The World Design of Elden Ring 

Hey! This video does cover the entirety of Elden Ring, but if you're worried about spoilers then the beginning of the video only discusses content up the end of Leyndell Royal Capital. Then, from 15:50 onwards, I discuss the final section of the game and show all of the end bosses.

The fact that this was From Softwares first attempt at a true open world and it turned out this spectacular makes me incredibly excited for whatever they do next with this framework.

One thing that greatly affected my first playthrough was actual the fact that they didn't show the true size of the map. Every time I think "Ok surely they're out of stuff now" and then another segment of the map opens up, instead of knowing exactly how much land there is to explore. Really kept wanting to explore, see just how far the map streches (also getting to see the map massively expand whenever you teleport to some faraway spot with a chest was wild

I actually love the fact that the game is very open at the start and more focused in the end. When I started playing I loved exploring and levelling but as the hours flew by I became more focused on progressing the story and killing the main bosses. The game accommodated this perfectly.

Exploring the lands between for the first time was the best experience in gaming I’ve ever had

I thought the first half of the world was huge. When I got past the elevator AND went underground, I was blown away

There are two sides to enemy balancing. On the one hand, it could perhaps get a little boring when you're overlevelled. However, that also makes for a very tangible sense of progression and makes you feel actively rewarded for all your struggles throughout the game; and feeling like a legitimate badass adventurer who earned it the hard way is a great power fantasy.

One thing about the funneling is that most of it really starts once you've triggered the burning of the Tree, which is a cosmic point of no return for your character and the world. It makes sense for it to start funneling you HARD after that point--you've made a decision with insane consequences, and now everything demands you keep up with them.

honestly, the funnel towards the end is one of my favourite design decisions from soft made for this game. it starts right around the point where thorough players (like me) start feeling open world fatigue. also, the difficulty in the subsequent areas force players who skimmed through the previous areas to double back and see what they missed so they can get powerful enough to face the end game bosses. however, the game has completely played its hand at this point so there are no major surprises along the way (except for haligtree) which, imo, is the reason why players find the last few areas to be less interesting than what came before.

I think that the “funneling” of the game that you mention is a great observation, but I also think it was a good decision on the part of FromSoft. As much as I loved the amazing scope of the early game and all of the options to explore, I felt like the narrowing the scope at the late game brought a sense of “ok, now it’s time to get to business and finish this.” The purpose became much clearer at that point in the game - especially after putting in 100+hours by the time I got to Maliketh. I honestly think I would have gotten fatigued if the late game was as just expansive as the early game. In fact, I think I was a bit fatigued already, so I went ahead and finished the game before exploring everything else. I’ll save that for another playthrough. As other commenters have noted, there are still several large late game areas that provide opportunities for exploration and discovery which I am excited to dig through myself, even if they’ve all been spoiled for me at this point. I think From did a marvelous job with this game. The passion into building the world is evident. And the design is impeccable.

Man, going down that well for the first time, just wow…

5:07 I had no idea that there's a lift that takes you to the Altus Plateau, I took the semi secret way on a whim and thought that that was the main way to do it all this time. It ended up being one of the most magical moments of my playthrough cause I had no idea the Altus Plateau was waiting for me at the end of that dungeon.

yeah, I really like this static level enemies, like in Gothic. It feels really good to come back an be able to beat an enemy or to realize that you're now just strong enough to survive against 1 enemy of type x and then a little later you can survive against 2 etc. also it feels great to overcome them by other means, like getting beaten up but then just sneaking around them or changing your tactics. Or in Gothic, going through all those powerful spell scrolls you were saving up for something and then finally use them. also this can add another sense of direction like: I'm not strong enough to beat this enemy, I'll try something else. moreover although in ER you become strong enough to 1hit most stuff, it still is dangerous, because the enemy damage stays relatively high compared to other games. so getting swarmed by weak enemies can still be deadly. lastly: most scalling systems make the world feel stale. Everything is supposed to be challenging, but in the end nothing is or it's a constant challenge, which also gets exhausting.

I'm sorry but static enemy levels are absolutely essential for this kind of open world design and I'm really glad FromSoft took this route, games like Oblivion have shown us that tying enemy levels to player level makes games dull and takes away that feeling of acomplishment of finally being able to explore a high level area, or going backtracking to a previously explored area only to now blast through every enemy with ease. I really hope FromSoft (and all other open-world rpgs) keep doing this, auto-leveling can still be done but it needs to be way more intricate than "all enemies are within your lvl range except for a few bosses". Also, you can still tackle bosses after the capital in different order, that's how I did it and it even wasn't on purpose.

