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Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Open-World Design

• libertine 5y ago
  I hate to be that guy, but it's not fair to dismiss one of the best open world games released in the last 20 years, and which I believe inspired many things on Elden Ring - I'm talking about Breath of the Wild. Just like how you're introduced to the world is literally how BoTW introduces you to it's own world (could it be a homage?), or something as simple as picking up consumables with a simple press of a button with no animations, little things that aren't in the way of you experiencing the world. What I haven't put my finger on was how both of these games propel you to discover the world, and to find out what's above the hill or if there might be a cave in a cliff. I don't know if it's the terrain design that's actually thought through and not left to some algorithm, or if it's simply the perk of having a great brand behind these games that have rewarded us properly for exploring their previous worlds. A better tittle would be : Elden Ring Succeeds by Ignoring 20 Years of Bad Open-World Design
  • giobox 5y ago
    Agreed - with very little googling you can find the exact same arguments as this article being made in others discussing Breath of the Wild. Lots of people have been rightly celebrating this aspect of BoTW since its release, I found it odd not to mention it as well. It was arguably an even bigger risk for Nintendo to make these radical changes back in 2017, given the sales volume a Zelda game is expected by the business and investors to shift. The industry influence I would credit FromSoftware with is that its ok to make really difficult games again, a trend born through their work such as the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring etc. It's been a long time IMO since games this difficult were this mainstream.
    • bombcar 5y ago
      I don't feel BotW was as big a risk as people take it to be - it was basically single-player WoW and was done with the standard Nintendo polish. I do have to admit it was perfectly aimed at someone like me, who remembers the glory days of video games but no longer has the time or skill to play at a top level.
      • philistine 5y ago
        You’re viewing the risk from the point of view of hindsight. Of course it wasn’t a risk, what we got was successful. Put it in context back before the game existed. The Zelda games are selling well, but they’re never Nintendo’s most successful games. What they are is Nintendo’s most revered. They have a great formula, designed by Miyamoto and polished to perfection by his successors. The critiques are getting deafening though. It’s getting too linear, the dungeons are turning slowly into content tubes, and the time spent on story is too long. What do you do? You don’t do Breath of the Wild to break the mould, you do Link Between Worlds. Link Between Worlds is less linear, and harkens back to the SNES for its story and interaction. You take a step back from your mould, you redefine it. But then BAM! They completely redesigned everything with Breath of The Wild. Link Between Worlds is but a mere footnote. That’s gutsy, and risky.
        • bombcar 5y ago
          I agree it's gutsy, but I don't really see the risk - if BotW had "flopped" it would be a footnote like Link Between Worlds; it wouldn't have sunk the company. Arguably it could have damaged the Switch's reputation. Interestingly it seems Nintendo understood that it could possibly not succeed, by where they placed the story in the timeline. Nintendo, at least ever since the success of the Wii, hasn't been unwilling to make gutsy moves - but even then they do them in ways that they have fall-back positions if they're not as successful as they'd like.
          • mercer 5y ago
            While I agree with your comment, and while this is probably a bit pedantic, I'd argue that gutsy implies there being a risk. Sure, with Nintendo the risk is not something like bankruptcy, but then again the word 'risk' doesn't just mean "a game that risks the company's future".
  • intsunny 5y ago
    Yah, it seems very strange the article completely fails to mention Zelda Breath of the Wild. It is amazing to see how many games today have taken inspiration from Zelda BOTW. The first time I played the game, I decided it was more fun just exploring the open world and visiting all the Sheikah Towers. I didn't have good armor/equipment/food/etc, and I had a complete blast doing it. That was one of my fondest memories of gaming.
    • holyyikes 5y ago
      Because Elden Ring is about as far from BOTW as you can possibly be. It's not inspired by it at all.
      • sushid 5y ago
        It's literally their highly refined tried and true formula with BOTW. Hard to believe that you don't see the parallel in open world design if you've played both games.
        • throwntoday 5y ago
          I would not compare these two games. Death Stranding was a refined BotW. Elden Ring is a totally different game and I think comparing it to BotW is an insult to FromSoft as they actually put effort into making the open world feel full of content. BotW is 15min of riding your horse through nothing and dodging the same 2-3 enemy mobs to get to a shrine where maybe you get a fun puzzle but most likely you fight a robot for the 100th time. Enemy, dungeon, weapon, skill, play style, and boss variety is massive in Elden Ring. BotW does not hold a candle to it.
          • kibibu 5y ago
            Weird that you're fighting a robot for the 100th time when there are only 6 "test of strength" shrines.
            • 5y ago
  • WHA8m 5y ago
    I definitively agree with you. In favor of the article one could say: The initial statement was basically that something got successful by ignoring "conventional trends of the genre" and the article is about Elden Ring. So the overall statement stays correct, but some context could (should?) have been provided, because things have been done before or originated somewhere else.
