anaguma90: I am a big souls fan and I agree. Elden Ring is amazing for your first playthrough but the enormous size hurts the replayability a lot. Whereas the other From games I'll happily replay anytime.
Puppetmaster2005: As someone who actually enjoys the exploration aspect of the souls games, Elden Ring was a dream come true. Yes, I won't play it a second time, but gawddamn was that first time sheer magic.
zsenzro2: I don't mind it being too big but the detail isn't there like the old soul series. Tons repeat enemies, similar layouts, same positioning (shows enemies, move up there's one small weak enemy hiding behind the pillar to tag team you), clear area -> get small upgrades or rare consumable rinse and repeat. They had a chance to do gimmicky boss fights like demon souls in these smaller areas, create puzzles, just something different from the main content.
coppermustache5677: I can’t replay Eldenring without creating a checklist of everything I need for my build first.
Oler-yx7xj: In the middle of Elden Ring I went on to replay the Dark Souls
Lislio: i think a big difference is in elden ring you are running alot in less concentrated stuff, while dark souls is very concentrated and every step there's carefully curated design
tomjames9681: Unless I’m specifically intending to, if I do another save, I’m never touching like 70% of the game.

Would I have preferred the main content to have had more attention so the mandatory 30% I end up playing was perhaps better, even if it in turn meant the game was smaller? Yeah.
Tak3034: This isn’t really a controversial opinion. Seems like the standard opinion for anyone who has spent a lot of time with the soul series. As opposed to the people who just rode the band wagon.
SpaceMonke99: I’m typically very anti-open world these days. I never finished Witcher 3 because I find the breath of stuff to do exhausing and 41 hours into Elden Ring, I’m just finishing up Southern Caelid and I’m hitting the same point

It’s such a first world problem, but I find that a game starts to feel like busywork past the 30 hour mark in any playthrough. Baldur’s Gate 3 started to lose me at about 60. I forces myself to finish it, but that’s just it, I had to force myself.

Ironcially, there is a lot
v-ia: i don't mind elden ring being big or long but the comprehensive experience of ds3 or bb or sekiro are absolutely better because they are not true open world. the increase in repetitive filler bosses and areas (mines, caves, catacombs) put the game below ds2 for me. and i love all of their titles, but i think some of the magic has gone lost in the process of creating a true open world game. it also heavily affects replayability which souls games are known for.
Cyphu: Couldn’t agree more. I also feel like the open world ruins the oppressive nature of these games. When you just ride your horse past every single group of enemies the world feels a lot less dangerous. That sense of dread that came with exploring a level, not knowing when your next bonefire will be is completely gone
HasXXXInCrocs: My biggest problem with elden ring is that the open world is antithetical to the way from soft designs their game. Here's what I mean by this:

From soft has famously obtuse quests and well hidden secret areas. This has lead the player base to pour over each area and read all the item descriptions in an attempt to uncover all the hidden bits. In the souls games an, this means looking off little ledges, trying to make small jumps, getting into windows etc. This is fine because there are really only so many places to look and the player has many vantage points to see the how the whole map is connected.

In elden ring, the map is so obscenely large that doing this is a test of patience and can lead to the player wasting dozens of hours looking for things they will never find. Often times, you see a little path and you go look at it and it's just some goats or birds with nothing else there. This then forces the player to go to the wiki and look up where all the secrets are instead of finding most of them organically. For a recent example, how should I know that to access a huge section of the dlc I need to find and destroy a spiritwell tucked in a small corner with no hints as to how to get there? Or that there is a fragment in a random open world dungeon that I have no other reason to explore? Even just finding the entrances to sub dungeons is a terrible experience since often times they're just a small hole in the side of a random mountain side and you feel like you have to check each little crevice individually.

The tight focus and world design of the previous games is what allowed them to get away with having those secretive designs. Now they are instead getting in the way of the player and need to be reworked.
DeanGetYourWings: I keep to the shadows, but now is my time to burn when it comes to Elden Ring.
I think Elden Ring is a fine game, but it's far too large, far too repetitive, the world design doesn't inspire me or make me want to explore it and the presentation is still stuck in the seventh console generation. I do honestly generally keep this to myself, I fully understand why people love this game so I concede it's a me issue and I don't care strong enough or against to rock boats.

I'll also add a larger game world isn't inherently a bad thing, it's a subjective opinion, but it's more about what depth that extra game world gives vs making the existing world and content tighter and more rewarding to experience. We all have different circumstances in life, but when we're playing a game we all want to get a satisfied and comprehensive experience of a game especially when we're enjoying it and excessive length can work against a game for a multitude of reasons in the same way it can work for it.
Poppenheimer69: They made a giant world, but it has about the same quantity of "filling" as Dark Souls 3. Enemy ambushes are more simplistic, for example. There are less "unique" enemy encounters. You run from place to place and encounter just 3-5 dudes or dogs walking in 1 direction, 90% of he time. They basically lack the manpower to properly utilize and populate the world they made.
FakeHeroFang: You could remove like half of the side dungeons in ER, condense the map a little bit, and nothing of value would be lost IMO. Half of the bosses in those dungeons are repeats anyways, and a quite a few of those little caves and catacombs are not very interesting to explore.

Aug 13 2024

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