Repetition is good to really hammer down the underlying rules of the world: -Memory stones are held in mage towers, and are locked with a magic riddle. -Catacombs have ashes in the tree burial chamber, that is locked by the tree themed door, locked with a lever somewhere in the catacombs. -Ruins have a hidden basement somewhere. -Churches have sites of grace, sacred tears, and a talk with melina. -Killing giant dragons and consuming their hearts give you their breaths. -Evergoals, giant stone circles have powerful beings trapped inside. -The moving mausoleums are stopped by destroying the souls trapped in the spiritual rocks. -Deathbirds and Night cavalries only appear at night. -Divine towers unlocks the powers of great runes. -Minor erdtrees have tree avatars that hold crystals for your potions. -Golden trees have golden seeds below them. -Mining caves have smithing stones to look for in the walls. And caves are literally all over the place, both geographically, and thematically, when you enter a cave, you cannot predict what the heck you're getting into, and even sometimes, don't even know where you will end up. The problem with repitition is that it gives you a sense of "i've seen this before", even if it isn't exactly the same. I'd say the real problem has nothing to do with content reuse or anything like that. Instead, the problem was that they failed (mostly) to capitalize on the best thing you can do once you create a pattern: BREAK IT. Break it *hard* leave them stumbled on the floor trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Some examples: (They do this one!) A basement ruin that has the entrance hidden with an illusion. But they could have also easily done that it doesn't lead to a basement, and instead to a cave, catacomb, whatever! (They do this one!) A church that has enemies instead of a place to rest. Maybe an evergoal brings you to an unfamiliar place, or its a trap, or is a big skirmish instead of a boss battle. They could have done literally anything else and it would have surprised the players. One of the divine towers could have a surprise boss battle in order to get the rune. One of the rotting or fallen minor erdtrees could have an already dead boss, and you'll have to find the crystal hidden somewhere, or kill whatever killed the avatar. Because the pattern isn't broken enough times, or not at all, means that you don't ever expect anything different each time you find something familiar, and indeed it is. But make enough "exceptions" to the rule, and suddenly when you enter a catacomb, you won't know if its just a "pull lever-> find door -> kill boss -> leave" catacomb, or a secret alternative path to reach the deeproot basin, a teleporting trap to the other side of the world, a ton of fake levers needing to find the right one, a huge riddle that needs to be solved instead of a lever, or even just plainly finding an npc instead of a boss at the end of the dungeon. If they threw those curve balls, one at a limgrave catacomb, one at a caelid catacomb, and two in liurnia, when you enter a catacomb at the altus plateau, you would still feel like although it could be a normal ass catacomb, it also *could* ber something you've never seen before... and that keeps the feeling of discovery to the very end!

The fact that I was able to grind levels to the point that I was "overleveled" allowed to enjoy more of the stylish places and cool bosses. It's my first from soft game, and I'm not really into difficult games. Still went all the way to journey 4 and got all the achievements, waiting on DLC.

The fact that you don't HAVE to fight a boss when you struggle and can instead explore elsewhere to get stronger is the single fact that caused me, a long-time fan of FromSoft games who never played a single one, actually feel confident enough to pick it up and play it.

i feel like the tighter final act stopped the open world fatigue for me. i like freedom but sometimes being told what to do is good too. i 100% agree with the fact its kinda easy to get too overlevelled to have fun by virtue of its openness but that feels like a goal in itself for a lot of players. also runes being the sole currency makes players choose between levels and gear. new players can also easily have fun with crazy 'sub-optimal' builds and such with loads of runes to spend.

Not scaling the power i think actually helped the open world design. Once you out level an area it becomes easier to explore while the potential to find your next favorite weapon, spell, or talisman remains the same, so it incentivizes back tracking and combing through areas. If every catacomb is exactly as hard it makes the repeated content feel even more samey and turns exploration into more of a chore as the desire to find cool stuff butts up against the annoyance of slower careful movement, more demanding resource management, and possibly more deaths, all efforts you could be spending on exploring forward instead of backward. Gaining levels over the content around you is also one of the few, vitally critical ways FROM lets a player control difficulty. I recall being vividly unhappy when world of warcraft started scaling zones to your level as it made going back to earlier zones in an expansion to collect resources or mop up leftover quests for reputation & gold into a massive pain compared to previous versions of the game. It also lost a sense of greater worldly progression, the Shire and Mordor should not feel comparably dangerous.

My favorite thing in elden ring is how places are framed to make the impact of first seeing it that much more magical, It's like putting a game inside of a painting. First time you see Raya lucaria is from Godricks or the side path of Stormveil, both show off the academy in center above the fog and trees below. Once you get to the academy and make it up the lift you see it up close and can tell just how massive and mystical it is. The lake of rot is another example, you can first find it by going through the underground and finding an over view of the whole red lake with a small castle off to the side but can't get to it, later in the game you end up at the shore of the lake with nothing but the lake, a grace, and two trees. From a gameplay perspective the over look could have just been the end of a dark cave with an item. They even made paintings in the game that give rewards for going to the matching place they were made, in most games you would be given a "X marks the spot" type mission where you just go to the X on your map or mini map, but elden ring rewards you for taking in the scenery.

I honestly don't think the reuse of the catacombs are quite as bad as people tend to say. It feels like a refinement of what the Bloodborne chalice dungeons were attempting, and while I quite love the dungeons, the catacombs definitely do feel like a proper improvement on them. With such a massive and vast open world, you can quickly run into burn-out and fatigue where you start getting exhausted by the sheer amount of stuff you have as options, so these small mini-dungeons that are extremely focused on one specific relatively linear thing are really enjoyable. An aspect that is underappreciated is how their design instantly informs you of what you should visit them for. Catacombs are entirely dedicated to spirit summons, having new ashes to use, glovewort to upgrade them with, and occasionally deathroot for an NPC questline, and you always know you'll find imps and skeletons inside so prepare crystal darts to make the imps malfunction and Holy Order powers to keep the skeletons down for good. Tunnels are always going to be where you find smithing stones, stone miner bell bearing, and are full of important materials for magic-based arrows and consumables, obviously being full of miners and often having other magic related enemies like the Marionettes or crystal snails around, plus they are even neatly marked on your map with a red/orange marker with a black core so you can locate them easily. Lastly Caves are for gear, weapons, talismans, and other tools, having a much more varied list of enemy options, but usually involving either wild animals or status effects of some sort. You always know exactly what you are getting into, why you would want to investigate this area, and it lets you take a short break. I'd also highlight the Mountaintop catacombs/caves. They are really excellently designed, with the snailcaller's cave being such a blast with how it subverts your expectations and slows the game down, forcing you to sneak around through bushes because of the sheer overwhelming number of enemies, while the Mountaintop catacombs explicitly takes advantage of catacomb's similar designs and make the place feel like a never ending maze of endlessly looping corridors and pathways, with the solution to finding the lever really not being what'd you expect. So I really dont think they are nearly as bad as people tend to say. Yes Catacombs might be a bit repetative in design, but the only reason you would need to go in there is for ash upgrade materials. If you don't want to try other ashes, or don't need to upgrade an ash, there's no reason to force yourself through unless you want to play through it.

