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[Morrigan Stark]

I mean if you want to be that reductive then new Vegas isnt open either for the same reason. It's open world (which I also consider to be probably the best in terms of that type of game) also follows a similar pathing solution in terms of gating and looping the player around in a structured path.

??? New Vegas is nothing like Farron Keep. What the hell?

We should have an open-world Dark Souls but litter it with Cazadores

...I'm OK with this. Hey, we'll have good combat mechanics this time, so it's fine

Some of those areas looked nice, and were decently labyrinthine, but they had nowhere near as deliberate enemy placement as Souls games though. The lack of recognizable landmarks would also make many of them very annoying to explore without an in-game map, an area where Souls games excel

Yeah sure, as I said it's never quite as good as Souls games, but then again, what is?

 

[Raptor]

I agree but if its open world I want to ride the Ludwig as my mount.

 

[pa22word]

??? New Vegas is nothing like Farron Keep. What the hell?


...I'm OK with this. Hey, we'll have good combat mechanics this time, so it's fine


Yeah sure, as I said it's never quite as good as Souls games, but then again, what is?

I seriously doubt you have played new Vegas if you don't understand that comment. The pathing and looping of the world is one of the most talked about features of its design, with a ton of Bethesda fan boys always making a pissing fit about it every time the game comes up because of how "horrible" it is.

 

[Copper]

I am talking about a true open world. Dark Souls 1 and the other Souls and Bloodborne are open world in the sense of having many linear contrived spaces glued together. I am not talking about that. I am talking about going to your left and right without any restriction.

Then you would have the traditional Soulsborne level design inside castles and cities.

So you want more copy paste and watch towers to climb to unlock new areas?

No thanks.

 

[kevm3]

I'm tired of open world gaming. Not every game needs to be open world.

 

[RetroGameAudio]

Soulsborne is open world enough.

I love the interconnected level design of Dark Souls 1, but when people call that "open world", it doesn't mean the same thing as what OP is talking about.

The Soulsborne games are made of very discreet levels/ zones, sometimes offering a fair amount of non-linearity and interconnectivity (I generally prefer this to big, open world games since it gives us more carefully hand-crafted, dense environments). They're not at all open world in the same way games like Skyrim, GTA, Dragon's Dogma, etc, are.

I always thought "open world" was a poor choice of words for describing the Souls games. I think of proper open world games as not being made up of clearly defined "levels". Sure, you might have towns, dungeons, city blocks and such, but generally speaking there's a vast open-ness to open world games, where you can wander "between" areas and feel like you're in a random field or path in the woods. There will be lots of moments where you're not clearly inside a specific level. The same can't be said for the Souls games, they're a much tighter series of levels, like a 3D Metroidvania (and in some cases not even that open).

If someone wasn't familiar with Dark Souls, I wouldn't tell them it's an "open world" game, because I would expect them to get a very different picture in their head from what the game actually is.

But maybe I'm just behind on this. Maybe most people expect/ understand that "open world" includes Metroidvania style maps?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I seriously doubt you have played new Vegas if you don't understand that comment. The pathing and looping of the world is one of the most talked about features of its design, with a ton of Bethesda fan boys always making a pissing fit about it every time the game comes up because of how "horrible" it is.

Steam says I played it for 66 hours. But no, I have no idea how it relates to Farron Keep whatsoever, and you have failed to explain that in any meaningful way. This isn't me not having played the game, it's you who is talking nonsense...

 

[MilkBeard]

Soulsborne is open world enough.

I tend to feel this way. Having big open spaces would go against the tight design of the series. However, if they decide to go back to the Dark Souls 1 method of a tightly linked area that has a number of optional ways to explore, and possibly increasing the agency by allowing for even more experimentation, I would be down.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I do agree that if an open-world game with Souls-style tight and dense level design could theoretically be made, it would probably be very good. But try to consider how difficult that would be. Souls games level design make great use of their environment, and the environment and encounter design is heavily intertwined. Fighting enemies on a narrow cliff, or at a choke point or in an area with archers and different elevations, is very different from fighting the same enemies in a narrow open field. Enemies hiding in blind corners are dependant on you approaching from a very specific direction. All of this would break down if many areas could be approached from any direction. And the playtesting required to ensure that approaching from any direction would be fun, would be prohibitively expensive.

You could possibly go with an MGSV-type design with intricately designed areas, surrounded by open space. But that would just make the open world aspect something that drains your time as you move between the interesting areas. It sort of works in MGSV, because of how both you and enemies can move between areas more quickly with vehicles or mounts, but I don't see From having the budget to implement vehicles and mounts in their games. Plus, designing an aesthetically pleasing open world, where the open world parts amount to little more than transport stretches between more interesting areas seems like a bad use of limited resources

 

[mlclmtckr]

Op you say you want an open world but with tight interconnected level design but, like, that's already what Dark Souls is.

Actually, are there any good estimates about the size of the Soulsborne games' worlds? Are they similar to more conventional open world games?

