A week after the release of Eldon's Circle of Law, the hustle and bustle of social media for the first few days receded, revealing deeper and more authentic feelings beneath: the confusion about the vast open world, the chagrin of dead and alive and repeated defeats, the confusion about whether others played and I played a game or not, and the subtle and tangled pleasure of repeating the above.
My 40+ hours felt the same way. The world of Eldon's Ring of Law is undoubtedly immersive, inheriting the essence of the Soul series' previous life-threatening combat experience and map construction. The game's global media rating of 97 (PS5 edition), the highest overall rating of Any Software to date, and Steam player reviews have also reached positive reviews after several updates (80% of 130,000+ reviews).
Although my experience fluctuated several times as I progressed through the game, going up and down like a roller coaster, at this moment, my mood was mostly excited. After defeating 3 of the 6 kings of the main line and arriving at the royal city to begin the final plot, the largest golden tree on the map is overhead, and the throne of the king of Eldon is also close at hand, although it is not clear how many bad omens are spaced in the middle and how many endings are waiting for me.
Because of my work relationship, I consciously or unconsciously gave up my right not to be spoiled, and the approaching deadline made the game experiences that seemed bland in the past precious, but I had more opportunities to think and exchange views on the game with some friends. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my experiences and my thoughts on the soul torture of things like "Where is this game fun?"
Soul-style open world
My first ten hours of gameplay were more comfortable, as was the last 6 hours of early experience, mainly focused on Nyingford (plains) and slightly set foot in Lienia (Lake District). Due to the abundance of time at the beginning, my exploration of the plains was carpet-like, opening more than 40 blessings, breaking through all the large and small labyrinth seal prisons, and killing all the bosses.
After its official release, my focus on Eldon's Law Ring also shifted from the size of the original map to the structure. Needless to say, the classic depth design of the series can still be seen everywhere, from Stonewell in the early days of the game, the School of Magic to the middle and late Roddell Castle, everywhere you can see the shadow of the large castle of the Soul series, a large number of elevators and passages connect the internal structure of hundreds of turns. Jumping also allows for further expansion of the freedom of exploration within the maze, and the game also encourages players to jump more and find more paths to their targets from the eaves of the wall.
Of course, there are deep mazes of descent, and jumping off cliffs and jumping pits is readily available. Although the height of the fall is much looser than in the past, most of the time it will only deduct energy rather than physical strength (more than a certain height will still fall to death), but there are still many thrilling enough falling scenes, enough to evoke the player's past fear of heights memory. However, most of these downfall scenarios will come with great profits, which may be treasure chests or hidden bosses, or it may be a shortcut or even a path to another maze.
Inside Stonewell
To my surprise, not only the interior of the large labyrinth, but also several major areas on the open map, including the initial plains, lakes and later volcanic areas and plateaus, also have a very obvious sense of hierarchy, divided into two layers in terms of height difference, and three floors if you count the underground part.
The upper areas of large maps are generally relatively flat and have a relatively open field of view, but the area below the horizon cannot be observed without climbing high or using a bird's-eye view. The upper levels usually have direct observations of several of the main exploration targets of the area, such as Stonewell, the Academy of Magic, the Divine Empowerment Towers of various regions, and some medium-sized fortresses, which also serve as a reference for exploring open maps in addition to guiding the direction of the main line.
The lower layer is generally lower, the landform is different from the upper layer, there are more valleys, abysses, dense forests, offshore areas can see the seashore and small islands far from the mainland. Many caves and small labyrinths are also distributed in the lower layers, where there are more opportunities to encounter sub-human or alien monsters, and the battles are more "hades" than on the upper levels.
The series of ancestral reduced field of view designs used to be common in various forests and underground cemeteries, and although there are few success stories (the design of the original giant cemetery is too extreme and difficult to use as a standard), I personally prefer a terrain with a full atmosphere. Part of the Lake District adopts this design, the middle swamp area is shrouded in thick fog, if you do not refer to the distant magic academy or along the cliffs on both sides of the easy to get lost, even on the cliffs on both sides of the same is also difficult to clearly observe the situation in the swamp, to explore must be deep into the fog, low visibility and insidious enemy configuration, will be a carpet push player headache area.
Beneath the lower level, there is an underground world that is very different from the surface, which is my biggest surprise in exploring the big map. The underground world has a large map independent of the surface, and its scale cannot help but reverie. Netizens have found at least 6 underground labyrinths so far, and I have only explored two of them so far, the Shifra River in the Plains area and the Ansel River in the Lake District.
