I've harped on this a lot so I won't say much but I'm more convinced than ever that Elden Ring didn't "solve" open world design. After taking a break, I've spent most of my time opening guides, fast traveling between checkpoints (there are multiple questlines that are explicitly designed around fast travel, which I can honestly say I've never experienced in an open world game before) and having just done a 50% or so replay of Red Dead Redemption 2 this winter, I can confidently say that game has a much more organic, "discoverable" open world from beginning to end. Elden Ring pulls a convincing trick from Limgrave to the Capital, but the illusion completely falls apart afterward.

If anyone else is struggling, here's three incredible words: "Palace Approach Ledge-Road". Find a weapon you enjoy and hack away for hours and hours, or just one, whatever free time you have. I came back at level 81, 79 hours in. I'm now 84 hours in and level 114, and could be much, much higher if I hadn't used aforementioned guides to progress the Nepheli, Dung Eater, Kenneth Haight, Blind Maiden quests, maybe a few others?

I watched Joseph Anderson's really insightful review into how Elden Ring is both an incredible and terrible game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEyjdc-DIb8) and could really just let that be my full thesis, but I'll summarize since it's 1.5 hours: for all the diversity this game seems to offer, it often feels like it punishes a melee build unless you're a real fucking nut that's gotten off on naked soul level 1 runs for years. The drip feed of weapons, armor, spells, maps, crafting items, spells, key items, spirit ashes, spells, ashes of war, weapon upgrades, talismans, spells, flask upgrades and spells makes it feel like you're constantly discovering things...but ultimately you're likely to use the weapon you started the game with (or some variation of it) for its entirety, same as every From Soft game before.

If you take a break from this game, coming back to THIS - https://www.ginx.tv/respawn-cdn/M04RlFTZGmPHyFiSgBmCp4DubJmu7q9BfmGqkOaEt7k/fill/375/0/no/1/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ2lueC50di91cGxvYWRzMi9FbGRlbl9SaW5nL2Zhc3RfdHJhdmVsL2VsZGVuX3Jpbmdfc2l0ZV9vZl9ncmFjZV9sb2NhdGlvbnNfbGl1cm5pYV9vZl90aGVfbGFrZXNfZmV4dHJhbGlmZS5KUEc.webp - does not feel inviting in the slightest.

I just keep coming back to that feeling I had progressing from Margit to Morgott, it felt like a dense but manageable game with a clear sense of place, lore and character progression. Now I'm the guy discovering "Mohg" in a sewer, panicking that I'd found one of the remaining shardbearers I'm searching for...and then wiping the floor with this boss only to realize through a Google search it's merely a nerfed copy of the story boss with no explanation for its existence at all other than "hey, you found this church and, uh, here's a boss for ya!"

Here's where I say I complain about all these things because, on its face and at its core, Elden Ring is a pretty incredible achievement. I've said that a few times in this thread as well, but it's worth reiterating - none of this stuff devalues the game for me, it just feels diluted and aimless in a way past From Soft games or really most other open world games I've played absolutely do not. I also get that many of these critiques come from a point of view that can't fully crack this game. Bearfield is a great example in this thread, as is reading any Reddit thread about the Fire Giant in which some players are finding him a cake walk at level 72 while others are still getting one-shot at level 180.

Which brings me back around to my main critique - for about 50-60 hours, Elden Ring feels like a complete and pretty magical experience. And then, depending on skill and desire to see quests through, becomes another 30-100 hours of extreme content overload with no clear indication of where and when a given player should do anything at all. From one perspective, that makes Elden Ring a kind of perfect forever game. I can feel like a kid again, wasting away in a single location ripe with XP to upgrade my stats and gear. Or I can feel like an aimless adult, mindlessly watching the numbers go up and praying that one day my work will pay off.

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