Elden Ring feels too big to wrap my arms around, to “review” in a traditional sense, to talk about every way Elden Ring iterates on the souls formula and why they do or don’t work for me (quick rapidfire: jumping has done absolute wonders for level design. They should have rethought weapon upgrading this time around. I think From has finally found ways to make pretty much every style of play interesting through new blocking mechanics, types of spells and incantations, etc. Spirit ashes are a delightful addition). Instead, here are some of my favorite gaming experiences ever. I hope reading them reminds you of them if you enjoyed those moments as much as I did.

Exploring Limgrave (maybe my favorite piece of open world design of all time), Sofria River elevator ride and level exploration, getting trapped chest teleported to Leyndell, Ancestor Spirit, experiencing Stormveil and Leyndell (and basically every other legacy dungeon just especially those two), my first overworld dragon encounter, looking over Liurnia for the first time, exploring Liurnia, Radahn (GOAT), discovering the hidden area behind Mohg the Omen, discovering the hidden area behind the hidden area behind Mohg the Omen, finally reaching the top of the Moonlight Alter after wandering about how to get up there for 40 hours, discovering the Haligtree and realizing how big it is, looking down from the Mohg Lord of Blood arena and realizing I am now standing at that high point of the underground always visible to the rest of the subterranean areas, Ranni questline, fighting Godfrey/Horah Loux, and so so much more.

Now for some shameless discourse participation.

Catacomb dungeons, mines, scattered enemy encampments, and other such open world typical “content” (here on out just referred to simply as catacombs, as they are the prime example) have come under a lot of fire. Often likened to Ubisoft’s open world design approach but without the map clutter, middling levels and encounters that feel just like padding and area population. At least in principle I understand the problem here and I agree. Do I wish every part of Elden Ring was handcrafted in the same way the game’s best, most focused levels and encounters are? Yeah. Are the catacombs, at least to some extent, padding? Of course. What is surprising to me though, is how central this seems to be to a lot of people’s experience with the game.

Breath of the Wild’s shrines are, to me, pretty comparable to ER catacombs. Both not great on average and both feel like they were given to junior designers to ship the game on time, both rarely memorable. Unlike BOTW’s shrines though, I never groaned when I came across a catacomb dungeon because I much more easily felt like I could walk right past them. Shrine rewards are too good to skip out on, you see them, you do them. Catacombs though, I mark them on my map, if I have a new spirit dude I want to upgrade or I want some runes, I knock 1 or 2 out, otherwise, pass.

This disposability and relative uselessness of catacombs work to their benefit. It makes them feel less like padding in the sense the game wants you to think it's bigger and longer than it is (my first playthrough was over 100 hours skipping many catacombs), and more like padding in that they recognize certain players are going to need more runes, want to upgrade more dudes and get more tools. They fade just completely into the periphery, tucked away (literally, some of these things are really hidden), not overly marring an otherwise stellar world.

The quality of catacombs obviously isn't really what is on trial here though, it's their existence at all, and by extension, Elden Ring’s open world-ness in general. Catacombs talk, discussion about the amount of Erdtree Avatars and overworld dragons, all contain implicit and sometimes explicitly stated questions. Does Elden Ring need to be an open world? Does it need to be as big as it is? Yeah of course.

Not for nothing, the game that would be created by vacuum sealing the open world sections, turning them into narrow straits between legacy dungeons would still probably be a good game, but it would be a worse one and it wouldn’t be Elden Ring. The obvious reason for this is how much the game’s exploration benefits from the ability to genuinely find things in a large open space. Various moments of discovery and exploration, many of which I listed above, are my favorites videogames have ever produced as a medium and are direct products of the open world.

There is a stranger and maybe less compelling reason to anyone who isn’t me though.

When I played Cyberpunk 2077 (a pretty bad game with a pretty bad open world) I remember my knee jerk kind of being that the game didn’t benefit from having an open world and that it would have been better had it been half the size and more focused. What would a more focused Cyberpunk 2077 even look like though? It isn’t like I particularly enjoyed any of the content populating the world besides exactly one main quest, so what would I have gotten out of a more focused Cyberpunk?

Looking back, pretty much the only thing I remember enjoying about Cyberpunk 2077 was just driving around Night City for a couple days early on in my playthrough. I realized then, that space is not merely a thing form fitted-ly surround gameplay with, it's an important, creative, aesthetic decision in itself. This is hypothetical, but a more focused Cyberpunk 2077 that neuters its open world in exchange for back to back to back mission experiences would transform it from a game that I didn’t very much enjoy but got some value out of, to what I imagine would have been one of the worst gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Cruising around, taking in the city from different angles, occasionally stopping in to random prosthetic shops and talking with NPCs is all Cyberpunk really had to offer to me. To offer that to me, Cyberpunk felt the need to include shitty repetitive content, but that repeated content just wasn’t at all my core problem with the game, the issues ran so much deeper.

Unlike Cyberpunk, I like the “core” content of Elden Ring, but my love of just riding around The Lands Between and taking it all in was a real draw for me that I can’t overstate. Elden Ring is big and alive! It’s exciting and interesting and full of wonder, and as a result, I don’t think open world exploration distracted or subtracted from my enjoyment of the legacy dungeons or major boss fights, if anything it emphasized them.

I guess what I hope to convey with this haphazard synthesis is that attrition, the literal passage of time and traversal of space holds real value in a way I don’t think is appreciated enough. The game taking 100 hours to beat, in my opinion, is cool. I know we have associations and suspicions about that sort of thing because of the state of AAA games, but I genuinely don’t think every game has to be an exercise in ultimate efficiency, especially when that attitude would detract so much value from a game like Elden Ring. Obviously with current technology and release schedules, this design philosophy is going to come with downsides. Bloat and repetition and so on and so on, but I can live with that, especially when I feel like Elden Ring really acknowledges that part of itself and tries to design around it.

Why do catacombs have so many ganks? Because they know they have to reuse bosses and enemies, so they pair them in new combinations to create the opportunity to use spirit summons (the reason you are ostensibly exploring catacombs) for new types of team battles. Why so many Erdtree Avatars? Because they make sense in the context of the world, are a nice easy influx of runes once you get the hang of them, and offer you more ways to upgrade your special flask. It feels like every piece of repeated content has a thoughtful explanation that doesn’t fix them or suddenly make them incredible pieces of game design, but at least keeps the game from feeling soulless or lacking in love and attention.

Elden Ring is a game that really attempts to capitalize on the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of an open world, and although it's not perfect, I really appreciate it. Maybe one day “open world” won’t be synonymous with “bloat” and “repetition” and pejorative use of the word “content”. If that ever does become the case, I hope that in the future people will look back and view the things that lend themselves to those descriptions as sort of quirks and idiosyncrasies that aren’t always bad if they represent some level of intentionality.

(Going to leave this for now. For future project or edits to this review: discussion of star systems, stock characters, and the ways in which ER feels like a collage of its predecessors. ER is the Irishman. Detailed discussion of how unbelievable stormveil castle (level) and radahn (boss) are. Marika is one of the coolest fromsoft characters. The ways in which Elden Ring’s storytelling feels distinct. Where does this style of game go from here if you are fromsoft)

Man this game was not nearly as good as it was hyped up to be

The individual levels are fine, nothing special. The bosses either die in 2 seconds or kill you in 2 seconds so there's no time to enjoy them.

The final levels are extremely frustrating and highlight the flaws of the power mechanics. This was by far the least enjoyable part of the game and left a bad taste.

The final boss essentially has you try every power until 1 random illogical one works. I was just glad it was over