The name is The River, which is actually two underground labyrinths, because the way of arrival is relatively fixed, they are not connected to each other, and they are closer to independent "copies" in nature. Although the scale of the two underground labyrinths is not huge, the unique terrain and unique visual style will still make people admire the imagination and art design ability of the development team.
The underworld of the River Shivra
Back to the topic of structure. In the past, the maps that the Soul series were talked about by players were mainly to emphasize the depth of the box court maze, connecting these mazes through passages and forks, and forming a set of large three-dimensional spaces with layers, and then guided by keys, one-way doors and guarding bosses to create a sense of exploration of peak loops, and the undead town of the original "Dark Souls" - sick village - demon relics - chaos waste are representatives of this type of design ideas.
The labyrinths of the Soul series were mostly closed, and the connection method was relatively linear, and the player's exploration rhythm and even emotional ups and downs were easier to control. However, limited by the scale of development and production costs, there are also cases of uneven design levels, and the structure of some labyrinths can be called the pinnacle, such as the original sick village, and others are too simple, such as the demon ruins and chaotic wastelands connected to the sick village.
In the past, this hierarchical three-dimensional space composed of plural enclosed mazes was rare in the open map of the Elden Law Ring, and instead placed in an open area one or two explorable areas with a scale and design level close to the previous large mazes, and the labyrinths that used to be relatively simple in structure or functioning as connections were now scattered and diluted into the large maps, becoming large buildings such as Morn City, the Divine Tower, and other small dungeons.
In order to make the large map of "Eldon's Ring of Law" also have a sense of exploration of the labyrinth of the past soul series to a certain extent, the development team also combined the characteristics of the open world with some efforts. The game uses the height difference and line of sight to guide the player, such as having the player observe the southernmost castle of the map at a commanding height in the upper level of the plain, and finding the map fragments to further confirm the location and eventually head to the area during the exploration of the lower level.
Plains district landmarks Stonewell and The Divine Tower
At birth, the player can look at the final area of the map of Nyingev, Stonewell City, and advance with this goal, and after arriving at Stonewell, they can look back at the place where they started, and this "soul-style" peak circuit is abounds in the game. Some areas initially feel like they are constantly climbing upwards, but as the exploration progresses, they will guide the player to gradually fall, and eventually return to the starting point in different ways, forming a complete exploration closed loop.
Previous works in the series have also been adept at using forks to connect different areas, and this design is also reproduced in some form in the open map of the Eldon Circle of Law. For example, under normal circumstances, the player needs to find two runes according to the NPC's prompts in order to reach the Yatan Plateau where the royal city is located through a large elevator. But it's also possible to skip Stonewell and head straight for the Lake District, heading up from the deepest mountain range and through the pit tunnels into the plateau. The two routes involve different areas and require a certain degree of exploration, but in the end, they are the same way, which is also the specific presentation of the Soul Open Map in the game, and these contents are combined to form the open world of The Ring of Eldon with a sense of soul series exploration.
The right way to open
I'm not an open-world game lover, but I'm impressed with the open map of Eldon's Circle of Law.
On the one hand, the game's presentation of large maps is more restrained, and it does not tell me that the world is big and I am very small, which is my favorite style. At the beginning of the game, even if the map scale is full, you can only see the situation near the player's current area, but as the exploration range expands and the map fragments are collected, the visible range of the map begins to gradually expand outwards, until the full screen cannot be fully displayed.
In the process of measuring the world with my feet, the scale of the map repeatedly refreshed my cognition, more than once made me sigh, not only because of the big, but also surprised that I unconsciously crossed thousands of rivers and mountains.
On the other hand, the eldon Ring of Law open map guidance is very limited, even if the map fragments are only displayed after the terrain and some large landmarks, other locations from castles to villages will only be marked after the player arrives in person, so it is myself who really fills the entire map. For players who are accustomed to exploring on their own, this design retains a certain sense of mystery and increases the satisfaction of unlocking the map. I even intended to explore each area of the large map one by one, collecting all the Golden Tree Seeds, Holy Grail Drops, Combat Skills, Ashes, and those unique weapons that I could find, which also caused my initial progress to be slow.
In order to complete the review as soon as possible, I decided to speed up, abandon some areas that were not fully explored, including several fortresses in The Galidd and Lake Districts, cemeteries, and two divine towers (which led me to miss a lot of important plots in hindsight), and went straight to the map bosses and traveled to the final area to advance the Golden Tree related plot. However, two problems that I had not previously cared about also emerged and became more serious in the next few hours.
