alfredthegreat01: I think Miyazaki recently said that Elden Ring is as big as they're currently willing to go and they aren't going to be making a game of similar scale again for quite some time. Honestly I can't blame him, the development of Elden Ring and SotE must have been one hell of an undertaking
MaelstromALPHA: Fromsoft has always impressed me with the ability to make the world feel loaded in, all at once, despite a lot of clever trickery being employed.
vongolamistowl: Elden Ring’s open world is nothing short of a technical marvel especially when you consider all the little details and nuances to level design that they managed to preserve on top of the sheer scale of it all.
Not to mention how the scenery is always akin to a moving painting at all times.
GameDevYal: I've noticed that every continent in Elden Ring has a foggy / poor visibility area in the center (Mistwoods, Stormhill, central Liurnia, Swamp of Aeonia, Holy Snowfield, Abyssal Woods, Fog Rift...) and I'm fully convinced this is a trick to reduce how far the player can see: if you're inside the fog, you can barely see the outside. If you're outside it, you can't see inside it and whatever's on the other side is so far it's always the low detail LOD.
(The areas that don't have this have natural chokepoints: the underground rivers has narrow caves, the great bridge and the mountain spires in the Mountaintops, and the legacy dungeons can just use traditional sight-obscuring corridors whenever they need to)
I wonder how much this was because of technical reasons and how much was design reasons - there's that infamous spooky statue halfway through Shaded Castle thanks to a LOD switch so maybe there were a lot more obvious pop-ins that they had to add foggy areas to obscure?
Shugadonk: When I first played the dlc, I remember going to the right side of the gravesite plain and looking over the edge and seeing that furnace golem all of the way in Charo's hidden grave. It blew my mind seeing it from so far away.
jimbo_13: Every time I see a Furnace Golem from across the map, my mind is blown all over again.
Love the Lands of Shadow map for that.
catlxver4228: I love you Zullie the Witch (we all say in unison)
Wolf05227: I absolutely adore it when they foreshadow future areas in video games. Like how you can see Anor Londo from the undead settlement in Dark souls III, or how you can see the Giant's Forge from Limgrave in Elden Ring. I find it to be really cool when they do that and it's impressive how well they did it in Elden Ring. Probably my favourite example of foreshadowing a future area in a FromSoftware game would be Drangleic Castle in Dark Souls II. I just love the way the place is presented. Something about it is just so cool to me, seeing the ominous tower from Majula, and then later at Cardinal Tower, and then from the shaded woods nearby with how you can see the rays of sunlight cutting the Castle's silhouette through the fog, and then when you actually get there it's really cool.
atlasprime6193: This is why we do not see Farum Azula in the open world. In reality, if it was part of the game world around Lands Between, we would clearly see it in every location because it’s just that big despite the distance.
blizzardgaming7070: The difference between the overworld map and real map is really obvious in Gravesite Plain, the wheat loading in is a bit jarring.
alessia-n6s: When I first played the dlc, I remember going to the right side of the gravesite plain and looking over the edge and seeing that furnace golem all of the way in Charo's hidden grave. It blew my mind seeing it from so far away.
JayQuilson: Sometimes I wish I could sit here in the Korok Forest at night and watch obscure souls videos forever. I'm always happy when one of your videos pops up, Zullie. Thank you for taking the time to share your findings with us.
frosthewer: I hope everyone is having an Umbasa weekend
Rigel_6: I remember first noticing the misaligned bloodstain years ago, and rather than "ew, they lie to us" I though "Oh cools, so that's how they make it feel so big, neat". I love figuring out things like that not by actively looking for them, but rather noticing something being off. Like how illusory walls tend to subtly stick out in a way that draws the attention without being glaringly obvious, though that might be the devs intentionally setting up scene lighting to draw players' sight to them
someone4370: The DLC open world design is incredible. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the base game's open world, but From upped the game with the DLC. The verticality, scale, and interconnectedness of the open world was incredible to discover the first time.
kag2576: Actually insanity they were able to put this together so well and not have the entire thing implode on itself. It's things like these that intentionally go unnoticed that gives me an unbelievable amount of respect for developers. Props to the people who worked to achieve this
Goose683: the best part of Zullie's videos is the soothing Zelda and King's Field music
CiaphasKirby: One place you can find it break down is Castle Sol looking out at the Haligtree. It's surprisingly difficult to place a pin on the Haligtree that LOOKS like it's on the Haligtree from Castle Sol.
simplythecat4068: Bet the dev team felt a relief while working on AC 6 with the player being confined to fairly small mission locations with invisible walls and mostly narrow spaces for navigation
theredknight9314: Map is map
jonbaxter2254: fell in love with the level design in Eldenr Ring. You can see distant castles, buildings and churches, and actually visit them if you want. And everything looks so massive!
5DollarFtLng: Can we see a video overlaying the Shadow of the Erdtree map over the Lands Between Map? It would be amazing the two next to each other, particularly in a way that highlights the elevation similarities and differences between the maps.
albertoorsomariaiorio2823: The level of big brain they had to achieve for this game to work is the hardest part to understand of the Elden Ring lore imho.
Sep 18 2024