  • defterGoose 5y ago
    I just want to point out that although BOTW is perhaps the most recent example of a widely lauded (though rightly criticized as well) expansive open world, it is in no way the only or even the primary inspiration that Elden Ring draws on. Yes, it has crafting, dungeons and long vistas. But in that sense, Skyrim is equally valid. Heck, even GTA games fill most of those criteria. And if you're going for sheer quality of exploration over quantity, RDR2 for instance was a far more technically and aesthetically impressive game than BOTW. So I guess all-in-all I agree with your thesis though. Elden Ring does seem to have managed to leave the worst aspects of previous games while inviting the best ideas along for the ride. Add to that the most beautifully crafted world FROM has ever made and you have something that simply exudes GOAT.
    • tomnipotent 5y ago
      It's not about the open world dimension, it's dropping the player into a world with little to no training. Skyrim, GTA, and RDR2 all share the same "Main Mission" mechanic that helps keep players centered on overall story progression while leaving room for side quests and exploration. This "go there, do this, go there" cycle doesn't exist in BOTW or Elden Ring.
      • istorical 5y ago
        Good observation and if I may I think a great term for this is just 'sandbox' gameplay.
        • tomnipotent 5y ago
          > this is just 'sandbox' gameplay That sums it up. Enjoyment comes from core game play mechanics, not quest content. I'd be just as happy with core Street Fighter mechanics in an open world, with no-explanation filler content between boss encounters.
          • TulliusCicero 5y ago
            A lot of games genres could make for good open worlds other than FPSes/action games/action RPG's. Would love to see a Mario open world (Bowser's Fury being a sort of proto example).
  • holyyikes 5y ago
    Elden Ring has absolutely nothing in common with BOTW. The whole "exiting the cave to reveal the world" is Socrates cave shit. Old as the hills.
    • oneoff786 5y ago
      Plato
    • astrange 5y ago
      My recommended game where you exit a cave to reveal the outside world is Exile/Avernum III. I don’t think video game starting caves have “shadows on the wall” though?
      • mercer 5y ago
        Exile 3 is probably still my favorite CRPG ever...
  • bitlax 5y ago
    Everybody steals from everybody. https://twitter.com/DarkSoulsGame/status/768525788844961792 https://twitter.com/DarkSoulsGame/status/768525788844961792
  • linkdd 5y ago
    Zelda BOTW is just the first NES Zelda for the modern era. Nintendo's open-world is the only open-world I liked. I can't get immersed in GTA's open world because I'm just a random going on a killing spree for 15 minutes then shut the game down. I hated Skyrim, the world is big but empty. There is nothing particular about the landscape that makes me want to "go there". Most of the time, I discovered areas because I was going in straight lines. Zelda on the other hand, I was like "oh wow, a mountain split in two, I wanna see it". The landscape view makes you want to see what's going on and act as a map ("oh so the gemini mountain is on my right, I must be at XXX"). You're on top of a tower, look at the volcano, and you're like "what is that thing moving on the horizon". Same thing for pretty much all divine beasts. The other nice thing about BOTW's open world is the map. You don't need it. In The Witcher 3 you have a GPS that tells you where to go. When people tells you to go somewhere in this Zelda, you ask people, you look at the road signs, and you go there. This makes the world much more realistic and less empty because you need to interact with it. To go to the Goron village, you have many ways of doing it, stockpile a huge amount of food to heal while you burn, or go around and talk to people to find the potion. If you choose to stockpile food, you need to hunt, to cook, and to interact with the world once again. The world is part of the game play, unlike many other open world games where the world is just the scenery where the game play take place.
    • oneoff786 5y ago
      Botw is so much more than just NES Zelda. That the two are non linear is just one similarity.
      • linkdd 5y ago
        Both games are centered on exploration more than the main quest. You're thrown into a world without instructions, you don't know who you are or what you're doing here. There is just a world to explore and have a fun adventure in. While quite different of course, they have basically the same goal: you first have to get lost in order to find your way. The fun begins when you explore and stumble across things by mistake. Also many landmarks in BOTW are straight up taken from the NES game, like the twin mountains in the gerudo desert. After Ocarina of Time, the Zelda games went to a linear story with a dungeon formula almost copy pasted for 20 years. BOTW breaks this pattern to get back to its roots: exploration. Just watch the interviews of Aonuma explaining this.
  • oneoff786 5y ago
    > What I haven't put my finger on was how both of these games propel you to discover the world, and to find out what's above the hill or if there might be a cave in a cliff. I don't know if it's the terrain design that's actually thought through and not left to some algorithm, or if it's simply the perk of having a great brand behind these games that have rewarded us properly for exploring their previous worlds. Breath of the wild is a game full of secrets. Things are there and they need to be found. Many other open world games are not. They’re full of missions. Because the ui is so informative, you actually get rapid confirmation that there is nothing. A lot of missions start at a hub and make you go to a place and then come back. That’s how that portion of the world gets used. Botw doesn’t do this much. Most content that you find is immediately relevant there because that place is interesting in itself. Lastly, you don’t have a dearth of dialogue to get through things. Dialogue is fine and all but side quests are conceptually very stupid and the writing is inevitably tiresome. It breaks immersion when someone needs you to collect maguffins again.
