I think the starkest comparison I can make is between Elden Ring and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. What I would say to that, is that, unlike Elden Ring, these ‘Ubisoft Canon’ games have not accomplished conveying a world that feels like you are living in it. But those games that adhere to that lineage, have accomplished worlds that ‘feel lived-in,’ a descriptor often deployed in analyzing the contextual efficacy of communicating immersion in open world games. But it is certainly not an approach exclusive to Ubisoft. This includes Ubisoft properties like Farcry and Assassin’s Creed, namely. Those that, for better or for worse, find themselves in the lineage of the ‘Ubisoft canon’ of open world titles, as it has been popularly associated. It’s not new thinking to say that there are sub-genres of open-world games. Games like The Witcher 3, Rockstars Grand Theft Auto (and particularly their most recent foray in Red Dead Redemption 2), Skyrim, and of course Breath of the Wild, have all broached immersion in completely disparate approaches.īut to keep this section short and avoid having to explore how all these different games approach immersion, allow me to explain my thinking concisely. Over the last decade or so of open world experiences, curating a world that feels truly ‘immersive’ has been a particularly elusive quality, at least in my own experience, and I’ve had a tremendous amount of difficulty grasping the idea of ‘immersion’ in video games. It’s a combination of a subversion of trope and cliche, but in the void Elden Ring makes itself something truly special. What demarcates Elden Ring, in my eyes, from simply doing that just very well, and what I think elevates it as a totalizing experience a remarkably triumphant moment, is the poignant critique of open world games that underpins the entirety of Elden Ring an unrelenting statement on the past 20 years of video games. There are many games that share the highs of Elden Ring, whether that be in art direction or the execution of combat mechanics many games also excel at tying these systems together and creating experiences more than just the sum of those parts. A declarative statement on contemporary gaming in its negative space, and an immensely articulate gaming experience in its positive space. Elden Ring is truly a triumphant moment for video games.
I can think of two other times, namely Breath of the Wild and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which changed the way that I approach gaming as a hobby. There are only a handful of cultural moments over the course of my life that lay bare their own inner-workings, that retain unmistakable marks of time and place that demonstrate a remarkable quality to form a nexus point for existing threads in game design so as to demonstrate a clear projection of possibilities for the future of gaming.
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