This is the final in a six-part series exploring the game Elden Ring and its design. You can read the prior entry on the game’s end-game bosses and balance here.

I began this whole series in an effort to discuss my thoughts and feelings towards Elden Ring in greater honest detail than I had previously this year. Going by word count, I’ve at least succeeded in discussing the game in far greater detail. To what end, however? Based on that initial essay, it was to try and help illustrate why some are so pleased with this game despite exercising some of the same open-world tropes or crimes as other developers.

While I think I somewhat achieved that goal, I’ve ultimately come to the conclusion that Elden Ring is forgiven because most people playing a game such as this are simply looking to lose themselves in something fun for a few hours at a time. There is a very small population of players, critics, and analysts taking a microscope to any given game in order to figure out how it all works or could be made better. Perhaps these analytical sorts are motivated by pure academic or intellectual interest and curiosity, or perhaps they’re just trying to understand why they came away underwhelmed when so many others are claiming the title to be a modern masterpiece. There will also always be the loud voices of those that simply dislike the game because “it sucks”, or “it’s too hard”, or “it doesn’t explain anything”, though I doubt many of them even understand why they like or dislike what they do. Similarly, many of the fans on social media and Reddit that will endlessly defend it likely don’t know what it is they love about Elden Ring so much. They’ll have inklings and they’ll quote those that seem to hit the nail on the head, but in the end it all comes down to gut feelings.

When I was first playing Elden Ring, my own gut was whispering “masterpiece” to my ears. Everything just felt right, the hands of the clock seemed to speed on by I was so engaged, and every moment spent not playing the game was spent thinking about it. Uncharted corners of the map were beckoning for my attention and incomplete dungeons were turning to new objectives now that I’d powered up some. It was a game that drew me in on every level, from the moment-to-moment of playing to the idle time spent waiting for work to end so I could log some more hours.

Yet familiarity breeds contempt, and the more time I spend playing or thinking about Elden Ring the more I cannot help but feel as if it’s no masterpiece at all.

Despite my consistently contrarian nature, I do not make such a claim with the intent of pointing out the emperor has no clothes. I do not wish to pull the eyes of the masses away from their “delusion” that Elden Ring is some wonderful, Game of the Year worthy title. If anything, I believe the eyes of the developers were bigger than their stomachs, and they did their best to just dish out as much as possible to the point of belly busting gluttony.

If we perceive game development like an equation, then we can propose that the longer a game’s length is, the more likely it is to suffer problems. The original Portal, though short, was absolutely well received because there was no wasted moment of gameplay. There were just enough puzzles to experiment with the portal mechanics thoroughly while challenging the player in continuously fresh ways, and the humorous writing gave way to the plot little by little without dragging on for an unnecessarily long amount of time. Once the game was concluded, it felt… correct. While Portal 2 was also well-received, the overall reception was less consistently positive due to the longer experience. New characters needed to be added in order to keep the experience refreshing, but the more “lore” that was added to the history of Aperture Science the more absurd it all began to feel. Bigger is not necessarily better.

One of the most refreshing aspects of playing Bloodborne for the first time two years ago was how intricately crafted its world had been. It was not open-world, but it still managed to feel quite expansive despite its “more linear” progression. The city of Yharnam, the Cathedral Ward, the burnt ruins of Old Yharnam, the Forbidden Woods, the Nightmare of Mensis, so many of these locations feel uniquely defined and yet stitched together into one consistent world. Like Portal, it does not feel as if there is a single wasted area.

Ah, yes, two of them. That certainly varies things up.

I imagine the Dark Souls trilogy feels much the same way, though I’ve never played any of them through to completion. What I have played of Dark Souls and Dark Souls III certainly feels open-ended, though also guided enough to usher a player towards its objectives. I can certainly say that they remain memorable, and I can only imagine how much more so they feel in full.

While I cannot say this about all of Elden Ring, I can say individual corners of its world are far, far more memorable than, say, the likes of Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon: Zero Dawn. I may be repeating myself here, but it’s hard not to admire what From Software has accomplished by crafting so much of its open-world into unique and memorable sections with impactful encounters. Even if one of those corners has yet another Erdtree Avatar or yet another dragon to chop at the ankles of, it is a memorable experience nonetheless.

At the end of the day, though, the size does not improve the game, and that quantity of recycled monsters acts as evidence. The open-world does not exist to make Elden Ring better but to instead pad out play time. It truly is that simple, though once again there will always be those that insist more is better. Nevertheless, I would argue that Elden Ring could just as easily have been a smaller game with an even more intentionally crafted world without sacrificing much.