I love Uhl palace ruins. The statues at the ground, going underground through a well, foreshadowing the city, then after riding a random coffin, finally reaching the other side of wall. Epic

Frankly, even going back to low level areas when you're overleveled for them can still be challenging if you stop concentrating and get careless. Get caught in a pack of wolves or a bunch of footsoldiers and you'll be knocked off torrent and flat on your back vulnerable in seconds. Miss that parry or try to strike at the wrong time and you get punished, concentrate on one guy too hard by a camp and you're asking to be pegged in the head by an arrow or spell, let a zombie grab you and you're out half your health

I like the idea that the last half is more focused. Sounds like the best of both worlds and makes me more excited to finally tackle this game for real.

I remember discovering the game and kept thinking I was near the end and would finish it soon. It just kept on going and more areas kept being discovered, loved the game.

Fantastic video, but level scaling was treated like it's a good thing when it isn't. Coming back to a familiar area over leveled gives you the reward of trouncing those enemies and giving you the feeling of having become more powerful. Scaling enemies with level makes it feel like leveling up means nothing and you haven't become stronger when you return to old areas.

A clever thing Elden Ring does with its open world is how it makes your adventure through each zone feel different by varying the layout and changing up your route to the legacy dungeon. The main route through Limgrave is roughly shaped like a T, climbing up. Liurnia is a straight line or a trident. Caelid is a G going down. Mt Gelmir is a spiral. Altus is an F. Etc. And the way each zone interacts with its legacy dungeon, and how you approach and enter them, is different too. You could probably do a whole series on the different levels of world design in Elden Ring.

I feel very lucky to have played Elden Ring

I always say this but having no knowledge or whatsoever of the existence of nokron before heading down the long ass elevator, the experience of discovering it by yourself was phenomenal. With the stars in the sky and mogh's palace in the background.

This is one of the few games that I wish I could play for the first time again. The sense of sheer childlike joy in discovery that I got from it is unparalleled. The only problem I have with it is that I played it so much that I feel like I need to take a break for at least a couple years before I forget some of it.

I think the reuse of catacombs, mage towers, mines, etc are a double edged sword. I agree that the familiarity does diminish the feeling of mystery and discovery, but it allows for recognizable goals for players to follow. Looking on the map to try to find those orange circles that signify smithing stone mines so I could get upgrade materials made me feel smart, using my understanding of the game's world to make myself stronger.

Beside the elevator down to the Siofra River in Mistwood. One of the best moment of connectivity for me is when you are in the Capital shunning ground. You go down and down the captital to a forbidden area of an outer god. Then you find a hidden pathway lead to the Deeproot Depth. Usually people may have traveled there by using another method. Probably they all wander how is this place connected to the other as it was short of "teleportation". At the time when the Deeproot Depth text appear, all the height feel like they have a purpose. We don't just descend into this place then there is nothing else. Or the developer didn't just put this place in a random location on the map and let us teleport there. There is an entire area with a huge lore about the Erdtree burial practice and the dead demigod. And it also make sense for there is a teleport point from the Erdtree root straight to the Capital. The connectivity of the area isn't lost as a result of the open world, but was used to compliment and support the lore and world building. It just feel so good for me

All good points, yet at the same time, there's something I appreciated about getting more familiar with certain "tilesets" like catacombs and mines. It was satisfying to feel my mastery increase; I came to recognize that, say, catacombs are a consistent source of glovewort and sometimes deathroot, a trip through a mine is great for upgrading weapons, etc. And I appreciated special twists that were used only once or twice, like having to slip under a platform that rises when you step on it, or navigate a maze of transporter chests. Elden Ring is my favorite FromSoft game so far!

It's almost like they did "open world with bits of Dark Souls" for the first half, and "Dark Souls with bits of open world" for the second. It's a great way to balance both ways. As for the "formulaic" stuff (catacombs, mines,...) I think it's a good idea to make it like that. As a player, you get a sense of what's inside and if it's good for you to go in. If you don't care about summoning ghosts, you can skip all the catacombs and be fine. If you need material X, you know roughly where to go. I was going to say that it's a bit jarring, but in the end where would you go to find ancient treasures in the real world? Not in a coal mine... :p It's silly but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Specific "'treasures" will coalesce in same-y areas.

I, for one, felt that coming back to areas that I had trouble with before after exploring a different area and powering up a little bit, felt really satisfying. I understand maybe some scaling could have been done (where enemies are still less powerful than you are, but only to a certain maximum), but this didn't bother me too much in my playthrough: I think most bosses were challenging, regardless of my level (save maybe the Magma Wyrm). Breaking my head against the Twin Gargoyles and eventually giving up after about 20 tries, and then coming back to them after leveling up while exploring other areas to kick their asses felt fantastic. Still needed to focus and manage my health well, but it was great.

