Another complication with the open world is that the developers have much less control over what the player is seeing at any given moment. It's obviously easier to smoothly hide the transition from the exaggerated mockups to real terrain when you can force the player through a tunnel or block it off with buildings, but Elden Ring has far fewer chokepoints that could realistically be used for that sort of trick.
I would love to know if this factors into the Erdtree's transparency from certain vantage points or if that transparency is a deliberate design decision made by FromSoft. Could have interesting lore implications. Fantastic video - thanks as always.
They still did a fantastic job with the sheer density of curated landscapes, using the funnel technique that Zelda had arguably brought to its final maturity just 5 years before
I think Miyazaki recently said that Elden Ring is as big as they're currently willing to go and they aren't going to be making a game of similar scale again for quite some time. Honestly I can't blame him, the development of Elden Ring and SotE must have been one hell of an undertaking
Honestly I hope the game industry as a whole takes this in too. I think games are getting too big to be sustainable, even for huge game studios. They all suffer from some kind of content repetition and technical difficulties (even Elden Ring does) that makes me wonder if it's worth it for all big studios to collectively decide to make huge "200 hours of content" open world games instead of denser, more focused games.
@@alfonshedstrom9859 True that. SOTE is peak example of this. The scenary is outstanding and the outworld is astonishing, but then there are just a bunch of legacy dungeons that also feel small and simple, unless you really force yourself to explore them thoroughly. Shadow Keep could have been an epic dungeon with more intrincate levels and passages.
@@alfonshedstrom9859 It isn't. I think the whole "open world" things gets treated like a marketing opportunity now. Open world isn't really a 'type' of game when you think about it, just a presentation style. Within the open world, you can places attributes and features that would ordinarily be in games on their own. It's a sandbox that you put pieces of other games into, for us to go in the sandbox and play with. So you have this melting pot, a crucible, the worldspace and mechanics that place and move things around. I think the possibilities for all of the different kinds of appeal that will fit into that space are a bit seductive for everyone. The worldspaces have grown in size and range of stuff in them precipitously, and at this point, every open world is a hype-azz "This game has ALL OF THE THINGS!!!! You won't just forget all other games, you'll forget your own mother's NAME!" Also consider that leading up to open worlds as we know them becoming technically possible, we lived in a world where video games were often publicly measured by the amount of hours of play the game offers. And then open worlds come along and Mr. Krabs jaw hits the floor at the triple-digit play hours they can now get players to clock. Now, things have gone so far in that direction, everything feels barer and less cohesive. I used to love open-world games man. Now I shudder when they come out, at the project each one will be and the amount of them there are. Just give me a coherent linear game with a range of ways to progress in a tight and nuanced gameplay system, or a good metroidvania layout plz
@@alfonshedstrom9859 I honestly am sick of open world games beyond MMOs, there's no justification in my eyes to create a massive world for what is essentially a singleplayer game with optional multiplayer features tacked on, it's just unnecessary.
@@piusdoe8984 I mean.. to be fair, I never said it was exclusive to them, just that Fromsoft games have always served as an example of that technique done well.
Actually insanity they were able to put this together so well and not have the entire thing implode on itself. It's things like these that intentionally go unnoticed that gives me an unbelievable amount of respect for developers. Props to the people who worked to achieve this
When I first played the dlc, I remember going to the right side of the gravesite plain and looking over the edge and seeing that furnace golem all of the way in Charo's hidden grave. It blew my mind seeing it from so far away.
