Tbh I've never been a "lore" guy when it comes to Soulsborne games, I'd read some item descriptions and I've watched Dark Souls and Bloodborne analysis videos but the narrative hooks for them never really grabbed me beyond a superficial level, I understood them as the backdrop for interesting fights and environments, afforded cohesion by just enough narrative/thematic tissue that a throughline could be followed, and that was of interest enough for me.

In contrast, by the end of the first intro cinematic of Elden Ring I was hooked, instilled with the same level of fascination as when I'd pore over books about the Crusades or the War of the Roses as a teenager, or when playing FF Tactics. That this contains the strongest character writing in the series only lends weight to the relationships between characters, enhancing the narrative scope to where it matches the vastness of its physical world. No game since Morrowind has felt this big, so stuffed with intrigue, so dedicated to conveying the feeling of going on a real journey.

It baffles me how anyone could make any kind of complaint about the "nothingness" between points of interest when the navigation of geography plays such an important component in the overall experience. Instead of being composed of vast flatlands and hills like, say, Skyrim, where traversal is rarely a matter of forethought, the verticality of Elden Ring's landscapes means that getting to your destination is always fun in and of itself, and of course Torrent's ability to double-jump adds to this (even if the mechanic can feel weirdly unresponsive at points). Equally baffling is some people's assertions that Breath of the Wild's range of interactions in regards to its open-world is greater than Elden Ring's, which is a totally laughable statement. In comparison to the actually copy-pasted shrines and functionally similar dungeons of Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring's dungeons past the Limgrave area make a consistent effort to keep things interesting, adding various gimmicks such as having to progress through finding hidden walls, teleporting chests, light-based puzzles, those bullshit chariots, manipulating fire-spewing pillars to reach certain sections (and which also tie into the light puzzles), etc.

To say there aren't any repetitious elements in Elden Ring would itself be inaccurate (i.e Erdtree Avatars, some dungeon bosses, various dungeon layouts), but frankly Elden Ring's combat system is so engaging and brimming with so many options in terms of tackling them that I almost never experienced fatigue when combating them. And even then, most of the bosses that are re-used add an additional obstacle that forces the player to re-think or adjust their tactics (a fight with two Stone Watchdogs adds several gargoyles that have to be dispatched during, for example). Now a valid complaint in regards to some of these fights is that they feel like they were ripped straight out of Dark Souls II, with bizarre hit-boxes and the over-arching philosophy of "difficulty means throwing more enemies at the player" guiding them (and no wonder when DS2's director Yui Tanimura worked as co-director on this). By the end of the game, however, these types of fights simply become more annoyances than anything, and are spaced out enough to where I don't feel they largely detract from the overall experience (and ultimately this is not a game for completionists, every dungeon is not meant to be explored imo).

To go back to the absurd point regarding the "nothingness" of Elden Ring's world design, what this game does in a superior fashion to its predecessors is creating what feels like a cohesive ecosystem, in regards to not only the landscape but also the relations between characters. In Dark Souls, for example, while the inter-connectedness of its world remains impressive, its levels ultimately still feel disconnected from each other, i.e Blightown is the swamp level, Sen's Fortress is the dungeon level, Undead Burg is the abandoned town level, etc. There's very little overlap between these spaces, and their functionality within the space of the world of Dark Souls is centralized only within that specific area. This relates to the characters as well; outside of the intro cinematic, we don't get a sense of the relation between Gravelord Nito and Seath the Scaleless, they are merely Big Bads that must be dealt with. Of course, Dark Souls didn't need to do more than this, it works because it's the best kind of simplified, dark fantasy action-adventure, operating in the same vein of various level-centric NES/SNES titles with a bit of D&D thrown into the mix.

In Elden Ring, as you learn more about the demi-god opponents you must face, you find out that Melania is the reason for why Caelid is a scarlet-rot ridden biohazard of an area, and is responsible for Starscourge Radhan's madness after basically detonating a nuke upon the area. Raya Lucaria is the birthplace of glintstone sorcery but these practices created conflict with those that performed the divinities of the Erdtree, which then ties into the mysteries surrounding Renalla and Radagon's relationship, and his subsequent leaving of her for Queen Marika. The Erdtree itself, the towering goal-post which the player strives to reach for most of the game, forms the anchor by which all the other landscapes work in relation to, and forms the baseline for the ideologies of several competing factions, including Volcano Manor, whom Praetor Rykard's blasphemy was enacted in opposition to. All the central locations and characters in Elden Ring create a web of conflicting motivations which then influenced the underlying motivations for smaller characters such as Patches, Diallos, Ranni, Melina, etc. Bloodborne did this kind of interwoven tapestry style of writing to an extent (and though I have not played Sekiro I hear it does it as well), but never before in a FromSoft game have I been so emotionally invested in the conflicts of its characters and their desires/worldviews, instilling in me a desire to truly pore over item descriptions and formulate my own interpretations of narrative elements from them. Ranni's questline in particular is the most moving, Blaidd and Iji are some of my favorite side-characters in any FromSoft game, so subtly rendered and memorable. I rarely went out of my way to finish most of the character questlines in previous Soulsborne games, but here I actively wished to see all the ones I came across to completion (for story reasons and because the rewards were so enticing).

In terms of design, I think multiple valid complaints can be lobbed against Elden Ring: horse combat is generally very wonky and I found it sometimes inconsistent in terms of hit detection and Torrent's own usability (I believe it's some kind of coding error where Torrent does not regenerate health if they get injured, then you die and respawn at a site of grace, leading to multiple instances of them dying with the first large hit they receive from an opponent you've been battling). Mountaintops of the Giants is easily the weakest area in the game, particularly the Consecrated Snowfield which is deeply uninteresting except for one or two sections, and really only serves as a connecting area to the Haligtree, which is in terms of design a deeply fucked area as well. Feels like little forethought was done in terms of enemy placement or pacing, every enemy beyond the soldier grunts have massive HP pools and form gank squads together; tbh once you get to the Giant's area and the Haligtree you get to the point where you're no longer looking to peek around every corner discover what's out there, you're rushing to the next boss to get through everything as quickly as possible. It's odd that several bosses feel like they outright encourage you to use summons, but at the same time don't feel properly balanced with/without them. The final boss in particular is baffling in how the first section is a fun fight that, unless you play perfectly, is very draining on your resources and then immediately throws you into yet another resource-draining fight upon its completion. It almost feels like you're required to use summons to get through the final fight, but once you do then it's just a cheese with melee and Comet Azure (spellswords still remain a goat character build). The one-time re-use of Astel, Naturalborn of the Void was the one time I was genuinely shocked at recycled content, it's out of left-field in that it feels so dissonant with the area it's contained in and is a boss that only works in relation to Ranni's questline, it's the only re-use that feels totally lazy and not fun. Another thing is that I don't feel any of the endings are particularly satisfying; while Ranni's is by far the best, none of them feel as satisfying as perhaps they should (compared with both Demon's/Dark Souls and Bloodborne which retain an enigmatic quality but feel like proper conclusions). Most endings just feel rushed, despite their gorgeous direction (and the quality of the cinematics is something I forgot to touch on, perhaps at a later time).

Even so, after 157 hours with my first playthrough I felt an intense desire to jump back in with a new character and go through it all again. I genuinely think this sets a new standard for the genre (especially in the ways it really captures a tabletop-esque gaming experience, something I may go into at another time), and while I hope FromSoft does something different for its next title (after this I could only see them going through a process of refinement and not a lot of design progression), I feel the team has really hit their stride; right now I don't see much contest for what I'd pick for Game of the Year.