  • throwntoday 5y ago
    Oof, BotW was absolute trash. It was the epitome of bad open-world design. You have an absolutely massive map with nothing to do. The story is fragmented into just four dungeon/town areas and some memories scattered around the map. There are like two villages otherwise with still basically nothing to do in them. Exploration is not rewarded, weapons break for no reason (doesn't add difficulty or fun, it's just frustrating), shrines are repetitive, the list goes on. Nintendo rested on their laurels and released a literal 3/10 game but people still ate it up for some reason. I don't think I have ever been so disappointed with a game in my life, and I've been playing Zelda since I was four years old. I wasn't asking for much, perhaps if the map was 1/10th the size they could have spent more effort filling it with content. Elden Ring is in total juxtaposition. Exploration is rewarded with secret weapons, armor and skills that don't break and are actually useful. Your build is totally up to you and the wide variety means options for how you play the game, fight the bosses, and navigate enemy corridors is huge. FromSoft added respec this go around which lets you change it up if you're getting decimated over a bad build or just want to try something else. The bosses are unforgiving but manageable if you're resiliant. The map is still large enough to get lost in, but small enough that it doesn't feel empty. You're forced to ditch your horse in many areas out of respect for navigating on foot. And of course the story/lore which FromSoft is known for being bad at delivering (usually told through items and notes collected through the game) is leagues better than previous titles, having GRRM consult and help build out the lore was a brilliant idea as well. This game is 10/10, they did not compromise on their core values of delivering a legit challenge to players and improved upon every conceivable part of the game. If it's not clear, I really love this game. I'm 75hrs into my first playthrough and only 50% of the trophies achieved. This has been great value in my opinion.
    • andrewingram 5y ago
      I’m over 100 hours in, and it’s probably the most sticky gaming experience I’ve had in years. I’ve played most of the recent AAA open world games (Horizon Forbidden West, Far Cry 6, AC Valhalla etc), and Elden Ring is the only one that didn’t quickly descend into feeling like a chore. It’s got a lot of rough edges, but it’s an absolute breath of fresh air; and even my gf says it’s the one she’s enjoyed watching me play the most.
  • anothernewdude 5y ago
    I got bored quickly of BoTW, not so Elden Ring. I think because there was so little to do in BoTW.
    • cassianoleal 5y ago
      I had the opposite experience. When I got a Switch BotW was the only game worth playing on the platform. I played it for over a year exclusively and had fun all the way. I tried to play Elden Ring but I made the mistake of provoking an NPC and dying about 10 times until I figured out how to shake him off. Then I proceeded to die another 10-15 times on the next NPC and a dragon until I figured out how to run away from those. I gave up after dying again on the encounter that followed those. Eventually I'll try to play it again but at the moment I'm sunk into Ghost of Tsushima which is awesome.
    • Zizizizz 5y ago
      Elden Ring has far less variety than breath of the wild. Unless you count killing things in different locations variety. https://youtu.be/9EvbqxBUG_c https://youtu.be/9EvbqxBUG_c This video gives a fraction of some of the interesting world interactions and enemy ai that I found more enjoyable as a game. You can interact with chests, doors, and levers and talk to people. I think that's it outside combat.
      • mercer 5y ago
        I think it's more about the variety that one cares about. I love both BotW and Elden Ring, but I could see either one 'lacking' somewhat in variety depending on what I choose to care about more.
  • Bombthecat 5y ago
    I didn't like botw.. At all! Maybe I'm too old for "giant world survival crafting exploration" time of games. I don't know. It felt all wrong and... Hacked together? Like they planned a different game and then put the zelda theme on top of it. Something like that..
  • Bayart 5y ago
    >or something as simple as picking up consumables with a simple press of a button with no animations That's something they probably picked up from Monster Hunter.
  • historia_novae 5y ago
    >best open world games released in the last 20 years, [...] I'm talking about Breath of the Wild. BotW, if it wasn't for the Zelda tag in it's name, would have been judged for what it truely is: a very mediocre game. It does almost eveything wrong: the reward loop isn't satisfactory because getting a weapon that will break after a few hit feel useless, the cooking system has no tutorial and is hard to understand wihtout looking up on the internet and once understood is very tedious to use more a few time in a row, there is a lack a variety in enemies that are just copy-pasta of each other, the rain is basically stopping exploration as soon as it starts, thunder is even more infuriating: it's just a punishing mechanic that does the finger to the player, the world is big but empty, the shrines are mini-games designed by interns and feel often very out of place just as the UI (the red magnet for instance) are breaking immersion, the controls... oh the controls there are 16 different buttons + 2 joysticks (that are also clickable) on the Switch and every. single. of. them. is. used. for some action. That's 20 input to remember (I don't), bring me back the GameCube controller with its 7 buttons please! Aweful monetization too: a basic feature in an adventure game (path roamed by the player) is locked behing a DLC, and a lot of equipments are locked behind physical and expensive DLC (Amiibo). Very few memorable NPCs, forgettable music, almost no story, the list goes one. In conclusion: this is likely the most overrated game in existence. But a Zelda (or Mario or Pokemon) in the name and people will buy it and like it whatever the quality. I regretted almost instantly spending money on it.
