From Software's games have always had a specific user base, but with the release of Elden Ring, the size of that audience seems to have exploded. It turns out that when applied to a template for an open-world game, the current game is prone to fire out of the loop. Arguably, it's the exploration of a strange and huge world, rather than the usual soul-based difficulty and mechanics, that makes Eldon's Ring of Law so interesting.
The open-world genre is quite broad, like the major winners before, such as Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed game or Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Elden's Ring of Law will certainly leave its mark in this area. The question is, what should other games in the open-world genre learn from Eldon's Circle of Law?
While Eldon's Ring of Law has a lot to like (and a lot to hate), there's one element that developers of other open-world games should take note of and use freely, as it changes the overall feel and scope of these games: wild scene bosses.
In Eldon's Ring of Law, wild bosses are bosses you meet while wandering in a world outside the dungeon. They're not a major change in open-world design, games like Horizon: Desperate for the West have monster robot creatures like Thunderjaw or Tremortusk roaming its world, and you might even find a similar boss battle scene in Zelda Legends: Breath of the Wild, with its miserably Lynel enemies scattered across the world. The difference is how Eldon's Circle of Law handles these encounters, how many of them there are, and what they mean for the world as a whole.
In many open-world games, the actual game is about the destination. Especially with the popularity of works such as Assassin's Creed or Expedition 3 and the rise of Ubisoft mode, you are constantly guided to a specific location and then open a new map to synchronize your progress. You might pass by something interesting and distracting on the way, a hut, a statue, or a treasure chest, but most of the time, the fun gameplay is still about the place you're going to.
Part of the reason Eldon's Ring of Law resonates with players is that it lacks clear guidance on where you need to go, which makes many paths equally viable. Tasks and important goals are simply illustrated in vague terms, and you can walk down elegant paths towards mission goals (or rather, some bosses you have to kill), but you still only have a general sense of where you're going, and there's no way to really know how to get there. This game values exploration, which makes it feel more free, and its world is more interesting than many other open-world games.
However, The Eldon Ring doesn't give you much direction, which is not its merit. A lot of open-world games leave it up to you, but their worlds tend to feel empty, and it looks like you've only come a long way to find fun. What makes the world of Eldon's Circle of Law work is not the freedom to go anywhere, nor the problem of unraveling the path, but the unexpected surprises along the way.
This experience makes The Eldon's Ring of Law work so well. You may have a destination as you cross the shallow lakes of Liurnia or the endless fields of Caelid, but you don't know what you'll encounter on the way. It's not just about games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, when a fortress or cave can distract you and lead to things you didn't expect. Some giant creatures may jump off a cliff, swoop down from the shore, or rise from the cemetery beneath your feet, and you never know when that will happen.
Because of this, the journey to where you're going is just as important as where you're going. Wild bosses pop up as obstacles, plunging you into tough battles you might not have anticipated, and dramatically changing the dynamics of an area just because they exist. Think of the "Tree Guard", this golden knight on horse patrols next to the first spot you encounter after leaving the game tutorial. You walk toward this guy and he just knocks you down. You learn a lesson right away, this land is full of hostility, you may not be able to face every threat immediately, you need to find a way to bypass them and defeat them. The tree guard's sense of oppression changes the entire area, forcing you to take a new path, observe his movements, throw yourself into an uphill battle, or find a way to avoid one.
The feeling of these battles is also fundamentally different from encountering something huge and terrible around the world. In Horizon, the terrifying jaws of tyrannosaurs are scary, but when you happen to meet one, there's no real need to deal with it. If you want a special artifact dropped by a terrifying dragon, you'll probably fight it, but for the most part, you'll avoid these encounters because they're time-consuming, laborious, and distract you from your actual targets. You'll take a detour when you see a Terrorjaw wandering around an area, but even if you do attack it, the battle isn't particularly different from any other robotic dinosaur in the wild that's battling the horizon, which is just bigger and takes longer to kill.
This is in stark contrast to a wild boss in Eldon's Ring of Law. When you encounter these bosses, the game treats it like any other boss fight. A huge life bar appeared on the screen, and the music changed dramatically. The game shows that this is an event and this is not an ordinary monster enemy. It has the same weight as any boss you encounter through fog gates.
Wild Boss is the epitome of what sets Eldon Circle of Law apart from similar games, even the most similar ones like Zelda Legends: Breath of the Wild. While that game produced a lot of the same feelings as Eldon's Circle of Law, especially by allowing you to travel and investigate freely to investigate the world and find interesting things, what you find doesn't always feel valuable. You might head to the top of the hill to see some of the weird statues you'll find a few miles away, but that doesn't guarantee what else to see when you arrive. But with Elden's Ring of Law, even though nothing awaits you in the weird place you decide to go, the trip is worth it for the sake of your discovery (and fighting, and killing) on the road.
The way Eldon's Law Loop handles wild bosses embodies a design spirit that makes the world of Eldon's Law Ring feel important, as if it's big for a reason, and isn't broadened to make room between different locations.
The freedom to explore is compensated by gameplay you discover along the way, which come in the form of boss battles, and the rewards make it worth playing these games rather than the better stuff you might have jumped on. In Eldon's Ring of Law, wild bosses give the impression that the whole world is important, not just where the game wants you to go. They make the journey as meaningful as the destination, and that's exactly what every open-world game should strive to create.