Almost two years after its announcement at E3 2019, From Software’s upcoming Elden Ring is still nowhere to be seen. While various leaks, rumors, and reports have come out regarding the game, including one from Xbox’s Phil Spencer himself, gameplay and story details are scarce. What little is known paints the picture of the biggest game From Software has worked on — but not big in the same way as its AAA contemporaries.

From Software president Hidetaka Miyazaki once described Elden Ring as an “open field” game, and that while it would be more sprawling than From Software’s other titles, the company was distancing itself from true open world terminology and design. Described as more akin to Shadow of the Colossus than The Witcher and Skyrim, this approach would blend From Software’s famous level design with wide-open spaces, creating a patchwork of unique locales. The speculation of what this means for the game has been running rampant ever since.

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Key to these speculations is the definition of what, exactly, an “open field” is, and where it has shown up before. If an open world is a world that the player can traverse in its entirety (typically consisting of a country or island-sized map), then an open field is a large field, or several connected fields, that players can traverse. This doesn’t typically make for a particularly gameplay-rich experience, so open field games tend to surround their fields with offshoot paths and dungeons for more linear, tightly designed gameplay to take place. This also has the side effect of making open field games tend towards strict linear progression, as opposed to an open world’s looser restrictions on the player’s progress. With that in mind, it's not too hard to picture what Elden Ring could look like.

Examples of open field games date all the way back to The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System. While players may be able to roam freely and find multiple dungeons or areas of interest,  they’ll only be able to progress through one or two of them at the start. In this way, developers can make players feel like they’re exploring a wide, open world, while focusing most of their development resources towards bespoke locations that represent the highs of player engagement. Such design has been fairly common in the action-adventure genre over the years, with critically-acclaimed games like Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, and even Darksiders 2 joining in on the trend. It looks like Elden Ring is the latest to pick this tried and true design method up (like with its own twist though), and it has everything to gain from doing so.

One of the primary benefits of going with an open field approach rather than open world is that From Software's development style can stay completely intact, with no visible effect on the final game. As an open field action-adventure instead of a linear action-RPG, Elden Ring will be able to properly build on the formula Dark Souls has pioneered. The sheer scope of an open world, combined with the necessity of most of its content being present on the world map, would instead necessitate that any content made for the game, with occasional exceptions, would need to be placed somewhere just to fill space.

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Also, open world games have had something of a problem with repetitive collectibles and markers dotting the map. For all the right it did in its new genre, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild still needed to have slightly tweaked Korok puzzles all over Hyrule, just to fill its titanic space. And if a game with Nintendo’s level of granular design and polish had to do it, one can only imagine how much the formerly-annual Assassin’s Creed franchise fill its worlds this way. That's not to say open-world itself is bad, many fans obviously love it, but it would be harder to capture the signature Souls feel with it. For From Software’s known approach to development, open fields that give plenty of chances to adhere to old design paths are the smarter option.

From Software is clearly interested in doing things a little differently with Elden Ring, and if this experiment is a success, there is an opening for many more open field-style games in the future. While the Souls games aren’t a stranger to large areas, they tend to just be on the road to progress. Elden Ring is posed to integrate them into a sprawling complex full of side paths and entrances to more linear locales, and with them, a wide variety of environments and enemies.

Indeed, what enemies one can find in an open field and how they are fought may be much different than what Souls veterans are used to. Elden Ring's more open areas will alter combat by providing new opportunities for multi-enemy encounters, and more directions to flee from said enemies. Should Dark Souls 3’s multiple swamps provide any further hints, larger enemies that persistently chase the player may become more prevalent. In addition, if Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus’ formula is adhered to closely enough, there could even be frequent chances for mounted combat and archery.

A slightly more open world could mean infinitely more possibilities for From Software’s Souls-like games, and Elden Ring seems to be the grand experiment where that is put to the test. If Elden Ring is received well, there could be a push for more hardcore 3D Metroidvania-like games with a more open concept. A number of fields, forests, ruined cities, and swamps peppered with linear Souls-esque levels sounds like a wonderful idea, and From Software is the best  to pioneer it. This should breathe new life into the Souls-like genre, though fans are still waiting on Elden Ring's release date and more manifests in 2021.

Elden Ring is currently in development, with PC, PS4, and Xbox One as confirmed platforms.

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