I wrote a post yesterday listing some of the criteria I use to rank my favorite FromSoft games. I talked a lot about the map in Elden Ring, which I thought was a brilliant way to handle their first real map in a game. I mentioned in the last post that I should never doubt Miyazaki, and I want to elaborate on that.
The mark of a true genius is how he tackles things in such different ways. As I said in the last post, I was one of the people who was doubtful that they would be able to add a map in at thoughtful and seamless way. I was thinking about how other open world games do it, and I hate it with all my heart. I played about an hour of Horizon Zero Dawn (well after it released), and within five minutes, the map was giving me heart palpitations.
Guerrilla Games is the developer of HZD, and one of their develapers (and developers for Ubisoft) tweeted criticisms about Elden Ring’s UI and map quests (or lack thereof). Interesting, a lot of these tweets and posts about it have been disappeared into a black hole. The guy from Guerilla Games is the one who dissed the quest design for not having the quest flags littering the map. Which, I mean. The UX does have issues. That’s not a strong point of FromSoft. The UI/UX. Oh wait. I’m confusing UI and UX. UI is what FromSoft needs to work on. UX is what it is. It’s not great, but it’s not as terrible as the criticism suggests.
Also, the fact that the dev from Ubisoft sounded really salty and bitter about Elden Ring (which, I’m guessing he might not even have played) without acknowledging and/or realizing that different people want different things from their games. I hate the Ubisoft formula, even though I’ve only started a few of them and nearly finished one. It’s. Fucking. Boring. But I would hastened to add, to me. I know plenty of people like that formula and find it comforting.
Elden Ring, on the other hand, was such a breath of fresh air. No map markers. It was up to you to see what was in the world–or not. This has been a hallmark of every game they’ve made. They have huge optional areas that you can skip entirely if you want. In the first season of Prepare To Try, they did a secrets episode in which Krupa showed Gav and Rory a few things you most likely will not stumble on in your first playthrough–at least not without following a guide.
The one that sticks in my mind is Ash Lake. In order to find Ash Lake, you have to go to the Blighttown swamp and find the great tree in the middle of it. You have to go up the tree branch and hit the wall to make it disappear. There’s a chest, but then again, you have to hit the wall behind it to get to a bonfire (save point). Then, you have to descend down a huge tree with so many traps along the way. And if you don’t have the Lord Vessel, if you die after lighting the bonfire in Ash Lake, you have to climb your way back up.