I hate most traditional open world games. They’re filled with busy work just for the sake of making it appear as if the world is alive. You open the map and it’s crammed with icons of things you can do (which actually makes me anxious, by the way. That’s just way too much stuff). I think the way FromSoft has done the map is fucking brilliant.
You have to understand that From does not do maps. At all. They had one in Sekiro, but it was a joke map of the overworld that I think was pushed on them by (ugh) Activision. And it’s hidden in the menus under, I wanna say options, but I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s really funny and a way for FromSoft to push back on the ask.
When I heard that there was going to be a map in Elden Ring, I admit I was worried. I have a terrible sense of direction, but one reason I know the Dark Souls games so well is because I had to replay every area over and over and over again, dying several times in the process. And I’ve played each a dozen times at least. They are emblazoned in my brain and I can tell you where every enemy is placed.
So having a map worried me, even though I knew it was necessary for such a big game. I couldn’t imagine a map filled with NPCs and side quests and a million things you can do. Instead, From said, “OK. You need a map, but you’re going to have to EARN it.” To that end, the map is all fogged up when you get it. You have to find a stele with a map fragment on it to defog the area, and it’s done in sizeable chunks at the time. As you get closer to the stele, you can see a faint outline of it on the map. It’s usually best to rush to the stele to get the map fragment before you start exploring the area. There are icons on the map of what things are, but there are not a thousand side quests littering said map. I don’t have to collect five collectibles in each area–the same five collectibles to boot, just different amount in each area–or do endless identical fetch quests. There are fetch quests, but they’re unique and weird and all will probably end with someone dead. That’s the FromSoft way!
I’ve run into my second BAE–well, third, really–and I’m enjoying the idea of getting to know him until he is murdered. By me? Maybe, but he’s definitely going to die. And I haven’t met him, exactly, but his spirit form. He’s a wolf guy, and he’s fine. My first is in the Roundtable Hold–and I already know his fate because I read something else online and he was mentioned. That’s the trouble with Googling shit–you’re in danger of finding out things you’d rather not know.
Currently, I’m stuck in the second area. I don’t know where to go or how to make progress. I’m doing a side quest with my BAE, but I’d also like to know how to make progress in the second legacy dungeon. There doesn’t seem to be any way to go–but maybe I missed it. I probably need to look it up again, which means I might discover more spoilers. I’m also stuck in the optional area on a boss that I don’t want to fight. I’ve realized that fighting the bosses is not what I want to be doing with my life. Unlike in Souls games where I was perfectly content to fight a boss repeatedly for hours, I get impatient after four or five tries.
There are a few reasons for this. One, these are my bonus days. My mindset changed drastically when I woke up from my medical trauma. I didn’t have time for anything extraneous or meaningless and, well, fighting bosses solo was not at the top of my to-do list any longer. In addition, there are a million bosses in this game. Seriously, a million. So fighting each one solo will take me F-O-R-E-V-E-R. It’s not that I have to finish the game in any given time, but I do want to keep up with other people. At least keep going at a decent clip. I do like finding out what people discover. For example, Ian started another game after finishing Dark Souls and relayed to me about a chest he found that transported him to another much harder area. I had been in the chest’s area, but I had not found it. I knew it existed from other games journalists talking about their experience in the second experience they had with it pre-release, but sort of forgot about it because I hadn’t found it myself. I went to the area where Ian said it was and found the chest. I opened it and jumped back so I wasn’t taken by the trap. Then, I let the trap take me and ended up in a mine in Caelid, which is a much harder area. There were two bug overseers who had homing magicks–and they suuuuucked. I tried to transport back–no dice. I tried to teleport out–no dice. I had an item that could take me to the last Site of Grace I had touched without my runes, but I wanted to see if I could make it out of the mines alive. I didn’t want to just race through so I took my time fighting the enemies. I finally made it out and then explored the area. I found another NPC side quest, which I duly noted in my notes.
This was the first chest you could conceivably find. Think about that. How freaked out you’d be to suddenly be transported to another area–and then not have a way to get out of that area without running through it. Mimic chests are bad enough, but trap chest? The stuff of nightmares. But it’s a way that From has kept things fresh and exciting. Normally, a chest is filled with goodies and something that will help you in your journey. In other Souls games, you also had a slight chance of it being a Mimic chest, which meant it could chomp you and kill you. By the way, the Mimic’s teeth are fingers. How horrifying is that? From decided that wasn’t enough, so they upped the terror factor to a hundred by making it so the chest can take you to a terrible place from which you can’t escape.
This game has changed what it means to feature an open world in your game. For those who like traditional open world games, don’t worry–there will always be plenty of them. You’ll always have your AssCreeds and your Far Crys. This is not about replacing those games, but about broadening the market. It’s good to have more options and Elden Ring is but (a really fantastic) one.