    • philistine 5y ago
      Your criticism is far from unique. A ton of people criticized the game for exactly what you say. However, those weaknesses turn into strengths for the vast majority of people. Take raining for example. I hate the rain, but I’m glad it’s there. It forces you to change your plan when it starts. Some of my most memorable moments where after the rain forced me to rethink traversal. Weapon durability was a common critique, but once again it’s to force you to change your weapons. Not to get married to any weapon style, and to savagely throw your weapons at your enemies. I love it.
    • footlose_3815 5y ago
      [dead]
  • threatofrain 5y ago
    I'm surprised many sing high praises for BoTW. When compared to the rest of the Zelda franchise, BoTW looks unloved to me. Shrines and Korok leaves are chores and treasures are just variations of stats. In prior Zeldas, dungeons were architecturally complicated and treasures would bring a new kind of ability.
    • oonerspism 5y ago
      It's just a different formula. The elements are mostly still there.
    • philistine 5y ago
      I think you’re correctly criticizing the weakest aspect of the game: the dungeons. They are not as inventive or unique as in previous games. They all use the same textures, which is so tiring after a while. As Nintendo and Monolith Soft (the secret MVPs of that game) develop sequels based on the formula, they’ll close the dungeon gap and give us even better games. Looking at the trailers for the sequel, I’m pretty convinced this will be the big difference; unique dungeons based on their previous work.
      • skhr0680 5y ago
        I liked the puzzles in the BOTW dungeons, and nothing in them made me rage as much as Snowhead Temple, especially the very last puzzle in it
    • skhr0680 5y ago
      The BOTW map is insane, every nook and cranny feels unique and memorable, and the features are spaced out perfectly. There were so many times I felt like I was being clever by eating stamina items to climb a cliff or parasail further… …to find a Korok at the exact spot I “cheated” to get to. > Shrines and Korok leaves are chores They’re designed to be fun if you discover them naturally instead of actively trying to get them all. Getting 13 hearts and two stamina wheels only takes about half the shrines, and I felt like I had plenty of inventory space after 200 or so Koroks, not to mention the “reward” for going to the trouble of getting all of the Koroks
  • Shadonototra 5y ago
    • linkdd 5y ago
      You need to chill and calm down a bit. Your comment is full of hate because someone basically have a different opinion than you. This is toxic and I expect it to get flagged pretty quickly.
      • Shadonototra 5y ago
        Hate? arguments is what you describe as hate? Bring arguments please instead of trying to fight with attempts to silence someone Are we on a Chinese/Russian website? Offended because you don't know how to reply.. weird If you disagree with me, you downvote, it's that simple, why trying to censor everything?
        • linkdd 5y ago
          > the zoomers need to stop with their nintendo simping, it's cringe, the same people who promote the cancerous pedo-anime culture from japan So this is not hate to you? Basically insulting a complete generation, fans of a franchise, making dubious comparison with unrelated things and accusations of pedophilia? Are you a joke? > Bring arguments please Read siblings comments, I already explained my point of view.
          • deleted 5y ago
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          • Shadonototra 5y ago
            • linkdd 5y ago
              What does it have to do with Zelda games? You keep saying I'm offended like it's some sort of magical word to dismiss what I'm telling you. You keep making assumptions and accusations about me and an entire fandom, for what reasons? Because we like a game you don't? Grow up.
  • footlose_3815 5y ago
    [dead]
• troon-lover 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
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• MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  My own thoughts on Elden Ring are pretty simple. Give the players an absolutely gigantic open world map that you can basically travel from one end to the other without fighting anything, just for exploration's sake. Fill it with thoughtful mob-level NPC placement, making the higher level areas have higher level NPCs. Throw in a giant array of weapons, spells, skills and upgrades to choose from. Throw bosses around everywhere and lock some gear and progress behind them, but not too much. Finally, let the player decide how they want to approach the game and what quests they want to attack. This is a game that doesn't have any real "systems" past stats and stat affinities, but instead of making it limited, it makes the game incredibly replayable. There was at least one boss that I would probably have needed to level another 20 or so levels to beat, but instead of the slow offensive skill I was using, I instead equipped Quickstep on my katana and suddenly I was able to dodge attacks that were crushing me before. Do I think some sort of internal recordkeeping for quests would help? Absolutely. I like that there's no checklist on the screen so that the game doesn't seem like a chore. But you know what the game never asks me to do? Go gather 20 of a certain item. Go kill 30 of a certain creature. There are questlines with multiple parts to be sure, but most of them are going to take a while as you actually fight your way through the world. Because the focus of Fromsoft is on the player experience with world interaction and not with systems design, I will probably play through the game 3 or 4 more times in succession. I'm familiar with the game now, but I'm playing a bandit. Next time, it will be a magic user. The time after, a strength. Then a faith build. It can be frustrating to pick up items that you can't use, and while the game does give you the ability to respec your character to take advantage of all the stuff you find, I'm eager to continue my current playthrough on the path I chose from the start. Best game I've ever played, and a vast improvement over the chore simulators that have come to dominate the market.