The first is the game guide. Players often have different mentalities when opening a game, there are sightseeing enthusiasts or photographers, there are obsessive-compulsive players who like question marks, there are also players who want to experience the plot or are accustomed to following the guide to explore, open world games have natural incongruity in dealing with these different needs, the guidance is easy to backfire, weak and overwhelmed, players will almost inevitably go fishing, cooking, helping others run errands or with a passing person in the middle of the way to save the world...
Or ask for a hug
The Elden Ring provides blessing light, ascending to the horizon, talking to NPCs, viewing prop descriptions, and other ways to help players find clues to advance the story, but these forms generally only provide a general direction, the guiding effect is very limited, if not carpet exploration, it is very likely to miss a large number of unmarked content on the map, and it is easy to fall into the state of "who am I, where I am going to do". In addition, some smaller locations, such as merchants, portals, miniature dungeons, etc., will not be displayed on the map even if they are found, and can only be manually marked by themselves.
In the past, the method of guiding players with glowing props in the closed levels of the Soul series has become less easy to use in open maps with larger scale and more elements. Players do have the potential to notice some kind of guidance, but when and how they arrive, or even whether they will reach event points designed by the developers, there are too many variables in them, which is a common problem with open-world game guidance.
So after starting to advance the main line, the design of the hidden map full view also became my nightmare. Sometimes I crash around like a headless fly, in order to avoid crossing the level of the monster all the way, this game is designed to move a lot of enemies with anti-heavenly speed and attack distance, Gehrid's dog-headed monster and crow, the "crayfish" in the Lake District, and the ancestors of the underground world mentioned earlier who can fire ultra-long-range high-precision guided arrows, and I have died at the hands of these enemies even more than some bosses.
Lake area specialty crayfish (picture from the network)
After finding the way, I began to fall into the problem of insufficient character strength, struggling in the large maze, especially in the area of the magic academy where the mages were gathered, my mentally retarded melee was almost helpless, the cost of clearing the monsters one by one was huge, and the running path was repeatedly tracked by the super high performance soul arrows biu to doubt life.
In order not to drive myself crazy, I decided to stop and catch my breath and talk to my friends. Relying on the leveling locations recommended by friends, I upgraded to level 10 in half an hour and began to see more game experiences shared by players. I was surprised to find that although there was no full video of the process at the time, there were already a large number of players sharing powerful weapons, magic, combat skills, and ways to obtain ashes, some of which were strong enough to subvert the difficulty of the first and middle battles.
Due to the fact that in "The Ring of Eldon Law" can move between blessings almost at any time and anywhere, plus a spirit horse that can run and jump very well, the player's range of action is no longer limited to the campfire as in the past, so it can be obtained in the early stages to get weapons or skills in the past, although there are similar situations in previous works, but in this game this process is undoubtedly greatly accelerated. This is also another manifestation of the combination of open maps and soul series design, including the "infinite blue light cannon" of the master, the ashes of the souls of various combat powers, and even the "horse war" monsters on the big map, and more and more new "skipping class" methods are discovered by players.
I also adjusted my objectives again, returned to the big map exploration, and began to level up as I collected. I pointed out my intellect, found a nice staff, and collected more powerful ashes and amulets. With all my preparations, I returned to the Academy of Magic to avenge the attack, defeated the Queen of the Full Moon, washed up and reopened, and then went to Red Lion City to gather a group of heroes to challenge the Shattered Star King. The two boss mechanics are very different, but the combat and performance effects are above the standard, and after the fierce duel of death and rebirth, in addition to the joy of victory and visual shock, it also once again aroused my desire to explore the world of Eldon's Circle of Law.
Queen of the Full Moon
After mastering the correct way to open the game, I also gradually found my own rhythm, and I even tried two paths to reach the plateau where the royal city is located, just to feel more details of the game. When I stepped out of the big elevator and stepped onto the Yatan Plateau, behind me were the plains and lakes that were faintly visible under the clouds, and in front of me was the largest and most complex labyrinth in the whole game, Roddell, and at this moment I was even glad that I had pushed the map card level before, and did not face this scene in my state at that time, because it would inevitably lead to missing many of the carefully designed content in the game, which may be a greater loss than abandoning the pit.
It was also at this time that I remembered how valuable the first ten hours of leisurely exploration were, and I also understood that to better appreciate the fun of the game "Eldon's Ring of Law", it takes not only patience, but also to find a way and rhythm that suits you.
Where's the fun about Eldon's Ring of Law?