In my head something like GTA or the Witcher is way bigger than any Souls game in terms of square feet, but I could be wrong.

 

[psyfi]

I'm with you OP. I see the vision, and it's beautiful.

 

[Jeb]

I never got Open World games, too much empty space along with boring tasks to pad out content, always preffered the Dark Souls approuch: intracitely designed and interconnected.

 

[Soriku]

I get what the OP means but that just feels like it's adding additional space where there doesn't need to be any to get to the "good" stuff.

Same goes for most/all open world games though...

 

[pa22word]

Steam says I played it for 66 hours. But no, I have no idea how it relates to Farron Keep whatsoever, and you have failed to explain that in any meaningful way. This isn't me not having played the game, it's you who is talking nonsense...

Then you certainly weren't paying any attention when playing, or to any discussion when the game is brought up. Or maybe you're just being willfully ignorant, that certainly be more plausible than whatever nonsensical cluelessness you're spewing right now. You've had multiple posts to address what I said and you've simply not, so either address the points raised or not, but don't sit there and level my post as nonsense when you refuse to even address the post.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

I know it's not exactly ''open world'' but Dark Souls 1 is pretty much what you just described, except much smaller.

Have you even played Dark Souls?

If not, you should.

 

[Soul of the Beast]

The game you're asking for is nearly impossible to make and would require massive budget and time

Agreed, it's so easy to dream without thinking about the possbility.
Sometimes it is better to not dream about things that would never come to life.

A more realistic dream would be making the entire Soulsborne game a HUGE castle with many different district and areas to explore, and by HUGE I mean HUUUUGE, like way bigger than the entire game of Dark Souls 1.
Almost like a 3D Symphony of the Night, except bigger and more detailed.

Now THAT would be the tits.

It's gonna cost about twice of Bloodborne though, but much less than any open world triple-A game.

 

[zoodoo]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

The level design in souls games is the best part. It shows that it is hand made and that's the best part of it. With an open world design you will loose that. It will be a bunch of random stuff generated by a game engine.

 

[HeelPower]

Souls definitely needs to go back to DS1 openness ,verticality and freedom if not even more open ended than DS1.(without warping too)

But they gotta retain intricate level design though ,and avoid flat open areas.

 

[Zyae]

Sounds terrible.

 

[Nev]

First, no.

Second, no.

Keep the open world trash out of my souls.

 

[Carroway]

The biggest issue that I find with Open world is that is removes some of the massive scale that a world can have. Imagine mental trek that you feel like you've gone through by descending from Yharnam in bloodborne to Burgenwerth. If you just run the distance, it isn't actually that long, but because of all the dangers and pitfalls you had to traverse you feel that you've done this epic journey.

Open world games, ala skyrim or witcher 3 has massive playing areas but none that you really remember. You remember moments, but I couldn't draw it from memory like I can with the spencer mansion from Resident Evil and I played more skyrim or witcher 3 than Resident Evil by a long stretch.

Having a large playing area also needs to have gameplay that justifies that approach. Look at Metal Gear Solid 5, there was no reason for it to have been an Open-world, when you could easily have had the actual locations be their own seperate levels ala hitman. The game suffered for it because concessions had to be made in order to supplement that design.

In the same way, I think there would have to be compromises to the core Soulsbourne experience in order to accomodate an open world approach.

 

[du7y]

I dream about this possibility everyday and I go beyond.

Zelda BotW went in the right direction for this, I can't stop dreaming of giant MMO's worlds with Soulsborne elements.

 

[LegitMcfalls]

I wonder if a Destiny-esq Souls game would work. Have a large hub worlds that break into smaller tighter corridors and dungeons. Maybe have some dungeons/quests able to be selected from a menu like strikes and story select mode. Im just riffing off others in the thread though, im not much into the soulsbourne games.

 

[Blobbers]

only if there's a super secret boss that you can die easily to and the last bonfire is 2 enormous valleys away and you have to roll through hundreds of enemies that rubber band you to get back. Think Frigid Outskirts only 10x worse.

 

[texhnolyze]

I think OP basically wants Witcher/Horizon Zero Dawn with Souls combat and level design.

That would need a LOT of money though, yes.

 

[Playsage]

I can only picture a big waste of money.

 

[RoadHazard]

Soulsborne is open world enough.

Knew people would say this, lol.

No, BB, like Souls, is not open world. Connected and seamless (mostly), but not very open. It's basically rooms (some a bit bigger) connected by corridors. You can't just pick a direction and go, can't explore the space in-between the rooms and corridors. If we're gonna use the term "open world" on everything that doesn't have loading screens between areas it loses all meaning.

Open world games:
Skyrim
The Witcher 3
Breath of the Wild
Horizon

Not open world games:
Metroid Prime
Souls
BB

 

[Doc Holliday]

Knew people would say this, lol.

No, BB, like Souls, is not open world. Connected and seamless (mostly), but not very open. It's basically rooms (some a bit bigger) connected by corridors. You can't just pick a direction and go, can't explore the space in-between the rooms and corridors. If we're gonna use the term "open world" on everything that doesn't have loading screens between areas it loses all meaning.