The game is just perfect in my eyes and what game can offer so much content and still make every minute feel unique? I’d say none! Part of enjoying a game, is learning its mechanics and getting better at them and also adapting to different challenges, or just running a different character. For me this game far exceeded my hopes and wishes and it sits happily, in my fromsoft collection.

I feel like narratively, the funnel makes sense because doors are meaningfully closing. The characters and cast around you all begin to meet with their ends, or realize the path they've been on might not be the one for them. Elden Ring is inherently about becoming Elden Lord, and the Highlander "there can be only one" feeling starts setting in, and other characters begin to see your character, not as just another Tarnished, but as a specific Tarnished, as a powerful one, a threat. Other Lord Claimants take note of you, some NPC's begin to refer to you as Lord, or imply you will become one if you keep it up. The endgame is a funnel because you're getting rid of the last remaining obstacles, and the great creation the Erdtree, is coming to its end. Roundtable Hold by the endgame literally lights itself aflame, and is mostly empty except for Hewg and Roderika (and Gideon but some good he is). I suppose what I mean to say here, is that the first half is finding the way you want to claim the throne, and the second half of the game is actually going forward and doing it. Mechanically this works well because you'll have a favored weapon type or kit, a spell set and strategy, and you'll have invested a good number of smithing stones into your favorite toys. Your statline will be closer to your ideal spread for your build, and as a player, you'll be ready. Finally, the other Tarnished around you change. At first, other Tarnished are like your coworkers or colleagues, or rivals on a similar scale. We go from a little group of the few remaining Tarnished who believe a Lord will arise, to the failed Lord Claimants who have come close, but not succeeded (Vyke and Bernahl), and we get the tools to finish what the Black Knives began, the Rune of Death so you can finish the job. The game from the beginning tells you that becoming Elden Lord is the goal, and many have tried but few succeeded, because they lost their guidance, gave up hope, and stopped. This is a pretty recurring motif in FromSoft games, but in Elden Ring it's done to epic fantasy rather than dark fantasy (as dark as Elden Ring can be, that's saying something). I also think FromSoft cares a bit less about showing you some bones of a game from time to time, and the catacombs all have interesting lore as to why they look the same, and it has to do with their common purpose. While the lore is hard to come by, there are usually few things that lack in-universe reasons for happening. That said I will say my issue for first time players is the brutal spike in difficulty after defeating Morgott. Mountaintops of the Giants has a literal gatekeeper boss in front of Rold that will flatten you if you're under-prepared, Mohgwyn Palace is dangerous even if you're endgame strong, and all the late game bosses are bosses my friends usually recommend being at least level 100 before even trying em. It's such a raw spike in challenge and in resources you need that it will bounce you right back to Liurnia or Leyndell to grind or search for more tools, which is good in some ways to make you explore more, but are exhausting from a player perspective.

Doing ranni and fia's quests on launch day when me and my friends were all headless chickens was one of the best gaming experiences i've had, as well as finding the way to mohgs palace without doing varres quest.

I feel like repetition in open world games are innevitable, no matter the studio working on it. The way FromSoftware tried to solve it was by introducing new ideas. Catacombs are very similair but I won't forget the one with looped hallways or the one with the flaming horsemachines. I personally think it's fine and it didn't ruin my urge of discovery.

Getting to the deep root depths was mind blowing and one of my favorite moments in any form of media. I never could have possibly thought the game went that deep

I’ve had very few gaming experiences that compare to seeing the underground night sky in Elden Ring for the first time. I’m 32 and have played games since my SNES in the early 90s… Elden Ring gave me those deep joyous chills that I haven’t had since playing RDR2 for the first time.

The game being more linear at the end is a good thing. For pacing reasons.

My favorite part about the way the game opens up for people who didn't look for the other half of the Dectus medallian is the dectus medallion is for all intents and purposes the worst way to progress to Altus Platau. If you're like me and didn't find the second half until I'd already hit Altus Plateau, you got there through the Ruin Strewn Precipice which is not only an actually fun and unique cave, but also hides a fair few rare smithing stones, a boss fight and an NPC invasion event where you invade the world of an NPC which rewards you with the best heavy armor set in the game (depending on your progress in the Volcano Manor), and come out just next to the lift itself. Or you could just go up the lift and miss all of this. Best part? You can just go straight there as soon as you leave the first step.

Excellent video. A few notes from a dedicated player: • While the endgame linearizes in some ways, it stays open in others. Miquella's Haligtree/Elphael, which take forever to get to, are simply.... spectacular. Jaw-dropping. And /very/ endgame. The sewers beneath Leyndell go deep, leading level by level all the way to another underground city/zone -- the Deeproot Depths, with the Nameless Eternal City. You also did not mention the enormity of Ainsel River, with late-game achievements like Nokstella, and the Lake of Rot. • Having played through the game twice, I can report that even in the late game, my eyes were popping from novelty. Crumbling Farum Azula, especially, was a "holy sh*t" moment. Not to mention, of course, the well-hidden boss Dragon Lord Placidusax, which takes you through one of the craziest cutscenes in Elden Ring.

