And again, I'm having a GREAT time with this game (level 70 now, finally found Volcano Manor and cleared most of that while finding a second Great Rune elsewhere as well) and the in-the-moment novelty of "emerge from cave, see girl sitting with wolf" novelty of there not being a quest marker on your map...

But that's still just a quest giver pointing you in a direction, the primary difference being nothing is marked on your map and nothing is noted in any kind of log so it's up to you to decide whether that's interesting or not, which is sort of novel I suppose...

But then just look at your map right now. See those tunnels? Mines to grind for smithing stones with a boss battle at the bottom. See those catacombs? Puzzles to solve with a boss battle at the bottom. See those ruins? Combat arenas to solve with a boss battle at the bottom. See those towers? Puzzles to solve with a specific prize at the end. Towns? Minor dungeons sometimes with key items. Manors and Forts? Medium dungeons with some game changing items. Castles and Cities? Legacy dungeons that are the full Souls experience.

And the maps also got vendors, mini-bosses, places of interest, challenge bosses, fog of war and so on all over it. If you want a reminder of where you want to go (or a couple places you want to go) you'll have blue shafts of light all over the regular map and a compass to guide you, or dozens of monster, sword and treasure icons to remind you of something you didn't finish. It doesn't look or function differently at all other than that Dark Souls feel at its core than a Red Dead II or a Horizon other than those first 15 or 20 hours where you haven't figured out how to read the map yet.

And sometimes even that's not enough - I've been up to Caria Manor three separate times after doing something elsewhere in the world that seemed like they'd trigger something. I found all but a whip my first and second time, sent the dragon away my second time and went back specifically for the whip my third time. And yet the yellow tail hinting I have something to do there is STILL on the map - at this point, I looked at a guide just to see if I was missing anything and I wasn't, yet this thing is just nagging at me to go to the Manor. Why? Who can say! If you don't like open world design to begin with, I would imagine this would be fucking INFURIATING.

So if guy said he doesn't want to do repetitive tasks on a big, wide open map...Elden Ring IS that game, same as any other open world. And just like Breath of the Wild it feels like it's playing this big trick on everyone by convincing them it's doing something it really isn't.

But I'm also a completionist type - I LIKE to know where the backpacks and pigeons are in Spider-Man so I can go and get 'em. Icons on a map have never bothered me, and I guess I'll just never see the novelty in marking the map all on my own - especially considering how much this game is willing to drop markers for you already.

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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
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