  • uejfiweun 5y ago
    Yeah, one thing that Elden Ring did very well was the pacing. In other open world games, generally my first action item is to go and collect every fragment of the map, then start doing missions. In Elden Ring this is impossible, it literally took me over 100 hours to find some of the map pieces. Makes the game feel much larger and more like a grand adventure.
  • 5y ago
• uejfiweun 5y ago
  Just a phenomenal game. IMO, all the From Games are great, but none of them really matched up to the original Dark Souls... until now. I've literally played this every day since it came out, I have over 150 hours, and I still haven't beat it. And still I'm discovering cool new areas, items, and lore. The amount of times I've gotten to a new area and just gone "what in the actual fuck" is too many to count, it's just jam packed full of surprises and cool sights to see. Of course, I think that "open world" is a pretty broad label at this point, as there are other open world games that are totally different from ER but just as good. For instance, Fallout 4 (survival). It doesn't have as good enemy variety, locations, or combat as ER, no question, but the questlines are a lot better, the settlement stuff is awesome, and the general level of interactivity makes it an experience just as immersive as ER. But overall, for that type of "combat/exploration" focused open world game, ER absolutely takes the cake. I hope the BOTW sequel takes some inspiration, especially for the dungeons. But I do think Bethesda still rules for the "simulation" style open world games.
  • glouwbug 5y ago
    You sure? Bethesda has rereleased the same game 7 times in the last 10 years.
    • yen223 5y ago
      I am partial to the argument that Fallout: New Vegas is close to the perfect open-world game out there. It gets the open-world aspects right. All of the world is accessible from the start, the only limitations being your ability to tackle stronger enemies (like deathclaws). Exploration is rewarding, not forced. The world is designed such that exploration is driven less by quest markers, but by the player noticing interesting things in the world, like say a giant dinosaur out in the distance. It has a main storyline, but it is a storyline that can accomodate a huge variety of choices made throughout the game. There's no artificial "essential NPC" mechanic, you can literally kill everyone in the game and the story still works. This makes the game very immersive - the player has absolute free choice in how they want to approach the game, and more importantly it feels like the choices you make and the factions you side with actually matter to the world
• whoknew1122 5y ago
  I think author is forgetting a very important part: From it's beginning, Elden Ring was positioned as a soulslike game. People walk into a soulslike game knowing they're going to get wrecked often and things are going to be difficult. This gives developers freedom like abbreviated tutorials, making the player character a non-hero, etc. Linear storylines and sidequests, are often used as interactive tutorials. They give the player some structure within the game. For example, in Dying Light 2, a level 1 player is partitioned off from level 6 areas. A level 1 player facing off hordes of level 6 zombies, volatiles, etc. will have no shot. That would be frustrating for players not explicitly looking for that sort of experience. In soulslike games, it's expected that your hand isn't going to be held and you might blindly walk into areas for which you're severely under equipped. That's a part of the experience, which again, is expected by players when they load up Elden Ring for the first time. TL/DR: Elden Ring can have an organic open world without linear quest elements, because that's what players expect when picking up the game.
  • KptMarchewa 5y ago
    >In soulslike games, it's expected that your hand isn't going to be held and you might blindly walk into areas for which you're severely under equipped. Game even goes out of it's way to place Sellia Crystal Tunnel teleporter extremely close to start point if you immediately start going east.
    • lagmos 5y ago
      Yeah. Getting teleported was almost the first thing that happened to me in the game. Way befor getting a horse
      • andrewingram 5y ago
        What I like about the game is that once you’ve been down a path once, you can usually repeat it without stopping to fight or getting hurt. That cave is a prime example, it only takes about 10 seconds to get from the place you get trapped to the site of Grace once you know where it is.
  • 5y ago
• Spivakov 5y ago
  "When it comes to open-world games, I’ve never liked the “fakeness” of the open-world and why games like Skyrim, Horizon, the Assassin’s Creeds, and so on, didn’t interest me." Skyrim and AC are milestones in open-world design around 2010. Sort of mind-blowing if you played them at their initial release. Horizon, though not being top, also has its own merit. I wonder how can an author comment on open world design when literally any other open-world game does not interest him. I could just be angry because he acclaimed ER without being fair about game design as a progress over time.
  • brazzledazzle 5y ago
    Horizon Forbidden West feels overly polished. Like they brought in the best people to improve things but the end result is like eating 12 courses of the same perfectly prepared chicken breast. It’s good but feels like it’s missing something the guest had. Its story isn’t bad, you feel urgency and care about the characters. There’s powerful moments. It checks the boxes. But this gives the game a dramatically different feel from the first. HZD seemed to generate a lot of discussion about how it’s a great science fiction story, and it is, but it’s also a really dark tale that feels hopeless even when you know how it ultimately plays out. It told two very different stories side by side and one of them was a history in our future that was utterly bleak and it told you in a way that held little back. It truly felt like every time you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. And then Ted Faro murdered the Zero Dawn architects and deleted all of the teaching data thus dooming an entire world of unborn children to a life free from safety, food security, needless infant mortality, medicine and reading. All to hide his shame from a future he wouldn’t even be alive in. And then we learned he got to go live in his bunker while Elisabet suffocated to death in front of her childhood home. It was infuriating but fitting. There’s bits of that sprinkled throughout Forbidden West but they’re not given the stage.
