My own thoughts on Elden Ring are pretty simple. Give the players an absolutely gigantic open world map that you can basically travel from one end to the other without fighting anything, just for exploration's sake. Fill it with thoughtful mob-level NPC placement, making the higher level areas have higher level NPCs. Throw in a giant array of weapons, spells, skills and upgrades to choose from. Throw bosses around everywhere and lock some gear and progress behind them, but not too much. Finally, let the player decide how they want to approach the game and what quests they want to attack.

This is a game that doesn't have any real "systems" past stats and stat affinities, but instead of making it limited, it makes the game incredibly replayable. There was at least one boss that I would probably have needed to level another 20 or so levels to beat, but instead of the slow offensive skill I was using, I instead equipped Quickstep on my katana and suddenly I was able to dodge attacks that were crushing me before.

Do I think some sort of internal recordkeeping for quests would help? Absolutely. I like that there's no checklist on the screen so that the game doesn't seem like a chore. But you know what the game never asks me to do? Go gather 20 of a certain item. Go kill 30 of a certain creature. There are questlines with multiple parts to be sure, but most of them are going to take a while as you actually fight your way through the world.

Because the focus of Fromsoft is on the player experience with world interaction and not with systems design, I will probably play through the game 3 or 4 more times in succession. I'm familiar with the game now, but I'm playing a bandit. Next time, it will be a magic user. The time after, a strength. Then a faith build. It can be frustrating to pick up items that you can't use, and while the game does give you the ability to respec your character to take advantage of all the stuff you find, I'm eager to continue my current playthrough on the path I chose from the start.

Best game I've ever played, and a vast improvement over the chore simulators that have come to dominate the market.