I was taking this post seriously until this part..
suppose I could also address the criticism of the open world, but there is not much to really say here. If you like open worlds and overworld exploration, you'll find ER to be exquisite, an almost ideal open world game
No, ER open-world is not "exquisite", it's not even good. It's just crap.
Honestly, what is with this “exquisite” shit? The open world is garbage.
I’ll bite,
Ventidius why is it an “ideal open world game?” and explain why it’s not shit.
I suppose it goes back to my view on what constitutes quality overworld exploration, and I'd say it consists of the following elements:
Engagement: This is mainly about incentives to explore. These are the rewards for indulging your curiosity and scouring the world. They usually come in two main forms: treasure (the most obvious) and means of progression. Treasure includes things such as weapons, armor, and other gear, and in the case of Elden Ring, there is a lot to sink one's teeth in in terms of useful items to find: Unique weapons and armor (and the excellent item design in this game synergizes with this), Flask upgrades of two kinds, Weapon and Ashen Spirit upgrade materials, Physicks, plus sorceries and incantations. Not all that you will find will be useful to your build, however, given how many options diverse builds allow, there is plenty of gear that, while not essential, might be nice to have for situational uses. A lot of my builds had multiple backup options in terms of weapons, armor, and talismans, so I often had uses for much of the loot I came across. There are also more undifferentiated items such as upgrade materials come into the equation, and those are useful to just about everybody. For a world as big as this one, it's impressive how rarely it makes you feel that you came out of an expedition into a cave, new area, or mini-dungeon with nothing to show for it.
The point I made in my previous post about this game's emphasis on builds that exploit some of the options afforded by the new system is also important, since this means that the items and gear that you find through exploration is actually meaningful and makes a big difference in combat. In other words, the game's strength in build diversification and options synergizes significantly with the way exploration works.
It should be noted that the people who dislike open worlds and overworld exploration will actually think this is a point
against the game, because it means that a lot of the items they need for their build are spread around, forcing them to engage in exploration that they'd rather not do. As I said, a lot of fans of previous games dislike that the overworld gets in the way of their playing the game like Bloodborne (or any of the previous FS games), they just want to easily get the gear for their build and move on to the next dungeon boss, they care little for exploring. But for those of us that actually like to wander off the beaten path, this is a very satisfying element of the game.
The other reward type that I mentioned was means for progression, and in Elden Ring this applies to both the itemized runes spread around the world and the many enemies, mini-dungeons, optional bosses and encounters that you'll find. If you don't feel like advancing through the critical path or grinding, there is plenty of optional content that you can do that can be both respectably engaging and challenging and will also make you more powerful.
Scale: Another positive that, to haters of open worlds, will always be a negative. They'll talk about quality being superior to quantity (as if Elden Ring didn't have an enormous quantity of quality content, the Legacy Dungeons alone are examples of that) without realizing that quantity is a quality, and that a sense of exploring, traversing and conquering a massive world can be a very satisfying feeling on its own. Elden Ring certainly delivers in this area, and I feel I don't have to argue this point too vehemently as the scope of the game is well-established. The detractors will rather point to repetitiveness as an issue that comes with the scope, and some degree of that is inevitable, but FS went above and beyond in terms of designing a massive roster of unique dungeons, enemies, and bosses, and they simply repurposed much of that already large pool of content into "derivative" enemies and areas that drive a lot of people absolutely berserk. But to those of us that appreciate the ideal of Daggerfall and the great scope in gameworlds that it championed, this repetition is a fair price to pay, especially when the core content is so good.
I will say, there is some issue in terms of immersion when some bosses like Godefroy and Stars of Darkness seem to be "copypasted" from bosses that technically shouldn't be (a different case from, say, dragons, which make sense due to belonging to the same species), however, not only are these few and far in between, but we are still not entirely sure that there is no lore explanation for their existence, as FS always seems to be very deliberate about these things, and this game, for the most part and despite its size, has not been the exception in other areas.
