if you are on a display with HDR buy that Torch real quick because remember how Dark Souls 2 promised a gimmick built on darkness?

Caves in this game are pitch black and terrifying without a torch.

@efesell: You aren't kidding. I gave up trying to play during daylight hours because of how impossible it was to see anything. I did grab a torch so hopefully that helps, but man I honestly thought my TV was busted for a minute there.

I'm still early, but even after playing an (un)healthy amount of Nioh 2 over the last year Elden Ring has already reminded me why it took me forever to get into these games in the first place. FromSoftware definitely feels like they offer a specific flavor of combat and encounter design that you just have to... Really get a taste for to appreciate.

So only a couple hours in, and for the record I do enjoy souls games(though I've never finished one).

I will say, if you enjoy the combat itself and don't mind the wander around discovery aspect of the open world, this could be the game that grabs non souls fans.

Mechanics are in the game that make fights super forgiving. A lot of "bonfires" are scaterres throughout(all of which you can fast travel to), there's a mechanic that let's you replenish flasks out and about pretty regularly(albeit with a bit of a skirmish).

The souls stamp of "this game tells you nothing" I think actually works BETTER in this format. I'm sure I'll get to the point where it's a little more annoying, but right now it is VERY much the Breath of the Wild thing of "lemme see what's over here". And with the far more forgiving checkpoint and flask mechanics, it feels way less risky to take new fights just to see what happens.

I still don't know if I'd recommend everyone go grab it immediately, but I'd say if any of the games were gonna grab more people its this one.

With all the early praise it defintely looks like no reviewers played on PC at all.

The more I play of this the more impressed I am with the open world.

When you go into a dungeon the game more or less turns into a better version of Dark Souls 3, it's a good time as usual but not particularly "special" in relation to everything else they've done.

But the open world is dense, it's interesting to poke at all the nooks and crannies. The lack of a log or markers is not a problem, actually, I'll retract all of my whining on that topic.

But most importantly your horse runs at 90mph and double jumps through whatever obstacle is in its way. Meaning that you can pretty much explore any part of this world with absolutely none of the frustration that is typical to the rest of the franchise.

ha, this is interesting cuz i was just logging on to say i'm not completely sold on the open-worldify-ing just yet. it isn't turning me off, but it isn't compelling me either. would you say it changes significantly as you progress? (i'm not that far- still on the first map area though i think i've just about tapped it out)

the overland areas are neat for a sense of scale and place- but i'm finding the wide open spaces kinda filler-ish? (that sounds harsher than i intend).

i will say the mini dungeons are neat but they're really reminding be of the chalice dungeons from bloodborne.

@mellotronrules: Well, I'm not super far in myself so I'm not sure. I think the second 'zone' I've been to is more interesting than the first but the loop of exploring it is the same so I'm not sure it will change your mind.

But I'm just having a great time zooming around on the horse and poking all the landmarks I see. Also I just really like how the mounted combat feels so that helps.

Put in a bit over 30 hours so far, and oh boy... this is a strange game. Not saying I'm not enjoying it, and sure, on the surface it's just another Souls game, but I don't even know where to start with all the different things that's been going through my mind playing it.

It's a game that abandons its own strengths, yet plays into exactly how people have been playing the former titles. It's everything people hate about open-world, yet people are gonna absolutely love it. It seems like an absolute drag to replay, but at the same time it's so open you can just break the game.

I've always felt like From sorta stumbled into their success, and this game does everything it can to confirm that theory. There are so many design decisions that makes no sense at all from the perspective of making an "objectively good" game, but the strong fundamentals of their ARPG gameplay and world design keeps the game from falling apart. They've been doing a good job making their games more and more focused and functional all the way from Demon's Souls to Sekiro, but this game just takes a massive leap back into the dumpster of nonsense.

In a world where Bethesda is constantly getting flak for their broken games, and Ubisoft has been turned into the devil for making formulaic open-world games it is VERY strange to me how this game has been getting 10/10s and high praises rather than creating a discussion about what makes these games tick. I feel like anyone that talks about how much they like this game is just setting themselves up to look like a massive hypocrite.

I don't really understand what you mean by this.

@ares42: What are some examples of what you're saying?

As someone who tries (and fails) atleast once a year to get into an open world game I really dont see how any comparisons can be made between this game to an Ubisoft/Open World Bloat type of game.

Primarily I've yet to do anything repetitive so far in this game (though if we're counting the 14 or so attempts I took to beat Tree Sentinel repetitive then that statement wont hold up in court.)

The closest thing I can think to compare it to is Dragon's Dogma, but as many others have said BoTW or Elderscrolls isnt too far off the mark.

@junkerman: There are several "activities" that are repeated multiple times over throughout the map. You have the normal dungeons, which are basically chalice dungeons from Bloodborne, that ends with a fairly generic boss most of the time (you will see repeats). You have the mines, where you go pick up smithing stones, also usually ends with a non-unique boss. You have the Tree Wardens, which is literally just different versions of the Asylum Demon. You have ruins, which are just "find the entrance, grab the treasure" (sometimes has a generic boss). There's the Gaols, which I believe again is just the same boss over and over (haven't checked too many). There's obviously the map gathering, which is fairly minor. There's a bunch of churches, which are upgrade collectibles. There's the Mausoleums, also collectible. And then there's the "random" open-world bosses, which again you see a lot of repeats.

@efesell: Let me try to clarify, with every game they've polished and refined the formula. Demon's to Dark is a massive leap in terms of level design and systems polish. Then they did Bloodborne where they refined the combat, which was then repurposed to fit the IP in Dark Souls 3. And lastly in Sekiro they focused on movement and upgrading their combat system.