    • thatswrong0 5y ago
      It was kind of an impossible task for Forbidden West to replicate the experience of Zero Dawn.. to me the magic of the first game was entirely based around the discovery of why the world became the way it did. The mystery of the second game is not about the state of the world, but instead one cliffhanger aspect from the last game (what caused Hades to go rogue?). But I’m in complete agreement about with the OP about the “overpolished” aspect of Forbidden West.. just check out the Horizon subreddit right now. They just released a patch that nerfed the legendary weapons in the game. There was no real reason to do that. They didn’t feel horribly broken (especially for how much grinding it takes to upgrade them and how expensive their ammo is to craft). And come on: it’s a single player game. No idea what’s going on at that studio right now.. maybe gearing up for DLC.
• sk1pper 5y ago
  The commentary around organic learning reminds me of The Outer Wilds. Imho it’s an even more extreme case of what the author is getting at here: (very mild spoilers follow) there are no stats or levels in The Outer Wilds; there are no upgrades (mild spoiler because I spent like 75% of the game thinking I’d get some sort of item to help me deal with various obstacles eventually, but nope). The game randomly picks a planet at the beginning and suggests you start there, but you can truly just fly around and do whatever you want, and the only factor that limits what you can do is how well you understand the mechanics of the universe and its various planets. It encourages experimentation, and there’s never a lack of leads on what to go experiment with, because it has a system that kind of takes notes for you and gently indicates when there are more clues to be uncovered in a given area.
  • fer 5y ago
    I read the article and ctrl+f'd Outer Wilds straight away. It's an extreme case indeed, the game does very little hand-holding, while being tremendously complex and interconnected. The only thing that unlocks parts of the game is what you learn from it, and those details and mechanics are what enable to progress. The downside is that it has very little replay value (you can beat the game within 5min if you already did before), but the path to get there is difficult, engaging, and extremely rewarding. It's difficult to describe Outer Wilds, but I'd put it as an "open-world Portal", only it has numerous Portal-like quicks in itself.
    • ehsankia 5y ago
      I highly recommend both Tunic and The Witness if you enjoyed Outer Wilds. But yes, the concept of "knowledge" being the power ups you gain throughout the game is truly done fantastically in Outer Wilds, and few other games come close to replicating it.
      • mjevans 5y ago
        Tunic does a lot of things well for a modern game. There are secrets to discover, an interesting map, accessibility options that open the game to audiences that don't do as well with keyboards or console controllers. There's a unique in game language (and a good, and then really good hint in the game on how to crack into it); but it is _not_ required to even get the good ending. Just enough of the lore's surface is there and a player still has a good chance of reaching the good ending. All the more so after seeing the bad and then reloading the save file (standard game mechanics). Some fans have even put together decoder tables to assist translation of the game language to English; as well as a version of the manual that's completely translated if you don't have the time or desire to do that.
• ohCh6zos 5y ago
  I adore this game, mostly because of what it is lacking. I know it isn't for everyone but I'm glad something like this exists.
• pmarreck 5y ago
  I guess I'm finally an old out-of-touch gamer since these FromSoftware fights are too frustrating and I'm still happily playing a (heavily) modded Skyrim
  • Tarq0n 5y ago
    The combat of fromsoft games is genuinely terrible, but this time around you can do some powerleveling strategies and then just enjoy the world.
• xwdv 5y ago
  Aye, what we need are more open world games where the point is really more to explore the world and it’s details, kind of like you’re reading a book. The purpose of carrying weapons is more to defend yourself from things that might try to kill you along the way as you explore, rather than purposefully going out to seek combat. And perhaps most quests aren’t even combat related, but rather just ways to see interesting storylines unfold and reveal things about life in this world.
• 0F 5y ago
  I used to love video games in 2010. I loved Skyrim and counterstrike. And in the last 4 years or so I have just stopped liking them. It just seems so boring. Online games are just a contest of who’s willing to sink the most time or money into oblivion. Single player games boil down to the story/writing so why not just read a book or watch a movie? And even then, why bother with a fictional story when I can read some non-fiction which is much more interesting?
  • astrange 5y ago
    Soulslikes don’t have “story” in the sense of other CRPGs that constantly dump words upon words on you and have romance systems that are just dungeons inside a dialog tree. Actually, most Japanese games aren’t like that at the moment. There’s a move away from turn based JRPGs to having more action.
  • k8sToGo 5y ago
    Only game I play mostly these days is flight simulator. I guess it is a different type of gaming, but I agree with you. I have lost interest in most normal Games as well.
  • kadoban 5y ago
    Games aren't for everyone, and aren't for every stage of life. Nothing wrong with that. Some of that just isn't true though. I can't remember the last single player game I really cared about the story, I mostly skip it. Gameplay is solid in _many_ games these days, or a huge variety of types. For example, Elden Ring, the story is not a lot more than: there's an Elden Ring you should go explore the world and find, have fun. It's pretty far from a book in game form. This is probably the best time to be a gamer there's ever been, the only real blemish being that GPUs are ridiculously priced right now.
