Elden Ring is going to change the face of video games forever. While few will adopt the mega-tough boss battles or obtuse menu systems, and might not even be prepared to trust their playerbase enough with such a hands off approach to storytelling, Elden Ring’s influence will still be felt. After years of growing increasingly frustrated and bored with open world maps stuffed with quest markers, Breath of the Wild came along and offered more freedom than we’d seen before on such a grand scale. It’s why Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Forbidden West, both great games in their own right, feel dated and played-out. While titles like Genshin Impact, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and even Forbidden West with its gliding and climbing have taken inspiration from Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring is the first to build on BOTW’s foundations, not just steal flowers from its garden. Given both are critical darlings, that means we’re going to feel their influence for the next decade or so.

I have just two words to say on the matter: fuck me. I don’t like either of these games, and despite sensing that the genre needs to change, I love open world games. Where does this leave me? I’ve made my peace with Breath of the Wild 2 - I wrote last year that I hope I hate it, because I’d rather it stay true to its vision even if it leaves me out in the cold. And I’ve argued against Elden Ring being the greatest game of all time, due to all the issues I mentioned in the first paragraph. A good game, maybe even a great game? Sure. But greatest of all time? It’s not welcoming enough to new players and is having its critical consensus warped by the fact only series veterans have reviewed it.

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Video games take a long time to make. I’m sure, in the days and weeks after the launch of Breath of the Wild, developers sat in meetings and rolled their eyes as executives and directors raved about Zelda and how to implement the genre changing conventions into a project that was already rolling. In most cases, the influence was minimal, as seen through the climbing stamina or gliding device. Ghost of Tsushima is a fairly standard open world game, yet sold itself on ‘no directional arrows’ because that’s what BOTW had. In practice, GoT most definitely does have a directional arrow in the form of a wisp of wind that will constantly tell you where to go, but had it been less developed when BOTW took over the world, perhaps it would have been less like a traditional open world game. I still want what GoT promised, so perhaps the sequel will lean into it more.

a wide angle shot of Hyrule Castle from Breath of the Wild surrounded by giant pillars with a shining light coming from its centre

That’s the most frustrating part about all of this - there is a middle ground between ‘go anywhere!’ and ‘go to these 16 towers, then these 12 camps, then these 5 storage stations, then…’, but no one seems to have found it. We’re reaching the point where triple-A games could conceivably have begun development after Breath of the Wild launched, and that means we could see its influence in a ground-up kind of way. And if there were any concerns that perhaps players wouldn’t follow along with a game that offers next to no guidance outside of the confines of Zelda, Elden Ring just put those fears to bed. It’s open season for games to be as hands-off as they want to be.

For some of you, that’s good news. Clearly both BOTW and Elden Ring are popular and critically acclaimed, so they’re doing something right, even if I can’t quite see it. And maybe it’s what the genre needs, too. However much I enjoyed them, open world games were getting increasingly bloated, designed by committees to tick off as many boxes as possible. They were stagnant. Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring will get them moving again, and even if they drift too far from the design ideals I cherish, sometimes you gotta go there to come back.

A FromSoftware Noob’s Guide To Elden Ring
I'm gonna head towards this glowy tree
A FromSoftware Noob’s Guide To Elden Ring

It’s also worth noting that Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild are not flukes. They aren’t popular just because they let you go wherever you want, they are meticulously crafted experiences in their own right, and curated to guide the player onwards. A bunch of schmucks with a boatful of money could not create a video game half as good just by taking away the map markers and letting you wander. There’s an art to this, and we’ve seen two elite games make the first major attempt. We’re yet to see a bad version of this idea. Who knows, maybe I’d like that more?

I enjoy working through areas of the map and clearing up tasks, but open world games had become too reliant on the numbers and had grown stale. Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring refresh things considerably, but they take a major swing in the opposite direction to do it. Is there a way for a game to keep the focussed objectives of old while introducing the intrepid spirit of venturing wherever you like across the entire map? I hope so, otherwise these next ten years are going to be hard going.

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