This week on Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee discusses why the open world in Elden Ring is such a success — and why so many others still are not.
Extra Punctuation Transcript
I was a little bit dismayed by the response to my video about how open worlds are dead and killing innovation the way a zombie attempts to spread the agony of its putrefying status to others. Because I saw a lot of comments along the lines of “Ooh but what about Elden Ring?” “Bet Elden Ring’ll make you change your tune!” “Elden Ring would like a word!” Listen, dickheads: In prior times you’d have been saying “Cyberpunk would like a word!” or “No Man’s Sky would like a word!” There’s always a next big thing, usually it disappoints and occasionally it’s everything that was claimed, but either way what follows is the same: everyone stops talking about it after a month or so and latches onto the next upcoming release with the profile or the marketing budget to selfishly hog all the headlines around launch day, declaring that this will be the one that finally turns our lives around. The names change but the cycle is forever.