Fromsoftware has undoubtedly created an intriguing and atmospheric world with Elden Ring, notable not only for its size but also for its interesting locations and lack of dull open-world activities. But how much of it do daring characters actually see if they stubbornly follow the main story?
A player investigated this question and presented his result on Reddit: In fact, players who are less willing to explore can simply skip a large part of the world. But then they miss secrets like that of the finger maiden:
Elden Ring
Only a few players learn a dark secret
This is what the map looks like if you only play main quests
Reddit user Spicy Slide shared a map on the Elden Ring subreddit that revealed only the areas you have to visit in the course of the story. The result is a narrow path that leads straight through the intermediate lands:
link to Reddit content
The post sparked a lively discussion on the Reddit thread. It has been said several times that it is even possible to omit even more places. But even in the original depiction, a huge part of the world remains in the dark.
However, it is not advisable to only do the bare essentials: Because you are probably far too weak to fight the hard fights at the end of the main quest. Finally, the lively open world is one of the features that have made Elden Ring particularly successful among Fromsoftware’s games:
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Elden Ring vs Dark Souls – Why is the new game so much more successful?
How much side content is there?
But do you really miss that much apart from the main quest? To answer this question, it helps to look at the Site data Howlongtobeat
. This collects the playing times of all possible titles, including Elden Ring. While the information here is of course not statistically reliable, it gives a rough guide:
Players who only devote themselves to the main story have an average playing time of around 50 hours. Those who also do side quests, on the other hand, usually need 90 hours. And perfectionists who really want to see everything need over 120 hours to do so. By the way, if you don’t want to miss any secrets, we recommend our complete interactive map.
How about you: Have you explored the intermediate lands 100 percent, revealed every secret and turned all the stones twice over? Or did you still have an urgent dentist appointment and therefore had to kill the final boss as quickly as possible? Tell us in the comments!