Elden Ring focuses on the world design, but it's not a refinement in any way, it's a complete overhaul in design. And everything is very rough, just like Demon's has very rough game systems and combat compared to Dark Souls 3.

@ares42: I'm just not sure what feels particularly rough about it? I've not even hit anything that I would deign to call "jank" in my time with it.

@efesell: I would describe it very much like Bethesdas attempt at online multiplayer with Fallout 76. If you applied their game design to an IP that didn't already have a lot of other things going for it it would be the yearly 3-4/10 game that everyone dumps on.

The open-world in Elden Ring is comparable to something like AC 1, a large portion of what you're doing is the same exact busy-work and filler content that people have been deriding Ubisoft for for ages. The difference is that in AC 1 the combat is far from strong enough to carry the game. But in Elden Ring you still have a blast fighting the bosses, and everything still look freaking awesome, so it's fine.

There are certainly a number of repeated things you do, you kind of need them in this sort of game I think.

But also a lot of wild shit I've run into One Time that was interesting and unique in a way that I've not seen in the standard Ubisoft approach to an open world.

Which leads to one of the big questions in my mind, why make this kind of game at all ? When one of the main pillars of your game is this hand-crafted world where every corner is worth exploring, how does changing your design philosophy to this make any sense ? I could see it make sense if they decided to make a big open-world AND make every corner worth exploring, but that's obviously not what they're doing.

Instead they've just "downgraded" their formula, just to make an open-world game, without taking any real advantage of it at all. There's no gain in the changes they've done, it's just different, and arguably they did the other thing much better. Again, it just makes me think that they sorta stumbled into this ARPG gameplay that really hit a nerve, and they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.

It's the same thing with the crafting system. On one hand it comes with the territory with open-world games (and this one is as generic as it comes), but also a lot of high profile Souls players rely on these consumables for their speedruns etc. So did they add it for that purpose ? Or do they think most players actually want consumables to be a part of the Souls experience ?

But I do think that it's worth exploring every corner of this world is the thing.

Like sure you can give me a list of Here Are The Things To Do in Elden Ring and make it sounds kind of dull but when I'm playing the game I look out over the landscape and think dang that looks neat I wanna go check it out.

And more often than not there has been something there that was worth checking out. Which, by the by, is not something I have really associated with Souls in the past. I have actually very rarely free explored every nook and cranny of those games just cause it's usually real lopsided on the risk/reward angle to do so.

I don't have anything to say about the crafting though. I've used it maybe three times to emergency craft something to keep a bar from making me explode.

@efesell: Yeah, I'm not expecting you to have all the answers =) I'm just saying, when I play this game I see a lot of new design decisions that doesn't actually improve the game. Fortunately for me though, a lot of the changes feed right into a different game style I also enjoy, but I appreciate the Souls games a lot for being the exact kinda unique experience they are.

I gotta admit I didn't really keep up on the hype for this game. I went into it blindly even though I knew it was another one within the Soulsborne series or whatever. I prefer to keep my expectations super low or non-existent. Since I play on the PC, if or when From gets the stuttering dealt with and other performance issues addressed, this game has serious potential to become of the best. I'm thoroughly digging it despite its current crop of issues on the platform I play on. It would also be nice if they would unlock the FPS. There is no reason to lock it at 60 on the fucking PC platform!

The combat is a bit more easy to pick up compared to the rest of the games within the genre. The parry window is much more forgiving, making it super easy to learn compared to the previous games. The only exception I'll make is Bloodborne. Gun parrying was super easy. It also helps since it seems the bosses I've come across already can be parried and staggered. The regular enemies are pretty easy to deal with. My only gripe about the combat is the horse mounted combat. It's awful. I try to avoid it as much as possible.

The environments are stunningly gorgeous! This is one of those games where it can serve as a wallpaper generator. Just like TW3, I find myself wandering around, trying to go to some other spot, and then become distracted by something else, and head that way. Most of my time in the game has been aimlessly wandering around the map. It's pretty damn huge.

@rubberbabybuggybumpers: I love the mounted combat. It’s a little unwieldy at the start but it’s so powerful when you get some practice in.

TL:DR - An early GOTY contender for me. It's already 1000% better than anything that came out last year.

Well I've been immensely enjoying it over the weekend, to the tune of almost 20 hours over 2 days. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I had decided that I was going to try and sneak around the higher-level areas of the map to tag the map monoliths just to see how big the world was. Not only did I not get anywhere close to doing that, but then just before I stopped playing because, you know, work on Monday, I discovered there's an entire underground layer of the map. And it's super surreal. And I'm super not supposed to be there yet. I haven't ended a play session as excited in a long time.

I've been mostly doing a lot of aimless wandering, but Elden Ring has the good kind of aimless wandering where you set out to do a very specific thing, but then get distracted by a bunch of other things, which leads to you getting distracted by something else, which then leads to a boss fight with a dragon which is going surprisingly well until you suddenly die because there are actually two dragons, which leads to you respawning while asking, "wait, what was I doing again?"

@efesell:I've noticed it gets better over time but I still hate it. I've never liked mounted combat in any game I've played. I did pick up a lance a little bit ago. I'll upgrade it a little bit and see if it enhances the mounted combat experience.

I basically wander around like you and forget what I originally set out to do. This is going to be one of those games where it takes numerous times through to find almost everything and still be amazed there was shit I/we missed when watching videos years later.

@rubberbabybuggybumpers: A lance or great sword both work really well. They have a very large hitbox when charging the power attack so it can tear through whole groups of enemies.

Provided no one has a goddamn torch.

@efesell: I'll give it a go on the mud people in that one lower region where the celestial vikings can be found. Can't say I'm looking forward to it.