I want to talk more about Elden Ring, of course. Here is my post from yesterday. Now. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Elden Ring has been rightly lauded with changing the open world genre. This is the aspect I was most worried about before the game released because I don’t like open world games in general. The Witcher 3 was a brilliant game for the first 2/3rds of the game, but then it went quickly downhill in the last act. Look. It’s not a combat game. The combat is probably the least-interesting/least-developed/most-untenable aspect of the game. I don’t think many people played the game for the combat. I could be wrong, but that’s my sense. Once I learned and upgraded Quen, that was that. I used Igni once in a while (because, hello, Pyro!), but Quen was so useful, why would I use anything else?
The combat was simple and clunky, and I merely endured it. Yes, I’m a snob after having played FromSoft games, but there you go. It never felt good, and I never much cared for it. There never was a time when I thought, “Oh, yay. I get to fight.” In fact, one of the reasons I quit the first DLC (Not the biggest reason, but a big enough reason) was because of the combat. After being nonsense for the whole game and not that difficult, they pull out a boss fight that is actually hard-ish. Then, to add insult to injury, he’s invincible, so it didn’t matter,, anyway. It was such a waste of time and energy.
One of the things I did not like about The Witcher 3 was that it showed everything you could do on the map. It was overwhelming, plus, it ruined any sense of surprise. I did not like having a map littered with icons, and I am not the only one. I have seen several people talk about opening up a map and being overwhelmed by everything there was to do.
Before Elden Ring was released, I was worried about the map aspect. FromSoft doesn’t DO maps, except for the joke map in Sekiro (which I will go to my grave believing that they put in the game because of Activision, bleah). Of course, there had to be a map in a game this size. It would have been a nightmare to navigate without one. Even if I could map out each individual area (which I can to a certain extent, at least with the beginning areas), I really appreciate being able to pull up the map and see where I am. Also, the way they implemented the map is brilliant. I don’t think they get enough credit for it, to be honest.
Most open world games have a full map that is dripping with intrusive icons that tell you where to go and what to do. FromSoft took one look at the typical Ubisoft map and said, “Nah, we’re good.” In brief, the map is foggy in the areas in which you have not been in. There are some unobtrusive icons behind the fog, such as the steles where the map fragments are. Map fragments! Yes. Oh, how I adore them. They are dotted across the map, usually on steles in camps with lots of soldiers. They are always surrounded, and you have to make the decision if you want to dash in and grab the map fragment or kill maybe a dozen enemies to get it. When you nab a map fragment, a new part of your map is revealed. And the points of interest in that area, but they are not named until you get to them. There are a few things on the map like where the mines are located, but they are unobtrusive and easily missable. The mine indication, for instance, is only a rock-like object in a light orange crater. It’s very small and if you don’t know what it is, easy to dismiss.
It’s a thrill to fill out your map. Going through the game and watching your map grow. And grow. And grow. I’m still amazed at how huge the game is. I put in 225+ hours in my first playthrough. Yes, that’s partly because I suck at the games, but it’s also because there is so much game to play, for better and for worse. Everyone knows of Limgrave, the first area, but even that has sub-areas. Weeping Peninsula and Stormveil Castle, for two. I spent ten hours in Limgrave without even getting to Stormveil Castle.
There are ways to get to later areas through warping, and that’s always interesting, too. It gets marked on your map, but there is fog around it because you did not get there organically. I love, love, love the map because it is useful without being intrusive. There is a mini-map, but it is not choked with icons. In fact, it really doesn’t do much at all except show you where your dropped Runes are. Oh, and if you have pinned a marker, it’ll show you that, too. But that’s it. It’s not a mini-map. It’s just a line at the top of the screen. To be honest, I rarely even look at it. Very rarely.
The open world aspects are my least-favorite parts of the game, by the way. This is after hundreds of hours of playing. I explored the shit out of the game in my first playthrough. If there was a cave, I explored it. If there was a field boss, I fought it. I didn’t ride by anything (at least not until I died to that thing). On my fourth playthrough, however, I find myself rebelling at going into yet another cave/catacomb that is nearly identical to all the others. Those fucking gargoyles, man. They have no business being as tough as they are. In my first playthrough, I got tired of the caves/catacombs after the third or fourth one. It did not help that enemies are so heavily recycled in them or that the bosses aren’t that memorable.
Full disclaimer: I hated the Chalice Dungeons of Bloodborne so it makes sense that I hated the caves/catacombs in Elden Ring as well. They all look the same even though they have different twists, and there were times when I sighed out loud because I could not find the goddamn lever. There are a few interesting ones, but for the most part, they are just tired clones of each other. FromSoft could have easily cut the number in half and not missed a beat. They are the one thing in the game that feels like filler, but, again, I am someone who loathed the Chalice Dungeons in Bloodborne. The one unique boss at the end of one of the string of Chalice Dungeons was not enough to save the concept. I’m angry that I did not realize early enough that for the plat, you only had to do that one line of CDs because you only needed to kill the one unique boss. I did most of the CDs before I realized this was the case and immediately went down that path.
There is no reason for the caves/catacombs except to stretch the amount of content. It’s not needed! There is plenty of content and I really don’t think anyone would have been upset if there were half the amount of caves/catacombs. Dare I say if there were none at all? I dare. I don’t really think they added anything to the experience, but again, this is my bitterness of the Chalice Dungeons seeping in. And my hatred of the gargs.
Running long again. I will be going over all this in much shorter form for the end-of-the-year awards, but let me end this post by saying I want a physical rendition of the map–it’s that good.