Elden Ring’s open world has pros and cons that a future Soulslike imitator will need to be mindful of if attempting to replicate its formula.
Soulslike games are rightfully rampant lately and that hopefully won’t stop for as long as FromSoftware’s inspiration runs hot in developers’ circles. If Elden Ring’s success has anything to say about it, FromSoftware will likely be developing games with its tailor-made formula for the foreseeable future, all while giving it the opportunity to dip its toes into non-Souls endeavors such as Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon. But while many Soulslikes imitate one or more features from a FromSoftware game, future imitators shouldn’t try to leverage Elden Ring’s immensity for its own.
Elden Ring is an open-world game through and through, which could have easily overthrown the core gameplay dynamics of the Souls-esque action-RPG features it embeds. Crafting might not have turned out to be as significant of a feature as it puts itself out to be, but the colossal scale of the Lands Between makes each mechanic at least somewhat helpful depending on what players’ ambitions are. If a future Soulslike game tries to emulate what Elden Ring has done, though, it will surely find itself grappling with the same issues FromSoftware has encountered. Elden Ring’s Size Comes with Pros and Cons
Elden Ring was first revered for how big its map is, especially on a first playthrough when the game is able to surprise players by initially limiting the scope of the world based on how much else is obscured.
