Shadow of the Erdtree's dense, dungeon-heavy map made me wish again (in spite of its upsides) that Elden Ring didn't go open world

GamesRPGShadow of the Erdtree’s dense, dungeon-heavy map made me wish again (in spite of its upsides) that Elden Ring didn’t go open worldWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: FromSoftware)

A knight rides the saddle of their trusty steed Torrent in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, looking over miraculous ruins.

Shadow of the Erdtree is, as you might have heard, a dense game. It’s still open world, and it’sdefinitely bigger than Miyazaki said it’d be, but regardless.

Its legacy dungeons flow into each other, stacked vertically like a multi-layered cake filled with razor blades (also, there is a guy on a boar utterly destroying your birthday party). Its jawbreaker layers are filled with fortresses, caves, goals, and spooky horror movie forests. It doesn’t actually take long at all to get from one dungeon to the next, and most of your time is spent spelunking, rather than charging over open fields and half-drowned lakes.

To clarify: I know the DLC does have a handful of zones that are vast and full of nothin'. Namely, the beach to the south, the finger ruins, and a secret underground nightmare I’d rather not spoil.

To me, these places exist more as set dressing—and, save for the utterly gorgeous Shaman Village, I didn’t exactly like ‘em anyway. Most of Elden Ring’s zones trade blows with these empty areas in terms of scope—however, they’re pin-pricked with points of interest and mini dungeons, and even if they weren’t, Erdtree has less of them.

Give me a moment to dig up my gamer CV—you’re welcome to imagine me blowing dust off it as you wait. I’ve played Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, a little bit of Dark Souls 3, as well as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. For most of those games, I’ve at least done a couple of playthroughs. But when I finally finished all my goals on Elden Ring after 90-odd hours, I put my controller down, closed the game, and basically didn’t open it again until Shadow of the Erdtree came out.

Still, Erdtree made me hungry for more Elden Ring. I started anew with a specific build in mind, booted my new save up as John Sekiro the samurai, dunked on the Soldier of Godrick, took a step out into the wide, gorgeous world of Limgrave, and proceeded to go mentally blank for 20 minutes. When I came to, I was staring at an interactive map on a wiki somewhere, wondering just where the hell I should go. Ah, I thought. This is why it took so long.

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Memory, all alone in the grace-light

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

John Sekiro, my new character in Elden Ring, shakes hands with Melina by grace-light.

In previousFromSoftwaregames, the slow, creeping pace of your first playthrough equips you to tear through the whole thing on subsequent runs. I haven’t touched the first Dark Souls in ages, but if you put me in front of a controller I’m reasonably confident I could schmoove through the Undead Burg in 30 minutes—an hour, tops.

I don’t feel anywhere near as confident running around Elden Ring. I mean, sure, I miraculously killed the Tree Sentinel in three tries, and its legacy dungeons look very familiar. But in terms of where all those vital bell bearings and talismans are, the map’s just so big that I’m downright lost without a wiki.

Now Harvey, you might say, it’s possible you just have a bad memory. Why yes, I do, imaginary reader—but I’ve got a decent head on me for directions, as long as I’ve physically (or digitally) moved around the place before. Even if I sometimes don’t know what I had for breakfast, it’s notable that I remember more about the landscape of a game I haven’t played in 10 years than I do about the world of a game I left for two.

It’s notable that I remember more about the landscape of a game I haven’t played in 10 years than I do about the world of a game I left for two.

When it came to Shadow of the Erdtree specifically, its thick patches of dungeons made me pay more attention even when it came to its open-world areas. I have a habit of zoning out in most of Elden Ring’s fields, but in the great (yet comparatively petite) outdoors of Erdtree, I was always taking stock of my environment—because I knew that I might be able to find a path up or down to my next expedition into the unknown. Aside from the finger ruins, of course, but we’ve already established I’m not a fan.

In this way, its open world serves it far better, built in part like a legacy dungeon itself, albeit with far wider walls and a skybox instead of a ceiling. Winding halls are replaced with rivers, spires are replaced with mountains, and hidden passages are replaced with repeatedly asking “okay, so how the hell do I get downthere.”

