Where Dark Souls teased much of its world, Elden Ring fully gave itself to the player.
Elden Ring has been universally praised for its expansive open world, amalgamating all that’s great about that grueling Soulsborne formula into one monolithic game. It’s quickly become one of my favorite open-world games. By combining the defense-focused approach of Dark Souls, the aggressive fighting of Bloodborne, and the stealth/hybrid gameplay of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, From Software’s games have all come together to make the beautiful creation that is Elden Ring.
Needless to say, it’s been looked at by the gaming community as a breath of fresh air in the oversaturated Soulslike genre, not to mention widely recognised as the Game of the Year 2022.The biggest downside to Elden Ring’s excellence, however, is the effect it’s had on going back to play Dark Souls. And, well, it’s not easy.
Dark Souls has a special place in the hearts of so many fans. If you’re like me, you often wish to explore the distant backdrops in those games that look like they could be a whole other areas. For its time, Dark Souls did a great job of making as much of the visible world as explorable as possible. You could see all the way from Undead Burg down to Darkroot Basin; in Dark Souls 3, from a high ledge early in the game, you could see vast swathes of the game world – from Undead Settlement all the way to Archdragon Peak in the distant mountains.
But by today’s standards the Souls series still falls short. For example, Irithyll of the Boreal Valley in Dark Souls 3 left much to be desired when it came to exploring the area, especially post-Pontiff Sulyvahn. Vast stretches of frozen landscape can be seen off in the distance, just begging to be explored and conquered. For all its majesty and clever design, much of the Souls world was distant and elusive, leaving us to experience just a hint of these spectacular worlds.
The open-world aspect also added a lot in terms of new ways to fight. Riding along through the Lands Between and fighting an enormous dragon on horseback or trying to outmaneuver the Tree Sentinels as you desperately whittled down their health were things that many of us will savor as some of our fondest moments in gaming.
The Night’s Cavalry, the dragons, and the infamous Tree Sentinels are great examples of how an open landscape can give truly unique and often larger-than-life experiences. The element of surprise and seamlessness in which you flow from open-world exploration into a life-or-death (or escape via Torrent) battle in Elden Ring adds a whole new layer to that Soulsian experience.
Let’s just hope that future FromSoftware games follow the path of Elden Ring. Some people seem to prefer the older styling of exploration in traditional Souls games, but FromSoftware set a new bar for their games to live up to.