Biome variety: Not the best that I've seen in an open world, but pretty solid all around. You've got your snow areas, your volcano, your lakes area, and Limgrave being the more standard woodlands/plains area. Not exactly the most imaginative setup, but it covers most bases, makes the areas distinct enough, and grants a respectable level of polychromatism to the experience while not feeling too "theme-parkey" and disjointed. Caelid and the underground areas like Siofra River are the most exotic by far, and the underground areas in particular are spectacular and a high point in area design. Caelid is a wasteland, but of a very unique kind that is deeply interwoven with the quirks and lore of the world: it's pretty good. The Altus Plateau seemed the weakest overworld area the first time I visited it, but it has grown on me, in part because I have come to appreciate its traversal, which leads me to the next point.
Traversal: This refers to actually introducing broken terrain: hills, mountains, forests, and the like. This is good because it makes moving around the world less straightforward and thus less of a "hiking sim", let alone a "walking sim". Overall, ER does this very well. As I said, Altus in particular requires some thought in how to move around the actual plateau in order to reach places of interest, and indeed, in order to figure out how to reach the plateau itself. However, other areas also have plenty of this, such as Caelid, which has some interesting traversal mini-puzzles such as reaching the Giant Jar's Arena, which requires a detour via Siofra, or finding the path to the Albinauric village in Liurnia, or navigating the well, mountains, of the Mountaintop of Giants, which can lead to some circuitous expeditions and even some really cool things like the invisible bridge. Finding one of the many teleporters that lead you to other parts of the game, and indeed, finding your way to many of the games later areas is all quite engaging. There are plenty of creative ways of criss-crossing around the world.
Given Elden Ring's - and FS games apart from Sekiro - lack of emphasis on traversal mechanics (such as climbing, gliding, and the like), there are limits to what the game can really do here, even with stuff like the wind vortexes, but nonetheless, I think FS did a great job of working with the mechanical scheme that they had to turn this aspect into something that contributes positively to the experience as a whole without dragging the game down.
Encounters and dungeons: Self-explanatory, and Elden Ring has plenty. A lot of the forts and encampments offer solid encounters against enemy groups, the overworld bosses generally tend to keep to certain archetypes (Dragons, Night's Cavalry, and Erdtree avatars being the most common), but also offer some welcome variety here and there in the form of much less used bosses such as Magma Wyrms, Tibia Mariners, Death Rite Birds, the Fallingstar Beasts the evergaol bosses, or the surprise encounter with Margit, which is very cool and synergizes perfectly with his lore. The mini-dungeons are controversial to people who dislike open world games (are you seeing a pattern here?), but fans of overworld exploration have known since Morrowind at least how much they can enhance a game. They don't need to be masterpieces of labyrinthine design, they just have to meet a bare minimum of interesting loot, involved layout, and fun encounters and bosses, all while also sprinkling a bit of personality and uniqueness in each. The vast majority of the mini-dungeons do exactly that (you'll rarely see Skyrim-style linear romps), and in the process offer a way for the player to continue engaging with the world and becoming stronger without doing the same "legacy" or critical content. I have cleared all of the main bosses and dungeons and there are still a lot of little caves and catacombs that I haven't visited and could see in coming playthroughs, and that's a great feeling. Not to mention, it adds to the sense of scope.
Discovery: A lot of the content in the overworld, such as evergaols, ghost footprints, divine towers, and caravans have a sense of wonder to them when you are starting a blind playthrough, but they do tend to lose it after you've seen them a few times. The prevalence of "archetypal" content design definitely tends to cheapen a lot of these points of interest by the late game, but by that point you should be powerful enough that discovery has shifted from curiosities in the world to bosses, dungeons, and questlines. I felt this progression in the nature and pace of the game was quite natural, and the old point of interest types still contributed to the engagement of the world even after they lost their discovery appeal. Some of these things also helped the areas feel part of an unified world that had been once a single empire, especially stuff like the Divine Towers once you know some of the lore behind them.
Overall, this is an element that is at its strongest during the first blind playthrough, and it always, in all games, gets weaker with meta knowledge. That's normal, and what matters is that an overworld can keep engagement even when that sense of discovery is gone.
