Put the next point on the map, follow the lines marked on the road, complete the mission, and repeat the process. I love the open worldsbut for some time now I had lost enthusiasm for them and I took them as just another linear action game.
I wasn’t lying when I said that Subnautica had me ruined exploration games. What has been achieved by a select few thanks to the creation of their worlds is very difficult to replicate. Luckily, Elden Ring it has returned that illusion to me.
Al nivel de Subnautica y The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I mentioned it back in the day to talk about the reasons why I had gotten into Elden Ring despite being a fan of the Souls, but it is worth remembering briefly. I was not interested in its difficulty, nor in its challenging boss fights, nor in a lore that I have not yet learned about. In fact, all of that was what had gotten me out of the games. From Software until now.
However, between little battles and his journey through the Middle Lands, what Juan did infect me with in his nightmare-mode analysis was his passion for that world. That “well, today I was going to do this and I actually got lost doing this and that” was exactly what first got me hooked on games like the one mentioned above. Subnauticabut also others even better known such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Death Stranding.
In the how Elden Ring It inevitably forces you to do it, and ends up exploiting it with an insatiable appetite, it is precisely what has me very trapped with the game – until the wee hours of the morning a couple of days ago because there is a city that is bigger than my town and after Every corner has something interesting to see or pick up.
When I’m playing it I can’t stop, and when I stop playing it I can’t get it out of my head. And I don’t think about which weapon to upgrade, or how I’m going to vent the boss I’m stuck on, no.
What constantly has me thinking about the game is where am i going nextor what godforsaken cave I will be able to find on my next walk if instead of that infinite path I took yesterday, I take the one that was in the opposite direction.
A master lesson
What mattered most to me was that the stage design and levels of this game permeated deeply into the industry. Even more than those of Subnautica o The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The care that goes into each area is incredible. Huge biomes that you can scrutinize to the millimeter and will continue to hold surprises in the form of a dungeon whose door you had overlooked or an underground passage to another city that had been hiding under your feet all this time.
It is no longer just how well made it is and to what extent it has an almost unhealthy attention to detail – the Leyndell and its collection of streets, avenues, houses and churches makes for one of those afternoons in which you pay the will of the guide who takes you and explains each curiosity to you-, is that the narrative that in a secondary way is reeling off each enemy that appears or each change in the scenario is a very fine success.
I understand how much this may sound like an exaggeration for those of you who have not yet been able or willing to enter, but please, whether now or when they give away the cereal game in 15 years, give this a chance because it is a master design class
Back to the origins
Why is it different from any other open world game or titles from other genres that promote exploration such as metroidvania? First of all, just as it happened to Subnautica, Breath of the Wild y Death Strandingfor Liberty.
You know that you have a more or less clear objective and you could reach it without problems almost from the beginning in a more or less straight line, but you would be missing everything that is around you. You have to get lost, and you inevitably do, to really understand everything that is hidden in plain sight.
It is the opposite of what happens to you when you put a point in the GPS of any open-world action game, where you end up paying more attention to the lines of the ground or the point on the minimal than what you have around you. Whenever you think “I might be missing something,” that style of play pushes you in one way or another to see what they’ve created for you.
Either with a path that leaves you with an impressive panorama, or with a main mission that takes you through what could be interesting to explore later because it smells like a secret or a secondary mission. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Surely? Maybe if I put a neon sign on it you’ll see it better, because that’s why I did it, so you don’t miss it for the world.”
An excursion that continues to surprise me daily
Much of the grace of Elden Ring It is precisely in that feeling of discovery. It hasn’t bothered you to wander around his world like crazy, nor are you going to see him unless you do your part. Not because you can’t, mind you, that option is always there, but you must explore on your own or follow the clues that the game leaves you to get the most out of it.
Nothing to do, for example, with what metroidvanias limit with blocks until you have a skill, which means redo roads 20 times and have a prodigious memory – or a mini-map for older people as yours truly. I can’t handle it, and it takes a lot out of me.
Here I know that, yes or yes, following a path has a reward. You can, as was the case in Subnautica When you went where you shouldn’t, a chest teleported you to a mine full of very stupid bugs that painted your face, but you know that whenever you want you can go back there and try again.
It’s crazy. When I got stuck with the first boss a few weeks ago, I had the idea to start looking for a guide to the area I was in. As soon as I saw everything I had left to see just in that scenario, despite having kicked it to death, I understood that Elden Ring He wasn’t going to let me down. What I didn’t expect was that, now near the end, the game continues to surprise me almost daily. How can I not love him madly.
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In iGamesNews | The design of Elden Ring is more masterful than I imagined: they have opened my eyes with a great detail and I can’t stop thinking about it
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