If I wanted to, I could write a paean to Elden Ring that makes a solid case for how it’s a game changer. Literally. They took the tired old open world formula and made it exciting again. It’s funny because there were a few people at Ubisoft and Guerrilla Games who griped about Elden Ring invalidating their jobs such as UX developer. And saying that the protag needed to talk and other things. Though I’m not sure the latter wasn’t a really dark joke. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they meant it, too, because Aloy narrates EVERYTHING. It’s one of the complaints I’ve seen consistently about Horizon Forbidden West–that Aloy ruins the experience by narrating all the time. One YouTuber said he would race to figure out puzzles before Aloy would reveal the solution because it was so irritating to him. So, yeah, the tweet about the protag of Elden Ring needing to say things like, “I think I should go to that cave over there” doesn’t read like snark. It sounds like my idea of hell, by the way.
I’ve written before about how I don’t really like open world games, and much of what these developers said in distaste about Elden Ring are reasons I don’t like standard open world games. Things like a cluttered map, which I’ve seen several YouTubers mention as well (that they hate or that makes them anxious)–a map crammed with things to do. I’ve felt the same way with other open world games. Opening a map and seeing a zillion things to do is not a plus for me–it just makes me anxious and unhappy.
I cannot overstate how much I love the map in this game. And it’s actually the reason I thought up this post. There are many big things this game does that are amazing and jaw-dropping. There are, however, also many little things, little tweaks and adjustments they’ve made that have infinitely improved the quality of life while playing the game. To me, the map fits in both these categories. It’s a big change because they’ve never had a real map in one of their games. They had a joke overworld map in Sekiro that is hidden somewhere in the options menu. I maintain that they put it in because Activision (boooooo) made them do it. “You want a map? Fine. We’ll give you a map!” Fun fact. ‘Shadows died twice’ was a placeholder name they used internally. Activision made them use it as the subtitle for the game. Jokes on them–no one ever says it when talking about the game. It’s simply Sekiro. Anyway, fuck Activision!