    • thatguy0900 5y ago
      Souls games have always been more about world building than story. The stuff going on in the background with small lore snippets here and there is really good, the actual story is always hardly existent.
• langsoul-com 5y ago
  One con of open world is that it's so big they fill it with junk to do to not bore the player. But most of that gets boring fast.
  • Trasmatta 5y ago
    Elden Ring doesn't really have a lot of junk in the open world. It's somewhat sparse compared to most other open worlds, which works to its benefit. The Catacombs and random ruins do start to get repetitive, though.
• k8sToGo 5y ago
  I personally found the Open World of Red Dead Redemtpion 2 much better.
  • Epskampie 5y ago
    Really? I loved RD2 for it’s story and characters, but the world itself was quite bland to me. There is very little highlights, once you’ve seen one town you’ve seen them all. Also most missions are tied to the story and very linear, so it’s hardly “open” to begin with. Not to say the game isn’t a masterpiece, but one in storytelling.
• gernb 5y ago
  Plea for tips... I tried to play Elden Ring, no knowledge, lover of BotW, and ... I first picked Wretch. I didn't know that it matter and maybe it doesn't but it seemed more cool to start with wimpy looking character and see it get built up. But, AFAICT after getting to the first hard character in the training pit, Wretch is meant for a hard challenge So I started over with whatever the first character is (already forgot what they called that type of character). Jumped in the training pit again and .... got to the first hard character and died. Zero indication what I'm supposed to do. Extremely infuriating programming that it takes sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to start from the last statue. Like gees! Literally no more than 1-2k of data changed but lazy programmers mean I have to wait way to long to try again. That's a hard punishment on dying but with zero help and zero instruction there was no way I was going to go through the torture of figuring out how to fight that first guy. Yea, I blocked with my shield but if he hits me once I'm dead because my character doesn't recover in time to get out of the way for the next hit. I get fans love this difficulty. I hate it. It's not something that Zelda games do (I know, From Software fans will say Zelda sucks). But ugh, at least train me a little? I feel zero of this famed "it's so great because you know what you did wrong so you'll try again". No, I don't know what I did wrong. All I know is "You Died" now wait too long to see "Yo Died" again with zero help. What am I missing?
  • prometheon1 5y ago
    Tips: - Watch YouTube videos, there are beginners guides, tips and tricks, etc. - Try to see each death as a challenge, what can you try next time to potentially not die? Dying and improving is “the process” in these games.
  • Geee 5y ago
    Did you miss the tutorial? You said 'training pit', which should be it. It literally tells you what to do. Basically, use target lock, roll when enemy attacks and then try to hit.
    • gernb 5y ago
      No I didn't miss the tutorial. But I didn't need to role to beat the guy that it fails to teach you to roll on. I say fails, because in old Zelda's you literally couldn't pass a training course until you could successfully pull off the move where has here it was easy to kill the guy without using the move at all.
• larsrc 5y ago
  Oh, that game sounds a lot like Savage Lands, at least in the sense the author focuses on.
• flohofwoe 5y ago
  Elden Ring is a wonderful game, but by far not the first open world game which ignores the "Ubisoft collectathon formula". Another somewhat recent example which creates a wonderfully unique world: Witcher 3. Or going much further back in time, the Ultima games (which peaked at Ultima VII). Such games are much more appealing to 'explorer types', less to 'completionist/achiever types'.
• chmod775 5y ago
  This YouTube video is a much better treatment of the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-as8kVASgXw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-as8kVASgXw
• cardanome 5y ago
  I know the Gothic series[1] isn't that well known outside Europe but it feels weird to see ER hyped for things that a nearly twenty old series was famous for. Organing Learning You don't matter There’s Always a Plan B Letting the Player Breathe Everything you need to learn, you learn by exploration. There are no tutorial, no hints, no hand holding. You are just some dude. Nobody even cares to know your name and even low level NPCs can beat you up. (Though of course the power fantasy here is that after many hours of playing you earn your place and become the hero but again, that needs to be earned.) Enemy too strong for you? You can try to run around it. You can use a magic spell. You can master the combat system. You can lure it towards an NPC that might finish it off. Or you can just grind up your stats and come back later. So many ways to solve a problem. Sadly even the studio was never able to recreate the magic fully in further games. Though Elex is quite decent but sadly had to make a few compromises. [1] Gothic 1 and 2 and add-on explicitly excluding Gothic 3 which plays differently
• mswtk 5y ago
  This is just plainly false. While not quite as bad as the average Ubisoft game, Elden Ring's world design is very similar to Elder Scrolls, Skyrim in particular. Most of what the author brings up are aspects of the game not related to the open world. The open world itself is not nearly as trend-bucking as a lot of other game design decisions From Software make, which is honestly a bit disappointing. In general, Elden Ring is their closest game to a typical AAA title, a lot of the quirks and contrarian elements from their earlier games are absent in it.