Now after the release of my 40 hours of game time, nearly 10 hours were spent in chaos, because the blind pursuit of quantitative goals disrupted their own rhythm, no game experience and destroyed the body and mind, which is a model of opening this game by mistake. After talking to more friends, I found that there were not a few people who had similar experiences to me, so at the end, I wanted to talk about how I felt about playing The Ring of Eldon.
"Eldon's Ring of Law" before and after the release of the social media really out of the circle, has twice been on the hot search, the day of sale once rushed into the top 20, in a number of current political news is particularly eye-catching, that day there is even a "what is the old ring" hot word on the list. Console and stand-alone games that get such attention are very few in my mind.
But doubts followed. More than one of my friends asked me after playing the game, what is the fun of this game? None of them are console games in the pure sense of the word, some of them have played through "Only Wolves", some have completed the previous works of the Soul series, and they are too different from the portraits of the 2-hour refund players in my impression, which also prompted me to rethink this question, where is the fun of "Eldon's Ring of Law"?
The development of the Soul series has always been in the past in battle and map, and it has gone through thousands of years of hard work to have the unyielding influence in this category today. Eldon's attempt to integrate open-world maps is an innovation in The Evolution and From Software's move closer to the current mainstream RPG game model, and the new map interaction mechanics and improvements to the action system are commendable. But from the perspective of the players of the series, innovation may also mean changes and new learning costs, and many times changing a game mechanics is more uncomfortable than increasing the difficulty of the game.
It took me a while to figure out the practicality of the two new moves of jumping and crouching in combat, which were already present in Only Wolves but completely new to Soul players. In fact, Only Wolf and Eldon's Ring of Law were developed almost in parallel, and the team probably intended to add this mechanic to both games in the first place. The difference is that the timing of jumping to dodge enemy attacks and counterattacking after jumping in "Only Wolves" is more obvious, which is essentially a QTE design.
"Eldon's Ring of Law" does not have such hints, you need to observe the enemy's moves during the battle, determine which time to use these two actions, and then verify in the game, and add it to the actual combat strategy after repeated trial and error. The rewards are obvious, jumping can be used to avoid some enemy's powerful shock or sweep, combined with heavy hits can also effectively sharpen the toughness, faster to empty the enemy's position slot (this slot is also invisible), and when dealing with some of the big Lune Bear's extremely short forward swing moves, crouching often has a miraculous effect.
In fact, the above process is the norm in the game for many players who prefer melee weapons, and I am far less than the master, but I still find fun in this process of observation, coping, trial and error, and gain enough satisfaction after success, which has become the motivation for me to continue to challenge.
This opening to persuade to retire as a tree guard (picture from the network)
I've also tried to give advice to friends who had suffered setbacks in the early days of the game and were therefore discouraged, don't be head-on, don't rush to shoot, don't face two or more enemies at the same time, and so on, hoping that they can find fun in the exciting confrontations like I did, and ultimately fail. At first this made me feel sorry, but then I realized that this way of fighting was just my fun, I didn't know what kind of fun he wanted from the game, and suggested that he change to a long-range career that might be more constructive.
Therefore, where the game is fun is essentially a question of what kind of fun to pursue.
Eldon's Ring of Law is an open-world game with combat as the core, and the ultimate goal of exploration is to continuously verify the most effective battle construction for yourself in actual combat, and the open map accelerates this verification process to a certain extent and makes it more free. Even if you don't challenge the difficult large mazes, you can find the opportunity to become stronger in the large maps, small dungeons, and seal prisons, and if you find this opportunity, you will have the opportunity to experience the fun of fighting.
Eldon's Ring of Law also inherits the soul series' imaginative and unique art style, and can be said to be an iconic feature of the series that is on a par with the combat system and map design. The landscapes and architectural wonders of several large maps in the early part of the game are already eye-opening, and the mid- and late-stage royal cities, undergrounds, and sky worlds will definitely be dazzling, and for players who like this kind of art style, the fun of discovering and traveling through these wonders is self-evident.
Soulologists can also find their own fun in Eldon's Ring, in addition to the series of ancestral environmental narratives and massive prop texts, they can also dig the truth behind the Golden Tree and the Ring through NPC narration. George Martin's mythology serves as a backdrop to depict the love-hate feud between the demigods, showing the emotional entanglements rarely involved in the soul series in the past, and the stories related to it have a different flavor.
I believe that players who can feel the fun from any of the above will find the motivation to keep the game going, and to like all three is to triple the fun. Of course, you really don't have to force it, and it's also a good choice to watch your favorite podcaster play. Find your own fun and experience the game your own way, which is my advice to all players who have entered or are considering entering the world of Eldon's Circle of Law.