Hooooo boy. Here we go.

So before anyone says anything, as the tag says i have not completed Elden Ring. I want to, but there is just SO MUCH of the map that I haven't even touched yet and I intend to keep playing further. That being said, here is my opinion on the game after beating its main story.

This will be a longer review so if you want the TLDR; Elden Ring is another shining example of what open world games should be. It is a game that emphasizes the pure wonder of exploring and traversing an ever interesting world in the form of The Lands Between, one of the best areas I've ever been to in a game. The game looks beautiful, has an absolutely awesome soundtrack, and has some of the most fluid and fun FromSoft combat ever. It's not without hitches to its performance, UI/UX Design, Quest design, and lacking certain features that would elevate the game further, they ultimately pale in comparison to one of the best experiences ive ever had with an action game.

Simply put, this is the best fromsoftware game, a top 3 open world game, and a true masterpiece in design that should be studied for years to come.

That was the TLDR; so here is the full long bit talking more in depth on certain things I breezed past.

A lot of people in their reviews of this game like to compare it to Breath of the Wild, a game that similarly shook how open world games should be designed. While it's fine to compare the two games, to say that Elden Ring is objectively better than BOTW is missing the true beauty of the fact that Elden Ring is in this style.

Its like that meme where it's like "Holy shit! Two cakes!" I thought that in the 5 years after BOTW we wouldn't get an open world game quite like it again. Some have come close like Sable, but none have quite reached that point until Elden Ring. This proves that this isn't a fluke, and I am now going to expect that future open world games would put more effort into their world, level, art, and traversal design to justify this open world. If Mario, Pokemon, Sonic, and other games are going to go the more open route, I hope that they take some pointers from this game.

Open World games were made to give players freedom. So give. players. freedom.

Additionally, I would also like to harp a bit on the games issues as stated above. REMEMBER. I LOVE THIS GAME. GOT IT?

That being said, my biggest issue with the game is its technical state and this is something that I feel like isn't that debated. Yeah, it kinda runs like shit, but not enough to ruin the experience. I thankfully played it on PS5, so its been relatively good throughout, but I feel SO SORRY for people who bought this on steam. Whenever it starts raining or whatever I tense up cus I know the performance is about to nosedive.

Additionally, the games UI is also not super great. It works, but I feel like not only is the layout not super easy to get used to, but the text size is too small, and the layout of everything is super weird. I got used to it but its absolutely not ideal.

The games quest design isn't bad, but its done in a way that I'm sure some people love, but I'm just not big on it. And finally, why is there no pause button during single player combat I died while standing in a perfectly safe area after trying to take a piss. Just let me pause the fuckin game.

Everything above except for the pause thing was mentioned in a thread by Ubisoft and Guerilla Games devs saying they don't like how successful ER is. And I'm not here to harp on them specifically. I'm sure that they're fine people and Horizon is a fairly respectable game, but both Horizon and [insert ubisoft open world game here] is the pivotal example of a kind of open world game that has nearly ruined the subgenre.

And thats the key here. It's very rare that a game makes me look back less positively on the games before and more skeptically at the games in the future due to its quality (hasn't happened since BOTW hey what a coincidence) but here it is. Now that Elden Ring has proved that excellent Open World design wasn't a one off fluke, it's time for the rest of the game industry to catch up.