I actually think enemy balancing is a positive for Elden Ring. It avoids telling you explicitly that there is a golden path you have to follow, but just as importantly it doesn't go to the other extreme of letting you go anywhere and do anything unimpeded. The game gives you friction and feedback. That, in turn, leads to interesting choices. When you meet Margit for the first time, you can take that (some combination of) three ways: run away to the weeping peninsula to level up, refuse to back down until you've mastered Margit's moveset, or get creative and find the secret way around to Liurnia. The numerical improvement, skill improvement, and lateral thinking playstyles are available for most challenges in the game and they are each balanced by having some things that are for them and some that aren't. The only real problem is when players aren't able to decide "this content isn't for me". If the numerical improvement players only fight Margit twice, and spend hours in the weeping peninsula between those attempts, and a skill improvement player spends hours fighting Margit umpteen times but skips the Weeping Peninsula, then both will be able to enjoy themselves fully on hours of content. The problem only emerges when the numerical improvement player doesn't realise that fighting Margit over and over again is content that wasn't designed for them or when the skill improvement player doesn't realise that the Weeping Peninsula is content that wasn't designed for them. I would say that From has less of an issue with balancing the game, and more of an issue with communicating to players that they are expected to skip or avoid content that isn't fun for them. It seems like From is butting against a kind of entitlement from players who aren't content with mountains of content designed for them because there's also some content designed for other people, as well as against completionism which encourages people to 100% a game even if that isn't fun to do and was never intended.

I'm a big fan of the "difficulty in games" debate, and what really struck me about the Elden Ring reception is just how many fans were cautious of ruining their experience by overleveling. Many of my favorite streamers regularly expressed concerns about this. To me this presents a unique conflict of interests which I didn't expect in a FROM Software game.

As a long time From fan I was already hyped for Elden Ring long before it released. But the first time it well and truly blew me away was the Mistwood elevator. Stumbled upon it by complete accident running away from a Rune Bear. Got curious because the Bear backed off and there was a glow at the door. Popped down the longest elevator ride in recent memory and boom - a whole new area with a totally new aesthetic, new map, new enemy types, new architecture... Seeing the false night and the upper ruins and readjusting the sheer scale of the game in my head was absolutely magical.

I agree in part, but content and especially enemy repetition actually made me feel very accomplished in my pattern recognition and skill mastery, as formerly imposing enemies like Erdtree Avatars became enemies I could knock out in my sleep but still without being too easy. The later game catacombs, too, despite being "just more catacombs," also get much more puzzling and difficult in their dungeon design, though they repeat the specific trick of "surprise! this dungeon is actually comprised of two near-identical halves" too much. I also have one nitpick: when you say that "even bosses repeat" at 14:56, you show a clip of Esgar the Priest of Blood, when Esgar is a completely unique boss and one of the few pleasantly surprising NPC/Tarnished boss battles (Garris the Necromancer is the only other one to be a dungeon boss). It was certainly a surprise to fight Esgar beneath Leyndell and not just another damn Cemetery Shade!

I agree that while it’s not perfect in its approach to the open world and that in the end it feels like it funnels you into one path, it’s still done very well especially for it being their first open world game.

Like most people said, not leveling the game with your character is a pro not a con; the only possible con is you arriving at a place over-leveled because you went to it too late in the game. Elden Ring actually has a great way to tackle this: Mountaintops of the Giants is a HUGE leap in difficulty. So right at the moment the game becomes more linear, it has a CLEAR difficulty line that it can control a little better from then on, and it's very very hard to get there over-leveled since the gap is so big. I thought this was an oversight when I got there but once I understood why they made that difficulty leap I actually thought it was pretty genius.

i am 100% agree with dot to dot world layout, many games now are like you force to do quest or something else to progress your exploration but in elden ring you can just ignore all that and have fun or struggle exploring without feeling lost in this big open world, at one point we reach lyndell and then mountaintop without even noticing

i’ve played this game for hundreds of hours at this point through multiple play throughs, but last night i found for the first time, a catacomb in altus plateau filled with jar enemies and teleporting traps! it really makes me wonder how much i’ve missed!

Your analysis of the 2nd half is structurally sound, but in practice I just can't say it felt the way you are describing for me. The critical path certainly becomes linear, but I never felt a lack of other interesting threads I could be following (with level-appropriate challenges) at each step. The idea that one simply has to bang their head against the wall till they get by late game bosses I guess is true for people who are absolutely married to the critical path. I wonder how many people play that way.

Caelid has a legacy dungeon. It's Redmane castle. I went to Caelid just to participate in the festival but wasn't interested at all in Ranni's sidequest. Going there on your own you will find a much more hostile environment.

Every open world game reuses enemies, Elden ring still holds more variety than most open world games on bosses, dungeons, and other things like caves and catacombs than a game like Zelda BOTW, Finding a boss you fought before in early game doesn't always feel tiresome because it feels like the game is telling you "You fought this earlier as a boss, well now you should be strong enough to handle it like a regular enemy" You also often get different rewards for killing the same enemy in different areas (Godskin Apostole gives you it's weapon when you first encounter it, but it will give you it's full armor set when you kill it again later on) So it doesn't feel wasted, one thing I do kind of agree with is the game's problem with balancing early game enemies when you become too strong but that's a a problem on almost every RPG game not just Elden Ring. In the end Elden Ring still holds as one of the best open world games to date and deserves to be the game of the year 2022.

With how much people have been hyping this game up its nice to see a video discussing the problems a lot of us had with it. Even if something is good, criticism is still a valuable tool of analysis, and can help shape future iterations.

Elden Ring's open-world often trivializes challenges. For example, on the way to Caria Manor arrows rain down on you from the sky until you reach the door. In any other Souls game, I would have had to navigate a narrow passage while observing how the arrows worked, gotten used to their patterns, and made a few attempts to get past them. But in Elden Ring, having a fast horse on a wide playing field made the arrows easy to avoid. I got past them on my first try. The traditional Souls version of this challenge could be frustrating, but it also promoted a sense of familiarity through repetition and mastery. In Elden Ring, I often wondered why they even bothered putting some obstacles in. For the record, I think Elden Ring is an excellent game. Especially given how massive it is.

