Yeah, and SotE was the size of Limgrave
(stacked 6 times)
The verticality is absolutely the best part. My biggest gripe with Elden Rings world is that it’s an “open world” game in kind of the same way Ubi games are. Traversal is largely trivial, so you stop paying attention to the map after you’ve reached major areas.
In my opinion, Dark Souls I is also an open world game, but instead of a 2D map all the zones are tangled up together in a confusing but interesting web.
Shadow of the Erdtree brought some of that back by having zones stacked on top of each other to a much heavier degree than the base game, while also segmenting off geographically close regions.
I wanted to be a level designer for a lot of years, so this is admittedly a bit of a soft spot for me, but I absolutely loved having the game world come at you as as a challenge, almost a character to be fought and bested, outside the legacy dungeons.
Agree, it felt so satisfying reaching an area and realising “hey, I saw this spot from afar in the beginning of the game - and now I’m here”
I think it took me longer to finish the DLC than my playthrough of Dark Souls. They really like to over deliver.
I bought the DLC a month ago and chip away at the game whenever the kids are asleep. I’ve spent 80 hours already and nearing the finish line. It’s crazy.
Was it really? I’ve seen this figure thrown around a lot and why we can ignore the layers upon layers I still thought it to be bigger. At least the size of Limgrave + Weeping penisula
It’s not, but when asked in an interview Miyazaki said it was the size of limgrave. Clearly it’s way, way bigger.
Thank you. I missed some of the pre release interviews
I think this was a reference to Miyazaki saying it’s the size of Limgrave: https://gamerant.com/elden-ring-dlc-map-size-shadow-of-the-erdtree/
Like OP meant
Yeah okay Miyazaki, “smaller games”, like how SotE was “the size of Limgrave”
Yep. What I’m saying is Fromsoft like to underpromise and overdeliver, which is a breath of fresh air compared to most other AAA studios and overall very based.
Also I might be biased from Brandon Sanderson’s books, which seem to get thicker with every new novel despite his apparent efforts to have mercy on the publisher
Lol I think we were replying to the guy at the same time even - don’t worry, I gotchu (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
And no you right, about FromSoft and Sanderson - that guy’s a hero, in my book! I got my little sister into his work, she just finished the Mistborn/Alloy saga, so I gave her Stormlight to start on. So good.
Life before death!
Thank you, I’ve missed the interviews before release.
Np dawg, I gotchu 🙌 I barely remembered myself, it’s been a while!
Technically Weeping Peninsula is just a sub section of Limgrave, along with the Eastern forested area of it right before Caelid.
I hope we will see more smaller scale games from them in the future. Elden Ring is fantastic, but I want them to make another take on Sekiro’s combat.
Fantastic, I’m sure it was a hell of a slog for them. I’m really looking forward to their next games, their one offs like Bloodborne and Sekiro are my favourites.
I’m glad to hear.
Elden Ring’s open world is good, but not their wheelhouse. They certainly embarrassed EA, but I don’t think they’re competitive with Rockstar.
They embarrassed EA, but more importantly Ubisoft. Open world games are pretty much all Ubisoft is known for these days.
I certainly think they can compete with Rockstar. Elden Ring is just a different genre from RDD or GTA. Had Elden Ring not been so difficult and had all the normie garbage like quest markers and other hand holders, it likely could have outsold GTA. But because From makes hard games (even though Elden Ring is their easiest game) and because they didn’t hold the players hand, people passed on some sales.
Same. Elden Ring’s biggest weakness is its open world, in my opinion. It makes the first playthrough great, but it makes subsequent playthroughs a chore. Especially when you’re aware that 90% of dungeons/side areas have completely worthless gear and runes. Your subsequent runs just end up being you riding Torrent for long stretches of time from point A to point B.
This is why playing a randomizer is so damn fun. Every cave/catacomb/ruin can have “the” item! Makes exploration fun again.
My disappointment isn’t with the enemy variety or gear drops. It’s with the dead world. My first hours in the game I saw a wolf walk through a herd of deer both ignoring each other. When you’ve just come off RDR2, seeing wildlife as decorations running 2 scripts that both depend on player interaction is lame.
Even FarCry3 had emergent game-play through enemy/wildlife AI.
True other games have had that, but it really wasn’t a goal for Elden Ring and I don’t think it really hinders it. The immersion into a real world was clearly a tentpole design decision for Rockstar in RDR2, but not Fromsoft. Which is fine for you to miss in Elden Ring, I just think we gotta manage expectations sometimes where not every game can have every thing.
The DLC is really the right balance for FromSoft.
The zones in the base game are slightly too big.
In the DLC, it’s still open world and extremely flexible in how you explore it, but there’s less wasted space.
It’s very tightly knit and the pacing is better as a result.
It’s like Elden Ring was watching masters of their craft cut their teeth on something new, and then the DLC was them applying everything they learned in that process.
Can’t wait for their next game in that same vein (especially not held back by last gen consoles).
As long as they allow different types of play and have quality of life changes. Also improve the interface and performance on PC.
Good! Elden Ring felt too large at times, especially some DLC areas. Where I had the most fun was contained dungeons and castles. I think that’s really where their level design shines best.
Judging by the amount of copy paste Elden Ring was beyond the limit
I’m not sure why you think every interaction in an open world game is supposed to be completely hand crafted from scratch.
The scale is part of the point, and Elden Ring nailed the sense of exploration of a huge, open world that maybe hasn’t happened since Skyrim. It’s that rare to capture that sense of awe.
Because when I explore I want to go see something new and interesting. Half the time in Elden Ring I’d just run into something I’ve seen before. It made it not feel good to explore.
I don’t blame them for this, but this is the reality of making a project this big in scope. You can’t possibly fill it with good content. They made one of the like top 3-5 best open world games, but it’s still stuck with all the same drawbacks as open world games.
I just want them to go back to making more focused content.
The world is jam packed full of new and interesting. It quite possibly has more new and interesting than any other game ever made.
Enemies similar to previous enemies you’ve encountered but with different twists and in different situations are part of enemy design. It’s supposed to happen. It’s what real worlds look like.
If you don’t like open world period, fine, but there’s a reason it’s by far the most successful game they’ve ever made, and it’s because nothing matches the feel of open world done right, and they did it right.
I think Elden Ring has much greater variety than any other open world game. I agree there’s quite a bit of copy pasting, but even after playing for more than 50 hours, I’m surprised with new enemy types and environments (especially now with the DLC). I think it’s exciting to explore every corner of Elden Ring.
Compare it with Tears of the Kingdom. It felt like I’ve seen most the game had to offer after 10 hours. I lost the excitement of exploring rather quickly.
Shrines in BOTW were the worst. The engine was genuinely interesting. Everything being legitimately traversable and designed around stamina was great, and I’d love to see more games utilize the premise that everything you see is accessible. But all that traversal just never got you anywhere interesting. Eventually you’d find a shrine, take longer to load it than beat it, then load back into the world.
TOTK I just never got far enough to feel if it improved.
After some 200+ hours in the game, this alleged issue hasn’t even crossed my mind once. The world is absolutely gorgeous, and the sense of exploration is unreal