Keep in mind that much of my favorite time is spent in the open-world, as that’s where the game allows the player to manage their healing and combat encounters in order to prolong their experience. It is where the player has the most control over their fun, though it is also where the player is often the least challenged. It is enjoyable, but it does not make the game better. By time the player reaches the “Legacy Dungeons”, as they were called in marketing, such as Stormveil Castle, Raya Lucaria Academy, Leyndell, the Volcano Manor, or Farum Azula, they may have come to rely on healing so much that they’re bound to have a more difficult time once their supply has become more finite. For a fanbase that is obsessed with all the things From Software “teaches” the player, Elden Ring does a terrible job of “teaching” the player how to shift from open-world exploration towards imposing and ever threatening dungeon-crawling.

Unless, of course, you count the tiny mini-dungeons such as catacombs, mines, and caverns, but even they are so comparatively short as to mean little should the player die within one. The experience of exploring all of Limgrave is jarring compared to entering Stormveil for the first time, and even then the player is introduced to a far more open zone than a traditional Dark Souls level design. It’s overwhelming what freedom these locations afford the player, and yet, unlike the open-world, there’s far greater risk of death and the loss of runes than there is in the greater Lands Between.

These are all gripes, however, and I can imagine a million and one counter-arguments to them all. I admit, I do not feel as if I ever “got better” at Elden Ring in the manner I had with Bloodborne. Being able to defeat such foes as Martyr Logarius on my first solo attempt after having struggled so many times with a co-op partner came with a real sense of accomplishment. However, I do not feel as if I truly did well in Elden Ring due to my reliance on spirit ashes. They are an example of why there are detractors to an “easy mode” being present in these games, acting as a constant temptation to ease up rather than get good. I am an impatient fellow, and rather than learn the ins and outs of every boss I instead preferred to learn just enough to get by, and only then if my spirit ashes were unlikely to survive an entire fight. My victory over this game felt comparatively hollow to that won of Bloodborne.

At the end of the day, however, these gripes and miniscule nitpicks aren’t what matter. What matters, to most players at least, is that the game “is fun”, and this is where I’ve always struggled with the open-world genre. I would rather play a short game with no wasted moments than a long game whose greatest achievements are interspersed between stretches of mediocrity. This is why I was so easily convinced last year that Resident Evil Village was destined to be my favorite game of 2021, even if it managed to be topped by Metroid Dread. I’ve played each a half-dozen times and, admittedly, have craved going back to both several times this year rather than play new games. Both of them are shorter, more linear experiences, and at this point I’d rather play either one than continue my latest run through Elden Ring. Of course, I’ve also already invested approximately 170 hours into Elden Ring, which is more than I’ve put into either Metroid Dread and Resident Evil Village combined despite the numerous playthroughs.

In the end, however, Elden Ring does precisely what the Ubisoft, Rockstar, or Bethesda developed open-world games do: provide a giant playground in which a player can spend dozens upon dozens of hours. It’s not about “meaningful” content because the act of playing is meaningful enough. That Elden Ring does not make its objectives clear adds a greater sense of discovery for much of its audience. That the game’s combat is so much more finely executed than the competition’s is, I’d argue, why the game is so successful across such a wide berth of players.

In the end, however, that’s all that makes the game “better” than its competition: that foundation I discussed in the very first piece. If Elden Ring were built from scratch, it would either have been far smaller or far more lousy to play. From Software were only capable of making a game as large and enjoyable as they were because they already had a good baseline of mechanics. Yes, there were additional intelligent decisions made in how they approached that open-world, and there were some significant additions to that combat, but ultimately Elden Ring only succeeds as well as it does by being based on combat that, at this point, is more than a decade old.

It’s hard to call such a thing a masterpiece. However, I cannot deny that I enjoy the experience of playing the game as well. There’s a thrill to starting a new character and all of its possibilities. It’s also true that no one makes a game that feels like one From Software makes.

All said and done, however, it’s hard not to deride Elden Ring as simply being “open-world Dark Souls”. It fails to properly carve an identity of its own, and many of its more frustrating moments feel as if they are far more indulgent or misguided than those made in games past. At this point, I cannot help but hope Miyazaki takes a break from these sorts of titles in order to explore something new and fresh. That, or return to something of a smaller scale rather than aiming to go bigger.

Because in terms of video games, bigger is rarely also better.