No one design can satisfy everyone, nope, nada, and any design comes with certain tradeoffs as people here have commented on. But Elden Ring has done such fantastic job surely we can agree it is one of the best games of open world design paradigm. Therefore, any discussion of its flaws really falls onto personal preferences in my opinion.

It's still incredible to me that, by 3:16, you have described, essentially an entire games worth of content. Like, that would have been an incredible game. But.... thing is..... you're not even halfway done with Elden Ring. lol. What a beautiful monster this thing is.

Interesting that you said that you were 50% done after defeating Morgott. I suppose you are, but it never felt that way to me, it is that funnelling effect, because after that there's getting the medallion, the Haligtree, the giant fight, Farum Azula, and then you're back in Leyndell to finish the game. Before that, there was a lot more exploration, maybe they realized that players would get bored of the exploration aspect at that point.

I loved the catacombs and imo the consistent formula only made them better because it allowed them to play with expectations. Like the catacomb south of the eastern liurnia erdtree where you get all the way to the end and it's a dead end, just for you to find that the walls are illusions and the lever you were looking for was actually right next to the entrance. You have to set up expectations in order to subvert them

I can't even explain how incredible this game is. There is just absolutely nothing comparable, and I played pretty much every open world action adventure that is out there. And it's also just so mind blowing that they managed to create THE best and most interesting open world on their first attempt.

the little boss/location cards you designed are really nice! Your design skills have come a long way since the first videos!

Great work as always with the video, but I definitely disagree with the implication that knowing what to expect from certain locations like mage towers, churches, and outdoor ruins is a bad thing. It feels very deliberate in that there is a general consistency with how to acquire important key items for upgrading your flask healing, spell slots, and so on while you're out exploring. The quickly learned rule of outdoor ruin sites pretty much always housing a basement somewhere is used by From to mess with your expectations later on, by hiding some of them beneath destructible wooden planks, or even illusory floors. I don't think these examples of repetition are missteps at all.

5:20 You can also use the teleporter chest at the Tower of Returning in the Weeping Peninsula to go to the Divine Bridge in the capital. While you are stuck up on the bridge until the elevator is raised, it is actually possible to be invaded and have the invader raise the elevator for you. My friend actually did this and beat Morgott without holding a single Great Rune.

It does speak very well as a transition from what From has done to what they can do next. Really excited for the next one.

"You're actually investigating a world - not just cleaning a messy map filled with activities." Yes. Well said. This right here (including all the very simple logic behind it) would make any open world 100 times better. It is literally "a holy grail" and it is so simple, and everyone in the industry is afraid to do it beside Fromsoft.

I agree that recycled content can diminish how fresh each place feel. However, I argue that the layouts are varied enough to still feel like its own space. And some of them do interesting things within that recycled content. Like how Auriza Side Tomb has you teleport between two mirrored but distinct places. It tests your spacial awareness, and it's cool to use what you've learned from one area to find hidden walls and goodies in the other. I get that reusing assets is more distracting for some players than others, but I felt FromSoft did a good job of making interesting experiences within those restraints.

Great content I'm new and really enjoying it so far. Have to say I had a different experience with the repetition of Catacombs, Ruins, Sacred Tears and Golden Seeds etc. As someone pretty new to the series (the Demon's Soul's remake was my first FromSoft game) and a player that really likes to take his time, not use guides and just figure things out on my own I found these little snippets of repetition to be helpful. A moment of clarity in a fugue of mystery. I knew what was expected of me and that felt like progress; especially in the way that I had to sometimes back back to an area after I'd levelled up with my new skills and weapons. I think what I'm trying to say is that the formulaic repetition feels like an intrinsic part of the design of the game's pacing to me. I'm presently 160 hours into my play-through. Having mopped up most of the catacombs, mini-bosses, NPC storylines and Evergaols. I've searched out and upgraded a mountain of equipment and weapon arts. Last night I reached level 130 and have only just made it through Leyndell and reached Castle Sol where I'm facing down another boss that I don't feel quite equipped to take on. Yet. This game has blown my mind. As a 2nd Gen gamer approaching his 50's. This feels like what video games were always meant to achieve. Other than the software performance issues, I haven't yet found anything I consider to be a negative aspect of game play. It is - almost perfect imo. I've realised that I don't really want to finish it. I very rarely re-play games. I'll miss that place when my journey there ends.

Being overleveled was the most fun part for me. I didnt have to git gud, just grind a bit more. Going from being super fragile to killing gods with ease was so much fun and felt it happened at a good pace

I was amazed by the catacomb in the royal city. When you keep going deeper, the catacomb makes you feel like you are stuck in a loop, (but actually it is not). In the first part of the `loop`, I killed a scary giant monster. In the second part of the `loop`, the same monster shows up again, but mourning another dead monster corpse on the ground. This scenario is so so confusing. It tries so hard to make you believe you are stuck in a loop 🤣🤣🤣

Funnily enough, I feel like your two major criticisms of the game resolve one another somewhat. The fact that the game funnels in to a more focused experience for the final stretch makes it a lot harder to over-level yourself and throw off the difficulty curve. In fact, I think this approach to world design has actually addressed the problem of accessibility that's been discussed around fromsoft's games for years. The early game gives you absolute heaps of content while you're still acclimatising to the mechanics of the game; if you're struggling with any area in the early game it's quite easy to go somewhere else and beef yourself up a bit first (while also getting more practice in and getting better at the game). But then for the last stretch they reign in the openness of the world in order to deliver a more closely tailored experience for the finale.