I remember looking down on hidden grave and cerulean cost and thinking like "holy shit no way is that just for decoration or can we actually go down there" and not getting there for about 2 irl days
Seeing that is how my first death in the DLC came about, when I forgot I was on Torrent and went to backstep out of the telescope and just charged Torrent off the edge instead
I've noticed that every continent in Elden Ring has a foggy / poor visibility area in the center (Mistwoods, Stormhill, central Liurnia, Swamp of Aeonia, Holy Snowfield, Abyssal Woods, Fog Rift...) and I'm fully convinced this is a trick to reduce how far the player can see: if you're inside the fog, you can barely see the outside. If you're outside it, you can't see inside it and whatever's on the other side is so far it's always the low detail LOD. (The areas that don't have this have natural chokepoints: the underground rivers has narrow caves, the great bridge and the mountain spires in the Mountaintops, and the legacy dungeons can just use traditional sight-obscuring corridors whenever they need to) I wonder how much this was because of technical reasons and how much was design reasons - there's that infamous spooky statue halfway through Shaded Castle thanks to a LOD switch so maybe there were a lot more obvious pop-ins that they had to add foggy areas to obscure?
They optimized the technical limitations to create an interesting design. Even if you could see across the map, at all times at all angles, I think most players would find that boring. Exploring through an area, and finding a new viewpoint which reveals a new/different part of the map is extremely rewarding and visually exciting, imo. I think that they intended to obscure the map regardless of technical limitations, however they probably used the limitations as a framework for what designs were possible/optimal
@@jeeBisOkay In Shaded Castle, one of the types of statues that line the later corridors has a detailed model that faces forward but a low level of detail model that has its head turned the side. This discrepancy is used intentionally to make the statue appear to be looking at you from a distance but then have it snap forward again when you approach, the easiest way to notice it is in the hallway immediately after the Shaded Castle Inner Gate grace. Stand where the spirit is and approach the ladder.
I absolutely adore it when they foreshadow future areas in video games. Like how you can see Anor Londo from the undead settlement in Dark souls III, or how you can see the Giant's Forge from Limgrave in Elden Ring. I find it to be really cool when they do that and it's impressive how well they did it in Elden Ring. Probably my favourite example of foreshadowing a future area in a FromSoftware game would be Drangleic Castle in Dark Souls II. I just love the way the place is presented. Something about it is just so cool to me, seeing the ominous tower from Majula, and then later at Cardinal Tower, and then from the shaded woods nearby with how you can see the rays of sunlight cutting the Castle's silhouette through the fog, and then when you actually get there it's really cool.
Stg, sometimes i play elden just to go from vista to vista and realizing how many future areas can actually be seen, specially in limgrave. When I first noticed the forge in the distance in NG+ I felt it so hard
Yeah, seeing Drangleic Castle is so fucking cool, though I didn't realize you could see it from so many places! I only thought it was visible from Majula. That's very cool :3
I love how Drangleic Castle's position totally shifts from one side to the other when you go through the tunnel approaching it. Dark Souls 2 best game.
@@LazzyVamples I also like the one by the Shadow Fortress that you can lure right into the encampment and have it kill everybody. So that's two things to appreciate.
Yeah, I think the Lands of Shadow map is a regression in a lot of ways (mostly due to the flow between areas and the topography being really confusing at times), but the omnipresence of the Furnace Golems is a really nice touch.
This is why we do not see Farum Azula in the open world. In reality, if it was part of the game world around Lands Between, we would clearly see it in every location because it’s just that big despite the distance.
@@theminorthirds That's because the super overworld isnt the only low detail version of the overworld the game uses, it's just the one that's used when you're in the open world. Each legacy dungeon has its own low-poly version of the overworld, presumably so they could better customize the overworld LODs for each individual legacy dungeon. So the Isolated Divine Tower just has a separate version of the overworld that includes Farum Azula. Since these LODs are entirely separate from one another and they aren't all updated every time the map is changed, some of them actually show previous iterations of the world design. My favorite example of this is in the DLC: the low-poly overworld used when you're in Enir-Ilim shows a path leading from the Prospect Town Ruins (the one on that cliff to the left of the entrance of the DLC) up to the top of the plateau you go under to get to Belurat, an area that isn't reachable in the final game.
@@reblaw89 Just watched a video of the mod in question - I can definitely see why they didn’t make it visible in the Open World considering that you can see it all the way from the starting location and it’s almost as prominent as the Erdtree.
