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Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes

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This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".

Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.

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[Discussion] Open worlds in Soulslikes: yay or nay? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 2 days ago by v4ld1z@lemmy.zip to c/soulslike@lemmy.zip
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Since Elden Ring's meteoric entrance into the pantheon of soulslikes, many players have grown very fond of the very new and fresh open-world approach to the genre. Miyazaki himself said that ER is as close to his dream soulslike as he could wish it to be. It felt like a new direction for future soulslikes to come and felt similarly revolutionary as Breath of the Wild did for Zelda.

The open world didn't come with only positives, however. Repeat bosses and assets, dungeons weren't as diverse as one hoped them to be, the rewards for exploring some of them felt very situational and niche-y at best and outright useless at their worst. Some say the game is only ever good for a first blind playthrough and that the open world stands in their way of getting to "the fun part™" of the game.

After almost four years of the game existing, a, objectively speaking, very strong DLC, and a spin-off with Nightreign, how do you guys feel about open worlds in soulslikes? I understand this is not the first or only soulslike to feature an open world - I don't have any examples at hand off the dome - but ER is definitely the open world soulslike.

Is it something you'd like to see featured in future soulslikes? Are you over it? Very keen on hearing your thoughts since I can't really make up my mind either :)

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[–] Skua@kbin.earth 5 points 2 days ago

I'm a big fan of it (provided it is done well, of course). I love exploring in games. I enjoy seeing something interesting in the distance and being able to go check it out. I love soaking in the atmosphere of somewhere like Siofra, or figuring out the maze of Leyndell. I personally don't see the problem with replay value either, given how permissive the fast travel system and Torrent's mobility are; if you just want to zoom between the legacy dungeons on subsequent playthroughs, you absolutely can

I don't think an open world should be an expectation or a requirement, as I do recognise that making a good open world is fucking hard and resource-intensive in development. If a dev team thinks it's right for their game, though, I'm absolutely on board

The Lands Between have some low points as a map, of course. I did most of the catacombs on my first run, now I only do the ones that have something in them I want or a fun fight like Ordovis. The Consecrated Snowfields and the Mountaintops are both short on stuff to do and see. That's not the end of the world, though. I don't need it to be flawless to find it fun