While I understand that static enemy difficulty can lead to issues where you become far over leveled for an area, I would say that I believe that's a good thing, rather than a bad thing. I hate games that scale enemies to your level because it more often than not creates a linear difficulty curve, or just a flat one. I hate it when I've been playing a game for hours, have been increasing my level and ability, only to return to an early game area for a quest or something and the enemies are just as tough as anywhere else. The feeling of growth and progression is absolutely neutered by enemy scaling. Plus, to the idea of "over leveling", I have always seen it as a reward. I managed to go into an area that is a higher level than me, and so I'm being told I should leave, but instead, I decide to work my way through it and get to the other side the victor. Now, when I go back onto the path I should have been, thanks to my hard work and efforts, I can smash the enemies here and feel like a real hero. I'm just not in the camp that thinks that every boss in a From Software title needs to be difficult for it to be a fun game. I played through Elden Ring without any kind of guide, and rather than doing stormvail castle, I went everywhere I possibly could before hand. I ended up completing most of Caelid prior to getting into stormvail, and this led Stormvail to being pretty easy. I beat Morgot and Godrick on my first try thanks to being way higher leveled than I should have been, and it was great. I felt like I earned an easy victory thanks to my previous hard work. I just don't think that enemy scaling is a good idea, at least not as it's used in most games. Maybe there's a system they could use that would make it feel good, but flattening out the difficulty curve seems like bad game design to me. To reach the peaks in player engagement, you need valleys.

the curiosity of this game, the way player investigate the world, is like The Talos Principle way of game play.

Playing Elden Ring made me recall Final Fantasy XV's world fondly. You're free to explore the entirety of Lucis until you get to the lighthouse and take the boat to Accordo. You can still hop back to Lucis all the while until you talk to Accordo's head of state and be railroaded by the plot for a while and barred from travelling to previous areas. During the railroaded, constrained period, your party's AI changes because (spoilers) one of your mates become blind, causing his skills to be locked, and another friend is pushed out of the train, making him absent until he is found. The ability to travel back to previous areas are barred from you until you "remove the obstacles" so to speak. It's the principle of contrast. Having linear, railroaded moments in an Open World game can prevent some exploration fatigue and also give time to some bit of storytelling

I felt that the open world approach goes especially well with the Souls formula. Sometimes when I'm playing a new traditional Souls game I can get exhausted from always having to be on edge to make sure I don't get got. In Elden Ring you having the same moments of tension, but then also have plenty of moments running around the open world, beating easy enemies, collecting goodies and finding mini dungeons. I think you talked about this concept when analysing Celeste.

I think the repetition of some enemies actually expanded my interest in the world. In almost all the cases where I found repeated enemy types in new locations I rarely thought “ugh more of these guys.” Most of the time I thought “why is *this* guy here? Is whatever faction he’s working for trying to find something in this location? Was he stranded long ago with no way to get out of here? For me it added an interesting layer of environmental story telling. And then some enemy types will have unique skills that other individuals of the same “enemy type.” For example the knights with the long feathered helmets. While they all share the same basic move set, there’s one atop Fort Haight who can slash at you with a blade of blood. And then there’s the Cuckoo knights in Liurnia, many of which have access to various sorceries. Or at Redmane castle there’s another who can wield fire. They do a surprisingly good job at making individual enemies feel unique, despite working with a limited pool.

When i started the game i thought Limgrave was the entire game util i defeted Godrick wich i thought was the final boss, but i was wrong An amazing game and the best game i have played

Excellent video! I would love to see one if these exploring the world of Tunic. I just got the game and I've been blown away. I was expecting a simple Zelda-like, but it turned out to be a bonkers top-down Souls-like that feels incredible to explore and pick apart

Love the video. I actually really enjoyed stumbling upon a lower level dungeon or boss that i missed and absolutely curb-stomping it. It's a nice change of pace for such a hard game.

I put 140 hours into my first playthrough of Elden Ring, and I was content with missing some Catacombs, but it turns out I missed an entire legacy dungeon & a whole Remembrance boss. Given the sheer scale of this game, the repeated enemies & bosses didn't feel unreasonable - it often made me make internal connections from one area to another. I enjoyed the fact that the game gave control of the game to the player, from difficulty to exploration to boss order: the majority of the time it's up to you to decide what to do, with a little guidance from the Sites of Grace & NPCs (be it to follow them or not also being a choice). This was the first open-world game I've enjoyed since Breath of the Wild.

the timing can't be more perfect, thanks!

I can only speak for myself but for me, miyazaki ABSOLUTELY succeeded in giving me a sense of adventure, and that's the reason I ended up loving this game just so much. That said, everything you said here I agree to some extent. I'd like to put some focus on the use of the map in elden ring, I honestly think it's brilliant. It's a map you actually have to look at and read as a player in order to discover more stuff and chart a route. It really did feel like sitting down and planning a route while camping or sth like that.

The repeated content was actually kind of nice, for me personally. Seeing a new catacomb was great, because I knew what to expect: 15-30 minutes of dodging traps, then fighting a boss, and then getting a nice reward at the end. The same with a lot of the repeated bosses: I know how to handle this one, let’s see how I can beat it with the new tricks I’ve learned. I think in an open world game this large, having repeated content (to a degree) is helpful, as it helps to manage expectations when coming across it, and providing a bit of familiarity to an otherwise alien world. Especially with how different each zone in Elden Ring is, to me this is a strength rather than a weakness.

