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.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes
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This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".
Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.
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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
Even Stormveil was a cool first legacy dungeon. Choice of paths to take (albeit one of them just makes it harder and more boring), so many nooks and crannies to explore.
TBH, most legacy dungeons aren't that hard to just beeline it if one wanted to (Haligtree maybe being the one exception) but the fun comes from all of the extra stuff to see and do in there.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.