Elden Ring has arrived and offers up an enthralling adventure for FromSoft veterans and newcomers alike. As the most accessible entry in the developer’s series of grueling RPGs, Elden Ring has been praised for bringing punishing boss battles and lore-drenched world into the open-world format. But in doing so, FromSoftware faced significant challenges.
Open-world games, by design, often have Quality of Life problems that make completing quests, traversing the world, or simply obtaining the various items and resources you need a chore, especially over the 10s or hundreds of hours they take to complete. But, miraculously, Elden Ring manages to avoid all of these pitfalls, delivering one of the most immersive and freeing worlds we’ve ever had the joy of exploring.
No Stamina Drain Outside of Battle
While this one’s certainly starting to get phased out across the genre, Elden Ring manages to avoid a particularly pesky open-world problem by ensuring your stamina — which depletes when sprinting, dodging, rolling, and attacking in combat — isn’t affected when you’re out of battle.
In most cases, you’ll be using your trusty spectral steed, Torrent, to help you traverse great distances over The Lands Between, but sometimes you’ll want — or need — to explore on-foot instead. Not having this drain when you begin sprinting just makes things so much more… freeing.
It compliments the game’s core design mechanics which encourage aimless exploration by simply ensuring you can do so at your own pace, and not have to worry about your character grinding to a halt and gasping for air every 10 seconds.
We may be a Tarnished, but we’ve got good cardio, and we love it.
Fast Travel Convenience & Torrent On-Demand
Even when you’re not on-foot, Elden Ring makes sure that you’re not left in the middle of nowhere without the means of being able to get away in a flash, be it on the aforementioned Torrent, or by fast traveling to a Site of Grace.
Torrent can, quite literally, be summoned out of thin air with the press of a button (if you tie it to a quickslot) which has saved our screens from the blood-red ‘You Died’ splashing on our screens more times than we can count.
But even then, where other open-world games force you to visit a campfire (cough, Horizon Forbidden West, cough), or use some sort of consumable to fast travel to a point you’ve already unlocked, Elden Ring says “screw it, free fast travel for everyone, everywhere!”
There’s no real barrier to using either of these traversal methods, and it makes exploring The Lands Between all the more enticing. Get completely lost in some vast dungeon, or bump into an enemy you really shouldn’t be taking on yet? Then Torrent and the fast travel system will combine to return you to safety, ready for you to venture off in another direction, just to have a mooch around.
No Weapon Degradation
I loved The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but if there was one thing that detracted from just exploring its rendition of Hyrule and taking on the various Moblins, Guardians and Lizalfos, it was the weapon degradation system. Everything you picked up, with the exception of the Master Sword, would shatter after what felt like a just a handful of hits.
While some will argue that weapon degradation adds to the immersive feeling of existing in a world and encourages further exploration before taking on main quests, others — myself included — simply find it infuriating. I’ve just found an awesome weapon, let me enjoy it without worrying when I should and shouldn’t be using it. I overthink enough as it is. I don’t need the possibility of my sword shattering into a bazillion pieces to add to the pile.
Breath of the Wild isn’t the only game to have ever used a weapon degradation system, but given the other similarities between it and Elden Ring, it’s an obvious example to use here.
Elden Ring once again forgoes this pitfall. That Twinblade you’ve found will be just as strong and durable 100 hours into your adventure after the blood of 20 bosses coats its silver blades as it was when you first picked it up. An enemy’s flaming projectiles won’t incinerate your shield on contact. They’ll just bounce right off (and sending you flailing backwards).
The lack of weapon degradation is yet another example of FromSoftware avoiding all obstacles that would impede you from enjoying exploring The Lands Between. It doesn’t matter if you accidentally wander into an enormous dungeon teeming with enemies with just one weapon in your inventory, it’ll be able to competently take them all on.
No Quest Marker Anxiety
Every opened up your map in an open-world game only to find it littered with quest markers, fast travel points, collectible markers and whatever else the game is insistent you go and take a look at and just felt a crippling sense of anxiety overwhelm you? You want to see everything. You want to check off each marker, each one getting you one step closer to that sense of relief that comes from knowing you’ve not inadvertently missed out on some fantastic quest or surprise that everyone else is going to be talking about in a few week’s time.
Well, Elden Ring does away with any predefined markers entirely, leaving you to put your own custom markers down to note places of interest you want to explore or return to at a later date.
This might sound like it’d cause even more anxiety-induced FOMO, but it just… doesn’t. By giving you complete freedom to explore the world and stumble upon the weird and wonderful cast of NPCs, you’ll craft your own story across The Lands Between, and as a result, it makes the open-world more engaging and interesting. You’re not just making a beeline from marker to marker. You’re carefully trudging through ruins, cautiously lighting your way through a complex dungeon system, and writing your own legend.
Every Tarnished’s journey across The Lands Between should be different outside of the main story bosses. The lack of guidance from the game only goes to create a watercooler community amongst players, each sharing their own hilarious tales of woe, or fantastic findings and tips on what you should do next.
In knowing you’re meant to experience Elden Ring at your own pace and with your own unique adventures, that anxiety melts away, opening the door for aimless exploration and memorable moments galore.
Easy Resource Gathering
With open-worlds often comes crafting; and with crafting comes resources and with resources comes countless hours scouring the world to find them. Whenever you find something you want to pick up, you have to sit through a second-long animation of your character kneeling down to pick it up, or reaching out to gather it. After 10 times it’s a little annoying, after 100 times, it’s just outright frustrating.
Elden Ring allows you to gather resources with the press of a button. No jarring animation. No need to get off your mount. Just press the button and carry on. It might seem incredibly minor, but it’s so freeing and only encourages you to pick up everything you find across the world in the hopes that it’ll come in handy later on down the line.
Or you can just sell those 200 Erdleaf you’ve got to some poor merchant for a small fortune of Runes.
Less Fetch Questing, More Interesting NPCs
We mentioned before that the NPCs made Elden Rings anxiety-free questing even better, and that’s thanks to a combination of excellent writing and fantastic worldbuilding that makes every conversation with a random NPC you find feel unique and genuinely interesting. I’ve seldom wanted to continue talking to an NPC in a game outside of being told what mindless fetch quest they’re tasking me with.
Not so much in Elden Ring. While they will inevitably tell you the same thing once you’ve exhausted their dialog options. Talking to them once often isn’t enough, and trying to converse with them again will normally result in them telling you some more details or handing over a useful item.
Even the quests they send you on, with a lack of an in-game journal to document the side quests you’ve picked up, feel like epic adventures on their own. Rather than simply heading to a marker to get a random item, fighting a few enemies on the way, the NPCs in The Lands Between will tell you that you’ll want to go somewhere in a vague direction, look out for these guys, and see what you find.
You have no idea whether they’re being genuine, what item you’ll find, or what enemy (or how many of them) you’ll face. It’s that same sense of wonder and mystery that Elden Ring is oozing with, and as lost as I can sometimes feel, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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