Elden Ring’s open world is nothing short of a technical marvel especially when you consider all the little details and nuances to level design that they managed to preserve on top of the sheer scale of it all. Not to mention how the scenery is always akin to a moving painting at all times.
ER's base game map design isn't really all that. It's just like any other open world. Don't get me wrong, most of it's gorgeous, but it doesn't do anything special and I honestly don't get y it's praised like it changed open world games (Removing story objectives isn't really that special). The dlc map on the other hand, is vastly superior in design cos of it's verticality and forcing u to explore to get to different areas of the map and it does what people claim the base game map did. It changed open world design. The only sad thing about the dlc map is that there isn't really any area that feels like Limgrave or Altus.
@@anonisnoone6125limgrave is a one time experience impossible to replicate again in the game. The same way firelink shrine, or yahrnam felt the first time. There are better areas but the magic of first experience is immaculate
@@anonisnoone6125 It feels memorable. It's like those open world games that have a very unique and memorable design, like for example skyrim. If you play skyrim once or twice you'll pretty much remember where everything is located, and the same can be told about Elden Ring's map, but i doubt you could remember Ghost Of Tsushima's map or The Witcher 3 map cus it just hard to understand them, there are no major landmarks, everything kind of looks the same, and because most of the locations hold the most basic loot imaginable you can't remember locations per items like in Elden Ring or Skyrim. And sure it's nothing special, but somehow not all games are able to make such open world's that you'll be able to memorize really fast.
@@SimplCupLiterally. I'm pretty sure if you gave a random location of a fromsoft game to a souls player, they would know almost where it's located and its name
There's literally nothing exceptional from technical standpoint about it in ER. It's just layout with very little going on in it and as a player I had no reason to engage with open world in any way other than just running through.
Bet the dev team felt a relief while working on AC 6 with the player being confined to fairly small mission locations with invisible walls and mostly narrow spaces for navigation
On one hand yes, but AC6 is actually massive. The scale of it is insane in a one to one comparison with Elden Ring. I'm not even sure how they handled the loading and size of such massive areas.
I remember first noticing the misaligned bloodstain years ago, and rather than "ew, they lie to us" I though "Oh cools, so that's how they make it feel so big, neat". I love figuring out things like that not by actively looking for them, but rather noticing something being off. Like how illusory walls tend to subtly stick out in a way that draws the attention without being glaringly obvious, though that might be the devs intentionally setting up scene lighting to draw players' sight to them
The occasional purely barren section of a wall when nearby walls are more detailed, or one section like the rest being framed by the lighting or nearby environmental objects in a way that stands out. My favorite is the illusory bookshelf that has no books as the hint.
The DLC open world design is incredible. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the base game's open world, but From upped the game with the DLC. The verticality, scale, and interconnectedness of the open world was incredible to discover the first time.
Sometimes I wish I could sit here in the Korok Forest at night and watch obscure souls videos forever. I'm always happy when one of your videos pops up, Zullie. Thank you for taking the time to share your findings with us.
fell in love with the level design in Eldenr Ring. You can see distant castles, buildings and churches, and actually visit them if you want. And everything looks so massive!
This is the sort of thing you just don't think about when it comes to game design. So many people think of a game they like, and go 'Wouldn't it be cool if that was open world?? Why don't they do that?' Well, it turns out taking an existing game formula- and as this video shows, design, architecture, and layout sensibility- and just adding an 'open world' element into it poses challenges on a technical level people might not expect. Sure, the challenges on a design level are obvious- 'How big?' 'How do we fill all the space?' 'Where and how often should free travel be restricted?' but technical issues like 'how does this effect our existing methods of distance rendering?' might not be as noticeable to players that only see the before and after, not the process.
It’s a testament to FromSoftware’s development team that they were able to translate the gameplay of Dark Souls to an open world so well. I was really skeptical that the move to an open world environment would compromise on the level design but it’s amazing how they were able to make such a large open space interesting to explore, while still keeping the classic Dark Souls level design within the game’s dungeons - in fact, Stormveil Castle and Leyndell are some of the most intricately designed levels I think I’ve ever seen in a Souls game.