Open world games:
Skyrim
The Witcher 3
Breath of the Wild
Horizon

Not open world games:
Metroid Prime
Souls
BB

I don't think this post disagrees with you. I think what he means, "nope, keep your open world shit out of From games" lol

 

[Servbot24]

Sounds horrible. Would completely ruin one of my favorite series. Souls is all about intimate, carefully knit level design.

I don't understand the fascination with open fields of nothing in games. You can say this wouldn't that - but it would, because that's what every open world game is. Just a bland blob of generated assets and quests.

The Souls games are fine as is when it comes to progression, maybe go back to DS1. Metroid Prime is another good example.

 

[Acquiescence]

I'm quite happy with the structure of your typical Souls game thank you very much. Don't really need to see From go all in on the open-world bandwagon with everybody else.

 

[FaustusMD]

I dunno. I feel like the exploration in these games as they are is one of their strongest aspects. I wouldn't want to meddle with that by expanding it out to an open world and making it less tightly designed in the process.

If they do make one, I'll play it, at least.

 

[Masagiwa]

I mentioned this in another thread and would love to see their take on a massive open world game. Their games have extremely beautiful vistas and their architectural design is godlike. At the same time the DNA of that company are mechs, and dungeon crawling and for the past two decades they have been pumping out games in a yearly fashion. I'm not sure if the studio is willing to do a guerrilla games and put the whole studio on one massive project that will probably take years to finish. It will also cost insane amounts of money which probably would raise some eyebrows from daddy Kadokawa.

 

[KnightimeX_Legacy]

Fast travel is a must in open world games.
Nobody wants to spend an hour walking to double check if they missed an item or not.

 

[Aesthet1c]

Souls games are great because of their combat and their level design. If you make it open world you lose the level design. I can't think of anything that would ruin the series more than making it open world garbage.

 

[Toni]

I'm with you OP. I see the vision, and it's beautiful.

Yup. Thirded.

There aren't many Open world games with great combat, if at all. I can only think of Horizon & Dragon's Dogma.

It doesn't have to Bloodborne, but a Miyazaki Open World game (through and through) with a copy / paste of Bloodborne's combat would be fantastic.

 

[arcticice]

OP, you need to play any one of the soulsborne games to the finish. i don't think any one who has actually finished the game has ever suggested or wanted the game to open world. It's the level design that makes those games fun, an open world wouldn't fit into that kind of game. wat you're asking for is near impossible, too costly, and shouldn't happen. i personally hate the idea of soulsborne open world. will take the intensity away

 

[CountAntonius]

I know they are a dime a dozen but what I wouldn't give for a From made high fantasy open world game with drop in drop out co op and towns full of NPCs.


Basically Witcher with create a player , co op and souls style combat.

 

[cortadew]

So...... have you played Elden Ring?

 

[LazyParrot]

So...... have you played Elden Ring?

OP hasn't logged in in 4 years. I doubt you'll get an answer anytime soon.

 

[JLB]

OP hasn't logged in in 4 years. I doubt you'll get an answer anytime soon.

Also add that probably OP is playing Elden Ring 24x7

 

[Strider Highwind]

Amazing how everyone told him the idea was terrible and now look

 

[Captain Toad]

Amazing how everyone told him the idea was terrible and now look

I wasn't here, but I will admit I had my doubts. I didn't think From could go open-world without killing the tight level designs and would fill it up with map markers or fetch quests.

I was wrong. Elden Ring is my favorite game I've played since the original Legend of Zelda. It also captures that feeling of mystery and exploration better than any subsequent Zelda games, including Breath of the Wild.

 

[20cent]

It is just a horrible idea all around. Hopefully it never happens.

Sounds like a cluster of crap.

This is a joke thread, right?

You can't have the kind of level design that the games are known for with a truly open world game.

Sounds terrible.

Sounds horrible.

First, no.

Second, no.

Keep the open world trash out of my souls.

That's why internet discussions are pointless

 

[ClosBSAS]

Lmao love this. So many haters eating that crow now

 

[Hendrick's]

Now this is a necrobump I can get behind.

 

[Zeroing]

It only took 5 years From Software to translate this thread into Japanese.

 

[j0hnnix]

 

[kevm3]

I pretty much feel the same way when I posted in this thread back then. The open world was better than I expected, but I still preferred the Souls games. The best part of Elden Ring wasn't the 'open world' to me. It was the tightly designed parts like Volcano Manor. If they go open world again, i could do with a much smaller open world with more tightly handcrafted dungeons like Volcano Manor.

 

[Sinkao87]

From needs to develop a Metroid game. PERIOD.

Agreed

 

[KXVXII9X]

Lmao love this. So many haters eating that crow now

I still prefer a tighter, semi-linear experience like Bloodborne. Although I wasn't here when this discussion started. If I was, I would probably be excited for the idea. I really wish I liked Elden Ring. The open world made it worse in my opinion.