Elden Ring's Exciting New Features Will Leave You Spellbound

Highlights

Elden Ring's move to an open-world format has been well-received and proved to be a good direction for FromSoftware's Souls-style games.

Future FromSoftware Souls-style games should also focus on enhancing replayability. Although Elden Ring's open-world concept is a positive move, the new game plus feature should be further improved to provide greater allure. This can be achieved by incorporating new questlines, exclusive items, and more rewarding endings to strive for.

The initial announcement of an open world in Elden Ring raised concerns among fans of its predecessors. However, after players thoroughly explored the vast realms of Elden Ring's Lands Between, it became evident that the shift to an open world was a successful enhancement for FromSoftware's Souls-style games.

With the overwhelmingly positive response to Elden Ring's open-world format, it is recommended that future FromSoftware Souls-style games follow suit by embracing this feature. Furthermore, Elden Ring's DLC and upcoming content should further amplify the expansive nature of the game's environments. The open world formula introduced by Elden Ring represents a promising direction for the genre, yet there are areas that can be refined in future games. Particularly, FromSoftware should strive to enhance replayability in its next game.

Future FromSoftware Games Should Double Down on Replay Value

Elden Ring introduced a refreshing blend of traditional linear and new open-world environments, appealing to both genre enthusiasts and newcomers alike. While Souls-style games are typically characterized by their challenging difficulty, Elden Ring allows players to adjust the level of challenge to their preference by incorporating features such as Spirit Summons, Ashes of War, and Legendary gear. The game's open-world format further empowers players to forge their own path, providing alternative routes when faced with obstacles.

However, Elden Ring falls short in terms of replay value compared to the Dark Souls series, partially attributed to its open-world map. In Dark Souls 3, players could uncover exclusive items in subsequent playthroughs, but this feature is noticeably absent in Elden Ring. Once players complete their initial playthrough, subsequent playthroughs merely offer duplicate items, higher Rune drop rates, tougher adversaries, and another opportunity to complete questlines. Although players can take advantage of dual-wielding powerful weapons using duplicate items, fully exploring Elden Ring only requires a single playthrough.

There are limited options for exploration in Elden Ring, and even then, some of the locations lack diversity. The game's questlines integrate well with the open-world structure, but they tend to blend together at certain junctures. Moreover, the different endings in Elden Ring are fairly similar, leading players to experience most of the same events until the very end. Consequently, many players may choose to look up the endings online instead of investing effort to unlock them.

Though the majority of areas in Elden Ring can be explored without engaging in specific questlines, the few areas that are quest-related lack replay value. This is largely due to the fact that the game's side quests can be completed in a single playthrough. While there are a few questlines with decision points that restrict access to other quests, this occurs so late in the game that the only consequence is the choice of ending. While introducing conflicting requirements for accessing certain quests and areas may contradict the open-world experience, it would enhance replayability.

Future FromSoftware games following Elden Ring should take into consideration the impact of the open-world format on the game's ability to be replayed. Enhancing the replay value could be achieved by reintroducing unique items, exclusive questlines, and locations in subsequent playthroughs. Although it may be too late for any downloadable content (DLC) for Elden Ring to introduce innovations to its open-world formula, upcoming FromSoftware titles that adopt a similar format should embrace the challenge and prioritize replay value.

Elden Ring can be currently played on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.