With Elden Ring FromSoftware went to great lengths and not only created a gigantic world, but at the same time lifted all the barriers of well-known Souls parts. Despite the huge freedom, our MeinMMO author Christos Tsogos thinks that Elden Ring cannot offer any replay value.
The world of Elden Ring is impressively large, tells a mysterious story in an exciting way and has spectacular boss fights. Actually, these reasons should be enough for me to want to explore the fantastic intermediate country once more and once more. But for me in Elden Ring the air is already out following just one run.
MeinMMO author Christos Tsogos has already spent thousands of hours in various offshoots of the Souls series. But Elden Ring disappointed him across the board in terms of replay value.
Because although the world is packed with great content, Elden Ring has nothing worth putting dozens of hours into New Game Plus once more. That’s a particularly bad thing, because the Dark Souls parts in particular were able to inspire me over and over once more for years.
Most of all, I miss Eide, called factions, that I might join and serve. You were rewarded with them, regardless of whether you helped other players honorably or destroyed them in an invasion. As a reward, you got Oath items that you might redeem at various altars to win important items for trophies. However, no direct oaths exist in the intermediate land.
You can only equip large runes in Elden Ring and either support players with the right multiplayer items or invade their world. No oath rewards or other items will be given to you if you’ve proven yourself – just shoddy rune bows that will throw you anyway.
For me, however, that was one of the highlights of Dark Souls 1-3. Either protecting the Darkroot Garden or taking on outnumbered PvP groups in Anor Londo. However, this is not the case in the new offshoot, because such mechanics have been completely dispensed with.
There are also many locations for self-organized PvP arenas in Elden Ring, but these are too small due to the maximum limit of 4 players. Since the map and the overall volume of the new action role-playing game were overwhelming, my disappointment was all the greater when the maximum number of players in co-op and PvP was revealed.
Not even trophies require effort
Another reason is that the trophies are too easy to complete in such a tough game. In Dark Souls 3, for example, for the achievement “Master of the Rings” you needed all 107 rings, which might only be found by further trips to the New Game Plus – in Elden Ring, on the other hand, they are paltry 8 legendary talismans. If you have it, the trophy is yours. This can be done in one playthrough.
Trophy requirements like that inspired me in the old Souls games. Although they didn’t have an open world, but a comparatively small and restricted world, I still had the feeling: “I still have so much to do”.
The platinum trophies felt worthwhile and fitting for the effort put in, but in Elden Ring I felt more fobbed off. Small expense for a trophy that anyone can get.
There were also no secret items to discover, like in Dark Souls 2. You go to the New Game Plus in Elden Ring, go through the story once more, collect the same items and that’s it. No new secrets to discover that would warrant another run of the story.
Elden Ring isn’t called Dark Souls, of course, and it doesn’t all have to be the same. But anyone who knows Dark Souls will notice how much character from the veteran of the older offshoots is in the new title from the brilliant creators of Souls. It’s all the more disappointing when the only overwhelming feature of Elden Ring is just the large map with its various dungeons.
Despite that, I still have hope that Elden Ring might offer more variety in the future. DLCs were not confirmed, but almost every successful part from FromSoftware got at least one. Since the action role-playing game is very popular and many elements, such as the large arenas, are still unused, DLCs cannot be ruled out.
Even with updates, quests are still being completed, like those of the little vessel child or Patches the Scoundrel. Elden Ring has not yet arrived in its final form. So it remains exciting to see whether more content will be added that contributes to the replay value.
What do you think of replayability in Elden Ring? Do you agree that the new FromSoftware title is missing something that makes it more attractive for further runs? Or are you already that satisfied with what Elden Ring has to offer? Let us know in the comments!