Environmental storytelling: The worldbuilding of Elden Ring is probably one of the most interesting I've seen in a FS game, and indeed it even rivals Bloodborne while also bringing a lot of themes that were experimented with in DS1 and DS2 to new heights. But that'd a whole 'nother conversation on its own. What matters here is how well the environments show that, and as always, FS has done an impressive work of weaving the lore into its overworld. From things like the very shape of Leyndell reflecting symbolism from alchemy (a concept that itself is central to the themes of ER), to the particulars of the presence of Albinaurics (including corrupted ones) inside and surrounding Mohgwyn Palace, the Omenkiller in the village of the Albinaurics being a remnant of the massacre perpetrated by Sir Gideon, the frozen corpses of the Giants in the Mountaintops, the curious presence of Fire Guardians in multiple areas, the connections between the Haligtree and the Shaded Castle, the footsoldiers of different factions populating related areas, the remnants of siege and battle surrounding the embattled capital, the way Leyndell and Liurna are associated with opposed alchemical symbolism (the Sun and the Moon) and their atmosphere and art direction support it, the list goes on...
To really get into the details of this, I'd probably need another wall of text explaining what I know about the lore and the way it was instantiated in the world, but needless to say, I think this aspect is very well done.
Freedom: Both in terms of allowing you to visit "higher level" areas early on and in terms of having plenty of content that is not critical to the campaign. In other words, "freedom from" in the sense of a relative lack of artificial limitations and "freedom for" in the sense of having optional things to do. You can access four major overworld areas right off the bat and without fighting any bosses: Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, and the Weeping Peninsula. Four other areas (Altus, Gelmir, the Mountaintops, the Consecrated Snowfield) require you to beat bosses. The underground areas are a bit more complicated, but there is at least one (Siofra River) that can be accessed off the bat. This means both that you get a lot of freedom to explore and that there is a strong sense of progression and discovering new areas, and that's a very reasonable way of handling this design element.
In terms of having meaningful optional content to do, this game has a lot of that. The entire content related to Ranni's questline is so extensive and constructive to the experience that any other developer would likely not have had the balls to make it optional. But From did. And apart from giving you things to do parallel to the critical path and main progression, it's says something about the care, love and attention to detail of the devs that they made all of this content so elaborate and refined (it could even be argued to be some of the best content in the game, if not the best) even though a lot of players (perhaps most?) wouldn't even see it. That used to be considered one of the hallmarks of monocled design around here.
Apart from the Ranni-related areas, there is still a lot of excellent optional content. The Consecrated Snowfield and the Haligtree, Placidusax, the Deeproot related content, plenty of unique bosses and mid-sized dungeons like the Shaded Castle and Castle Morne... This is a
massive world where content density is not a major issue, and that is quite the achievement, to say the least.
Well, that should cover the areas that I value most in open worlds. The weakest aspect of the world, and the sense in which it feels the most empty, is probably the relative dearth of NPCs and questlines. Though I personally don't put a lot of emphasis in this aspect, which is closer to the "storyfag" side of things, which means its possible de-emphasis doesn't bother me too much. Still, there is plenty to see here in terms of questlines, the main issue is that they are often too far in between and a bit on the obtuse side.
As I said in my previous post, if you enjoy overworld exploration, you'll enjoy Elden Ring's world. The complaints that I often see from people are not issues (in fact, they are often positives) for those that naturally feel compelled to traverse and explore, which makes me think that these are people that simply disdain non-dungeon exploration as a gameplay element tout court. It's true that not every one of the elements I examined is great or excellent in ER, but each one of them is at least reasonably solid, which is more than what most open worlds have achieved. Most overworlds in action games out there have at least one major, glaring flaw (like the progression and itemization in BOTW), while Elden Ring's world is just very tight on all fronts while still excelling on a couple of important areas (like engagement and encounters and dungeons). That's why I think ER's overworld is quite close to the ideal open world, or at least one of the closest we've gotten.