No game is perfect. Many have expressed concern over the second half of Elden Ringits camera use and more, but despite its shortcomings, players worldwide have fallen in love with FromSoftware’s bid for an open world Souls game. In fact, the reception was perhaps most comparable to 2011’s Skyrim.
Skyrim is by no means a perfect game. It was incredibly intercepted at launch, though not to a broken extent, and anyone can pick out a few flaws on top of that. But what Skyrim has a character, and that character has influenced the past decade with video game making. Many games have tried to be the next Skyrimto have the same kind of influence, but even that idea is scary too The Elder Scrolls 6, its successor. The next Skyrim is often exaggerated in the same spirit as the term “Destiny-killers”, but it really feels like Elden Ring is the next Skyrim.
How Skyrim defined Open-World RPGs over the past decade
When someone outside the gaming sphere talks about games, it’s the one they’re probably imagining Skyrim. Fans can laugh at how many times Bethesda has reissued Skyrim, but it’s because a decade later, people are still buying it. One could argue that it does not have such a broad appeal as Grand Theft Auto 5, the most profitable entertainment product ever, however Skyrim‘s success has nevertheless found its way to other games. Both games are mostly familiar names and there is no telling how many people have played Skyrim repeatedly.
More developers will quote Skyrim as inspiration; sometimes these comparisons are obvious, but sometimes not so much. Anyway, what Skyrim did not change the game with open-world RPGs, but it repeated it fine. The faction storytelling, the deep history, the world building and even the jump up into the mountains to get to a place faster, all added to the charm that defined Skyrim.
It’s hard not to look at how Skyrim has affected games like The Witcher 3which in itself is hailed by some as one of the greatest games of all time, while Dragon Age: Inquisition is loved by BioWare fans to a similar, if not exact degree. The freedom of the open world, the living and breathing environment, the mystery and the charm are all things that games have tried to repeat over and over again.
The Fire Ring asks questions that require decisions
Elden Ring has a leg up over Skyrimfrom start. Skyrim inherits the beloved inheritance from Morrowind and Oblivion, which had long cemented The older ones roll franchise as a series of amazing RPGs. Skyrim just pushed through that limit. On the other hand, Elden Ring inherits the inheritance from Demons’ souls, dark souls, blood-borne, and more everything before that. FromSoftware has always been a groundbreaking developer that has inspired a genre of games known as Soulslike, and Elden Ring take it all in stride.
Moreover, while Skyrim repeated, Elden Ring experimented. Elden Ring shows that players do not need the main character to repeat the goal every minute or so to stay on track. It shows that while games in the open world with activities and more scattered everywhere are fine, it’s also fine to throw players into a big mystery. Let the players explore Elden Rings short and slow open it up, where players often do not feel confident whether they have discovered it all yet, is fine.
Skyrim offers thousands of hours of content, and even to this day, players on multiple replays have fine something. While players dig through New Game Plus in Elden Ring, the same applies. There are things in Elden Ring no developer would ever do that and that in itself is a challenge. The art and beauty of gaming can not be boiled down to marketing, statistics and safe practice – it has to experiment and stand out. That’s exactly it Elden Ring do.
For all the comparisons that can be made between Elden Ring and Bloodborne, Elden Ring and Dark souls, etc, Elden Ring establishes its own identity. Skyrim compared to its predecessors shows a successful repeated successor; Elden Ring compared to its predecessors shows an experimental new approach to open-world RPGs where adventure, mystery, fun and exploration are not just bumper sticker phrases.
Because of this, Elden Ring will be a hot topic for a while. Soulslike games will likely try to copy its approach, and perhaps parts of its approach will affect games for a year or decade to come. Elden Ring it does not seem to be the next thing in the end Skyrim; it feels like it already is.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
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