My Life As A Gamer: "Elden Ring" Proves That AAA Gaming Can Still Be Good

I know I bag on AAA Gaming, but there are good games from AAA even at this time. From Software delivers reliably, and now they're doing it again.

The reason why Elden Ring is succeeding when so many AAA games, at most, splash and dash is that From Software did the smart thing: retain everything that works, and confine change to things that did not work or was not possible previously. In short this was an "and" project, not a "but"; "Take Dark Souls 3 and add a truly open world with mounted combat and a fantastic Gothic narrative" instead of "Take Dark Souls but replace (X) with (Y) because (reasons)."

That's how you build upon success. You take what works, then add to that. You don't replace what works with anything; always add, never negate. This also means that you do cut what didn't work, even if it's your darling. In this respect, the reviewer's comparison of this game to Breath of the Wild is a good one; take the classic Zelda formula, and add an open world full of mystery to it that can be skipped entirely at the player's whim.

(On a similar note, Hyrule Warriors took a risk in keeping BOTW's narrative and aesthetic while making a Musou game out of the gameplay, which is likely why you hear and see a lot about BOTW and not much about HW despite the latter being a decent game.)

You see this more in the small studio and indie sphere these days--just look at all things tied to Shovel Knight--and occassionally from the smaller teams in bigger corporate players (e.g. the team behind Streets of Rage 4), which is why I continuously point to them over AAA, but credit where it's due applies and From Software does do good work that has lasting impact. People, to this day, still play Dark Souls (and the remake of Demon's Souls shows that there's an audience for remasters) so those old games still have influence. Just go back a few days here to that guy reviewing other games inspired by DS to see how much influence there is.

I'm looking forward to seeing my go-to guys give this a shakedown, but if they echo what this reviewer says then I'll throw on the list.