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Some people enjoy changes of pace in games. And, while it’s true the open world is basically filler on repeat playthroughs, in the first playthrough the sense of exploration and discovery was amazing.
I love the open world, but it does come with the caveat that I’m not the kind of person that replays games a lot. I adore games like Outer Wilds and A Highland Song where exploring is basically the entire point. I prefer having one or two really interesting playthroughs enjoying the exploration over a series of combat gauntlets. Don’t get me wrong, I like the gauntlets as well, I just crave exploration in games
That said, aren’t the most highly-regarded legacy dungeons the least linear ones? Everyone loves Leyndell and that place is a labyrinth
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Stormveil is fantastic, yeah. I would say that the second half of it is a lot less linear too. Once you’ve beaten the grafted scion it gives you far more options. You can dodge the troll altogether and never meet Nepheli, and there’s at least three ways to approach the main gate from the inside
I’ve not heard of A Highland Song, but Outer Wilds is one of my all-time favourite games. I’m going to check it out; thanks for the recommendation
I realise that you weren’t actively making a recommendation, but that’s effectively what you’ve done. I love finding new stuff through organic conversations like this — we’re living in an era of endless slop content getting in our way, so I relish these small moments of connection with other people.
Regarding Elden Ring, I completely agree. The highlight of the game was the very beginning, when you first get into Limgrave. Fairly early on, I found the chest in the lake ruins that teleports you into Caelid, and it was such as awesome experience to feel so terrified. The world felt so huge
A highland song is excellent, but don’t expect it to be anything like outer wilds
What apotheotic said is correct, it’s quite different to Outer Wilds. That said, I obviously think it’s still worth checking out. I am probably biased because I live in Scotland, like hillwalking, and like Scottish folk music, so it was hitting a lot of personal delights for me. I do recommend it all the same, as the art style is lovely and the frequent moments of “ooh, what’s that in the distance and how do I get there?” are a lot of fun
I think the closest experiences to OW I’ve had are:
- Return of the Obra Dinn. I think everyone knows this one, but in case you haven’t played it it’s more focussed on story and detective work over the exploration of OW
- Sable. Movement is really fun and the world is cool to explore, but the quests are a bit shallow. I recommend going into the graphics settings and choosing the high visibility colour option, it looks much nicer
- Heaven’s Vault. Great story and a fascinating setting, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is much less fluid than OW
I think all three are great overall, of course, especially Obra Dinn
(also if you have your own OW-adjacent recommendations I would love to hear them)
I don’t have any recommendations of my own, but that’s sort of why I love Outer Wilds so much; it’s an experience quite unlike any other I’ve had. I mean, the same could be said for most media — it’s always wise to try not to project expectations from another game stop you from engaging with a new game on its terms, and that’s especially true for a game that is personally impactful.
It reminds me of the quote: “a man can never walk through the same river twice, because it is not the same river and he is not the same man”. There are so many games that I wish I could play for the first time again, but I wouldn’t really want that even if it were possible, because it would surely mean reverting back to the person I was before playing those games (given that they impacted me enough that I feel changed for the experience). Perhaps it’s a cheesy way to look at things, but I like being overly poetic in my old age (that is a joke — I am only 28.)
The open world sucks. It’s interesting to explore it once or twice, but it’s probably the biggest obstacle to me wanting to replay Elden Ring. It turns the first two hours of any playthrough into a glorified shopping list as you get your build online, and then you can completely ignore it and just focus on the critical path afterwards. That’s you’re reward for the chores; you don’t have to interact with it anymore because you know none of the rewards are worth it for your build.
Really hope the next FromSoft title returns to sprawling, interconnected levels.
Disclaimer: I love Dark Souls 2, and that’s actually why I’m using it for this example. I think this applies to most of the Souls games though.
I play through DS2 a lot. Probably once a year these days, I’ve done over a dozen full runs of the game.
Almost no matter what build I’m building, I’m 2/3 of the way through the game (or farther, sometimes, depending on if I want DLC items) before my build is “built”. Part of the fun of the game to me is building up that build piece by piece, but the fact remains, if I’m building a hexer (for instance), I’m going to be running it as a sorceror with a bad stat spread for 10 hours before it fleshes out. You’ll need to go into NG+ in order to properly run a certain build through the whole game.
Elden Ring neatly sidesteps this issue, at the cost of making 2/3 of the game world useless to you on repeat playthroughs. You can just go pick up everything on your shopping list in 2-3 hours and then your path forward from there is clear.
I’m honestly not sure which of these is the better option, and I both like and dislike both options for different reasons.
imo the best way to replay elden ring is with the randomizer (for items and bosses)
you can have a general idea of what you want to build but the details are going to depend on what you find, a lot like the first blind playthrough.
the main problem this introduces is that (depending on the randomizer settings) there becomes basically no incentive to explore any side areas, just hit up the most drop-dense spots to cobble a playable build together before swooping in on the major bosses. and something like an arc/faith build just isn’t feasible unless you roll a dragon communion seal on your starter build. but then, flexibility should be rewarded.
Since I’ve never tried out randomisers or Nightreign, I’m curious to hear your thoughts on Nightreign now, because that sounds like you are basically describing the NR experience
i was a big fan of it around the first batch of everdarks, have since fallen off and intend to come back when it’s content complete (and i can pick up a couple copies on sale for friends)
it’s a vastly different solo experience but scratches a similar itch. the main difference is playing to a time limit vs just competing against your own performances. obviously can’t really compare the team play.
I get what you mean, but I personally really love that feeling of growth. I would say it’s one of the primary markers of whether or not I’ll enjoy a game. It’s a big reason I play lots of MMOs and ARPGs, because I really enjoy character progression. I’d rather suffer as a bad wizard nerd for the first 20 hours for the payoff of being a badass grand magus for like the last third of the game, than start as a very powerful wizard who gets maybe one or two more spells throughout the game.
Exactly. An open world with nothing in it and nothing to interact with is just a chore to travel through. It’s a wait tax between content sections.
Absolutely this!
I didn’t really care for ER as much, but I would be happy for them to continue to look for a new angle on the whole thing. The new thing they’re doing is a miss for me, and I’d love to see what else they’ve got up their sleeve. I’d hate to think I’m done with their soulslikes, they do solid work overall.
I thought the open world was fun and I liked traveling far across the lands. It reminded me of playing shadow of the colossus when I was a kid. I am not an optimized gamer so I slowly explored everything and had fun getting lost.
Have you played the DLC? There’s a specific area in it that I swear must have been intentionally modelled after Shadow of the Colossus
Open world was definitely not a good idea.
It’s only diluted and stretched thin what little original content they could muster and the rest was filled with copy pasted locations with literally one item “hidden” in these pointless spots. ( which is just some dumb consumable anyways )
Don’t let this corporate slop be the way you judge souls games. Lies of P is a much much better standard to hold souls games to. It’s a far far better first souls game.
![[ER] Choose one](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/3bbd7c59-f47f-4ffd-9d9e-17f688b292c9.webp){kind=link}