  • sbcd 5y ago
    Yeah. I've finished Elden Ring, and as a long time admirer of what From Software did to revitalize the action RPG genre, I felt the open world was a deeply unnecessary addition that brings nothing but time wasters. The truly wonderful content of Elden Ring is in the areas that received the level of care all souls games have, the legacy dungeons. Stormveil, Raya Lucaria, Leyndell, the sewers.. The basic open world fields present no challenge, nothing of value, no amount of enemy ambushes can stop you from just bugging away on the horse, the areas you "explore" as you discover the world consists of copy pasted dungeon tilesets with just a few variations that were hand crafted, I've seen multiple copies that were 1:1 of some rooms in places like caves, catacombs and so on. Bosses are reused to the point of exhaustion. There's like more than 10 bosses that are essentially clones of Dark Souls 1 first boss, the Asylum Demon, just with one or two new moves, and its attack hitting you harder than the boss it clones. The game cannot receive the excuse that "you can just skip this content, it's optional" either, because it was purposefully designed to force you to do open world chores if you want to get the "full experience". Upgrading weapons other than the ones that use somber stones is very painful if you do not explore the countless repetitive mining tunnels filled with mostly the same enemies and with always a copy pasted boss at the end, where in a previous souls games the materials would be laying around in places you'd naturally traverse as you complete the game, here, the Legacy Dungeons do not offer much in the way of materials, and you would miss on a lot of game lore if you didn't complete the copy pasted content because this is, after all a souls game, and souls games have most of their writing in... item descriptions. It worked ok in a 40 hours game like Dark Souls 3 where you'd pick up items as you progress through the game. It's.. infuriating when you're told you need to do 140 hours of copy pasted content to experience the same amount of -actual- content other souls games give you. In many ways, the side content of this game feels like.. Bloodborne's computer generated Chalice Dungeons, which were a completely optional side feature of the game that could be safely ignored and left aside. Except that this time, From removed much of the content you'd find on the normal game path, and threw it all around those new chalice dungeons. Cool weapons, unique talismans, the game lore.. if you don't do this mind numbing copy pasted content you're only getting half a game. I know, with all the accolades this game received from the gaming press, and the sales it achieved, earning itself a large part of a new audience that never played souls games, I just know, we're never going to see a traditional game by From software anymore, and I'm sad. I don't want more open world drudgery. The world didn't need another developer to fall into this trap. Elden Ring doesn't have the quest compass, the quest log and other "easy mode" features of a game like skyrim. But it does have the copy pasted ultra linear dungeons that you complete in 5 minutes, it does have the repeated dragon fights that are all the same except one does a breath attack with blue colors and another does flamey breath attacks. It does have the formulaic world structure - each part of the map must contain X number of objectives to do. In Elden Ring, these are : each "square" of the map has 1 catacomb, 1 or multiple caves, tunnels, "hero tomb" with a chariot that instantly kills whatever it runs over, 1 dragon to kill, 1 Erdtree avatar or putrid tree spirit, 1 church with an upgrade for your flask, 1 tower with a ridiculously simple """puzzle""" (but often time consuming, like find three hidden turtles to kill on the island to open it), 1 evergaol with a boss you fight in an open arena... How, exactly, is this game a breakthrough going against the grain of open world design? It doesn't go against the grain, it followed the formula to a T. Lacking the UI of mainstream games doesn't mean the world isn't designed like a Bethesda or Ubisoft game. The only thing that is unique to Elden Ring, is the parts that was already done by every other From games. The open world of ER, though, is nothing new, nothing grounds breaking and its main purpose is to inflate the amount of playtime. I understand de gustibus and all that... but, unanimous 10/10 in the gaming press? Is that all it took? If I was a game developer at Bethesda or Ubisoft, I would be very angry with the state of the gaming press.
• bezospen15 5y ago
  Elden ring is the worst game I've played. I'm convinced it has become a meme game. I returned it after just a day of playing it. Trash
  • Trasmatta 5y ago
    This comment reminds me of Shuhei Yoshida comments on Demon's Souls while it was in development: > "For my personal experience with Demon's Souls, when it was close to final I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game," he admitted. "I said, 'This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game'. So I put it aside." He later became a massive fan of the series. These games don't click with everyone, but they're not meme games. And for some people, it takes awhile before they finally understand the appeal. I hated every second of Dark Souls until I got about 7 hours in (due to continual prodding by a friend), and then everything clicked, and suddenly I couldn't play or think about anything else for a very long time.
  • IceDane 5y ago
    Elden Ring is easily one of the better games I've played in a good while. I still wanted to throw it away the first day. The worst part about it is how clunky and unintuitive some of the things are, and how incredibly poor the PC port is in UX. Some controls can't even be changed, or even seen anywhere in the settings page. In general, though, I think it's pretty safe to assume that when millions of people are enjoying something and you aren't, it's probably because it's a good thing in the grand perspective, and it's you that doesn't "get it". Assuming that it's a "meme" is kind of like ignoring overwhelming evidence proving you wrong and thinking everyone else is an idiot.