As much as I hate to say it, after sinking 100 hours into Elden Ring, I'm going to have to set it aside for a while. I can't say that it meets the same level of intrigue, tension, and awe that I had experienced playing DS, DS3, and Bloodborne. In fact, at my current point, it feels, dare I say, boring.

It's tough to pin down exactly why. Perhaps it has something to do with the way I approached the game. The open world is technically impressive, but it's not exactly nonlinear, as I was hoping. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping to tackle certain areas out of the intended sequence, which is just not practical given each area's intrinsic level requirements.

Exploring the world just feels...slow and grindy. What I liked about DS and even DS3 is that the levels feel very tight--every corridor and hidden passage feels purposeful, and every transition to a new area is filled with intrigue. In the sprawling world of ER, I often struggle with feelings of redundancy and pointlessness, from repetitive mini-dungeons to featureless stretches of land.

Maybe I'm also doing myself a disservice with high expectations, now that I'm no longer a soulsbourne newbie, and I sort of have an idea of what to expect gameplay- and plot-wise this time around.

I'll pick it back up when the itch comes back, but right now, I'm just not feeling excited to play Elden Ring.