This is one of the few times I really disagree with your take. Specifically the funnel analysis, or the lack of scaling enemies levels. I think it served the game purposely and is it exactly what the game needed. By time I was going to the mountain tops of the giants I was around RL 140-150, my build felt cemented and powerful, boss fights were still tough, but I also felt strong, capable, and knowledgeable about my game plan to take on the big baddies. The "boss rush" at the end felt like the perfect match for where I was. Two legacy dungeons to run around, in crumbling farum azula and haligtree which were very unique and not reused assets, 7-10 end game bosses depending what you did or didn't do earlier, to test your build on. I was done exploring, I didnt want to explore anymore, I didn't NEED to explore any more for runes/materials/weapons/spells/items. I had settled on my weapons, my ashes, my summons, my spells, and I had all the levels I needed to make it work. I was looking for a culmination, a climax, the story I had been building for the last 150 hours. I thought the funneling, the focus, the game provided, and frankly the really balanced level progression, was spot on. I didn't feel overpowered, I didn't feel underpowered, I felt like I had an adventure and now it was time to bring it home. Had mountain tops and consecrated snowfield been as big as liurnia each, I think I would have been thoroughly burned out. The only asset I didn't like was the catacombs, I think the cardinalty of the tombs being locked to 90° and grey walls really emphasized the reuse aspect of the game, but ruins, caves, and tunnels all felt fun to explore each time. Probably bc I enjoyed the aesthetic more and by nature they were all much more organic in the flow of their designs, they twisted and turned, had verticality, but It wasn't so obvious as the catacombs due to the lack of cardinality..plus they we're yeileding items I cared about more, they never got old. Frankly I don't know how any company makes a game this large, without having some reused assets OR you entirely sacrifice some key aspect of design for example relying on a marker system to guide you instead of having really strong environmental world building, looking at you Ubisoft. Taking into account the idea of reused assets, every angle view, pathway, landmark, enemy placement(even if it was a reused asset) felt carefully curated to give you a great experience. Plus enemies of the same asset type in later areas, say a soldier or a knight etc, in many cases got more advanced move sets as the game went on, which definitely caught me off guard a few times. I also don't think this game is perfect, but I just don't think some of the points that you bring up here are things I would have considered negatives.

I think its a little harsh to say the very late game is "rush" like sure its a little more linear but i think its okay Its end of the game so of course it was to be linear, its not a bad thing in my opinion and the boss was quite epic to conclude this game

Great video as always. Great editing. Your hard work on this pays off 🙂

Small correction: you mention in the recap that Altus Plateau does not feature a Great Rune holder, which just isn't true as Morgott is explicitly stated to be a Shardbearer, and grants a Great Rune (+maximum HP) upon his defeat.

This is more a commentary on the leveling scaling in Elden ring than a video discussing world design and level building.

Hard disagree on enemy balancing being an issue. Listing Assasin's creed's level scaling as an example of tackling that issue is especially ridiculous since the way AC does it is absolutely terrible. It completely ruins the immersion when you're supposedly the mightiest warrior in ancient Greek, but you're still having trouble with the most basic bandits or a random wild boar because they're buffed to always be the same level as you.

Honestly my greatest struggle with the open world is how samey some things started feeling. I chock it partially up to how limited your toolset is to solve any given problem. At the end of the day you can really either hit something with your weapon or activate a switch. It starts to undercut the wonder a bit. Botw is not prefect but the more fluid physics means you can be a lot more creative when approaching mysteries.

I'm really happy to hear that you could find the elevacha

Lmao I literally beat the game--rolled credits and everything--and had no idea that Volcano Manner had a Great Rune boss. I love this game so much.

The moment I went down that elevator and saw Nokron and Mohgwyn Palace I just stood there and started taking screenshots... My favorite place in the entire game mainly because of the architecture and the purple underground sky.

I’m just happy you’re posting more often

I can't say I agree with the hard knock on it for not having enemy level scaling. I feel constantly weak if the enemies, especially ones I've already fought, are always difficult. It makes me feel like I'm running in place and not becoming the powerful warrior who defeated Morgot if I return and his lackeys are harder than he was.

For me, I found the lack of level scaling to be great. Yeah, sure, some bosses become a cake-walk if you go too far. But I found myself in a tug of war of sorts, getting beaten, becoming overpowered and destroying things, before getting beaten again. It felt natural, to me as someone who hasn't had the prior soulseborne experience of "git gud", being able to both level up and get better at playing. The re-use of some content? Mixed feelings I guess, but I always found something with a lot of novelty in it somewhere, so it didn't hamper my experience. The funnelling at the end? Thank GOODNESS for it. I'd started to become a bit fatigued, so having a more linear fast-track that I could escape from if I wanted to (to say, go find the Haligtree, or to see the underground) was fantastic.

Wonderful video! I just installed Elden Ring again since it's been a few patches and the latest one was huge, and even though this will be maybe my third time through the game I am STILL finding areas I missed or noticing lore references and details. It is insane the amount of work that has gone into this game world

Great Video! There were definitely some issues with scaling and balancing between areas. But I personally loved the juxtaposition of Limgrave and Caelid. Right next to the opening area you had a much harder zone that was still totally open to explore. There was room to path around enemies and the scenery just drew me in. I remember taking down a basic enemy and getting 1000 runes. My eyes just popped. I was barely strong enough to fell the weakest enemy but I still had some sliver of power. Exploring the area was worth it just for the feeling of wonder and the accomplishment of filling in the map.

Excellent analysis, I have the exact same thought about the game, but I couldn't express them in words exactly.