It’s only fair to note that there are absolutely some Elden Ring players with an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. Watch any challenge runner, and they’ll be able to enter their mind palace and pull out exactly what they need for their present circumstances like a soulsian Sherlock Holmes. But career Elden Ring players are hardly the norm, even if I respect and fear their power.

There’s also another point I’d like to make—Torrent, as much as I love the little guy, makes the process of getting from point A to point B kinda boring if you’ve already made the trip once before.

The lost art of juking on foot

(Image credit: Tyler C. / FromSoftware)

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree character on horse

Shadow of the Erdtree guides(Image credit: Bandai Namco)Erdtree map fragments: Uncover the Land of ShadowScadutree fragments: How to level up in ErdtreeErdtree bosses: A full hit list for the DLCLeda quest: Track the Erdtree main questAnsbach quest: Help the former servant of MohgHornsent quest: Complete the quest for vengeance

Shadow of the Erdtree guides

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)Erdtree map fragments: Uncover the Land of ShadowScadutree fragments: How to level up in ErdtreeErdtree bosses: A full hit list for the DLCLeda quest: Track the Erdtree main questAnsbach quest: Help the former servant of MohgHornsent quest: Complete the quest for vengeance

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree trailer screencap of a red haired character holding fire in their hand

Erdtree map fragments: Uncover the Land of ShadowScadutree fragments: How to level up in ErdtreeErdtree bosses: A full hit list for the DLCLeda quest: Track the Erdtree main questAnsbach quest: Help the former servant of MohgHornsent quest: Complete the quest for vengeance

There’s a reason Elden Ring gives you fast travel immediately. Even if you know where to go and how to get what you want out of a new playthrough, the sum of your open world experience will, also, inevitably involve lots of running past monsters in big, empty fields on horseback—particularly when you’re already familiar with the place. To make you do so twice would be criminally annoying.

Take the Bridge of Sacrifice in Limgrave, for example. The first time I was there, I hopped off Torrent to fight my way through past its defenses. On my second playthrough, I hit the sprint button and ignored everything just fine with a little jumping, because I had a horse and no one else did.

Granted, juking past enemies was a part of previous FromSoftware games, but at least having to do it on foot made it feel like a puzzle—giving you the same, petty thrill usually reserved for speedrunners when you map out your own personal routes around enemies that can, and will, catch up to you. In Elden Ring, as long as you have access to Torrent, you can outrun basically anything.

Thinking about the way you move overland in Elden Ring, I’m starting to see its conveniences—instant fast travel and a mount that lets you ignore 90% of enemies—as scaffolding that stops FromSoftware’s design buckling under the weight of what an open world actually is. This is a company that makes textured, complex, thoughtful games—and it gave itself the task of filling an ocean.

Old man R1s at cloud

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

Sir Gideon Ofnir the All-Knowing, a surly knight, looms over stacks of books and papers on his desk in a way that’ll give him back problems in 10 years.

Elden Ring’s shift into the open world had a lot of advantages—for instance, it allowed FromSoftware to balance difficulty with accessibility, giving you a huge sandbox to roam in whenever you found a boss too hard.

Elden Ring’s vast open skies and boggling scale meant, for me at least, that it was a one-and-done game back in 2022.

Still. Elden Ring’s vast open skies and boggling scale meant, for me at least, that it was a one-and-done game back in 2022. Which is, frustratingly, in direct conflict with some of its other strengths. Elden Ring has over 300 weapons, but I’ve only ever used a couple—it has a huge variety of builds, but I’ve only ever experienced it as one of them.

Why not just explore naturally if you hate wikis so much, then, one might ask? Well, number one, I already did that for around 90 hours. Loved it, but I did it—number two, I just don’t really have the raw minutes to do that more than once, even if I wanted to. I’m currently having a decent time on my second playthrough of Elden Ring, but I’m also waiting onFinal Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, and as soon as I can see G’raha Tia again I’m gone. Unless I clone myself, which I’ve considered, believe me.

I want to go face off against Malenia again, I want to fight Margit in his true form for the throne. Heck, I’d even love to just play Shadow of the Erdtree a second time. But it’s such a long and winding road to get there that I simply don’t have enough time in the day. Shadow of the Erdtree really reminded me that, in my heart of hearts, I wish FromSoftware never went open world.

TOPICSFromSoftware

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PRODUCTSElden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeElden Ring

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