Some Elden Ring “quests” are much more involved than that (there’s one incredibly long and complicated questline that leads to powerful rewards), but most of them are built around the idea that quests are supposed to be something that you discover and complete organically as you explore the world. That exchange is meant to inform you that there’s a location to the south you may have not found yet and that you may be able to return to that character after you’ve visited it. For instance, you’ll encounter a character who mentions that his family once ruled these lands from a castle in the south that they lost years ago. “Quests” in this game, such as they are, usually involve you meeting an NPC in the world and figuring out what (if anything) you can do for them. There aren’t really any traditional RPG quests in Elden Ring that ask you to do things like “Kill X Bears for X Pelts” or deliver certain items to NPCs (more on that in a bit). See, Elden Ring isn’t missing quest logs or a GPS system it doesn’t need those things in the first place. You can put markers on the map, but there's no quest log or NPC appendix, and you'll find it very helpful to keep track of what's where and who wants what- Jason Schreier February 23, 2022Īs Schreier was quick to point out though, that’s really not the case. If you plan on playing Elden Ring, here's a big tip: have a journal (or, my version, a TextEdit file).

His tip seemingly inspired quite a few people to suggest that the game’s glowing reviews failed to mention the fact this game was missing “necessary” open-world features. Elden Ring’s Lack of a Quest Log is One of Its Best Featuresīloomberg reporter Jason Schreier caused a minor stir ahead of Elden Ring’s release when he advised that you should play Elden Ring with a journal by your side in order to keep up with quests, NPCs, and other things the game won’t automatically track. Yet, Elden Ring reexamines the fundamental concepts of the open-world genre in a way that makes you realize that even some of the best recent open-world games depend on ideas that we may have come to accept as the standard without properly asking ourselves whether or not they’re needed and what they ultimately contribute.

The open-world genre is (by all metrics that tend to matter most)…fine. I even recently argued that slightly more familiar open-world titles like Horizon Forbidden West are slowly moving the genre towards a better palace, and I stand by that.

Some of the best selling games…well…ever belong to that genre (or utilize open-world concepts), and titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild obviously can’t be ignored when we’re talking about games that use that genre as the basis for some of the most impressive artistic achievements we’ve seen in any entertainment medium. Look, it would be foolish to try to convince you that open-world games are in “trouble” from either a creativity or sales standpoint. Elden Ring is not only one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time and, by all early accounts, an immediate sales success: it’s a game that exposes just how complacent too many open-world titles have become and how those all-too-familiar entries into the genre have stripped away some of its magic. While the hype for Elden Ring often bordered on “absurd” in the days, weeks, months, and even years leading up to the game’s release, nothing could have quite prepared us for the final product.

Elden ring game