One place you can find it break down is Castle Sol looking out at the Haligtree. It's surprisingly difficult to place a pin on the Haligtree that LOOKS like it's on the Haligtree from Castle Sol.
This is simple Level of Detail, but instead of from level-0 it's from level-4 (or whatever is the lowest level of detail in Elden Ring) this is how 90% of open world games handle their massive view distances, they have a very low resolution/detail version of the map (or the chunks themselves) this allows them to remain accurate to a point. Then the game shaders dither fade the high detail as you move away, allowing the transition to look more natural and tricking your eyes into accepting the level of detail.
1:41 Playing on a decent potato, yet still a 7+ years old decent potato, I can concur that not only does the game have to work with the fact you can be staring at a scenery-level structure and watch it come to details as you approach (contrary to previous FromSoft games who could use elevators and corridors to hide loading a chunk), but I occasionally find myself in the predicament of riding Torrent ON an un-loaded part of the map, and having the rocks I'm climbing loading beneath his hooves. Accuracy between the different stages is VERY important when your game can behave like this!
@@ventus5816 May have had a few parts updated, but not that much: -CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 -Motherboard: Kaby Lake B250M-D2V-CF -GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 -RAM: Avexir 16GB
I love Elden Ring, but I hope we get a tight and interconnected map for the next one. More verticality, secret passages and shortcuts and interwoven areas that blend together seamlessly. One of my favorite parts of Elden Ring is the detailed exploration of places like Stormveil Castle, The Academy, Volcano Manor… etc. being able to climb up and around, on top of roofs and ledges, and explore those densely packed areas is so much fun! It’s wild how much stuff is completely optional and hidden, and if you see an interesting area you can basically go there! That’s what I want more of… I’d love to play in a densely packed city with tons of secrets and hidden pathways, or a less depressing version of Blight Town where there’s just hundreds of platforms and ladders and hidden nooks and crannies or mysterious cave systems with hidden branches and connections! That’s one of the coolest things about Elden Ring… exploring those mysteries underground, unsure of what lurks around the next corner and picking a random passage to see where it leads and then boom! You’re in a huge area with an ancient structure and an alien wasp is shooting lasers at you! Hahaha
It's incredible how underrated the Elden Ring map is for being open world, any position of the player is a painting, the map is connected almost perfectly and almost everything you see in the distance can be accessed, even if not, it is logically designed, the Sote map is another level adding that sick verticality
the nature of the world's progression probably also helps with this: you start from the bottom, and make your way up to the mountaintops. when you're below a cliff, you can't see what's on top, reducing the level of detail required for ground objects since they aren't visible from the lower levels. and when you're up high, it makes sense to have clouds or fog obscuring the view of what's below, to emphasize the height you've scaled.
What got me the most was when I were exploring Jagged Peak I turned around to see Shadow Keep clouded in the distance. What was an entire multilayered and detailed playable area is now recontextualized as this pretty background object when I'm high up somewhere entirely different
@@alfonshedstrom9859 Another great example is how in the base game, wherever you go, you are going to see this mighty golden tree in the distance, always. It follows you on your entire journey, the moment you set foot in Limgrave, you see this tree that's going to be your final destination. Simply magnificent.
I'd like to see a closer look at the DLC map. I definitely feel like there were more moments there where a marker placed on the map wouldn't match the corresponding location in the distance. I suspect SoTE is playing a lot more dark souls-style distance tricks, and hiding them behind tunnels and passages in the open world.
I've loved your work since I first discovered you, before you took your hiatus, just wanted to say, thank you for presenting such well thought and intriguing content! I don't watch many videos to completion, but I don't think I've failed to finish a single one of yours for years!
me and my friend's first moment of awe with the dlc came with seeing one of the furance golems way off in the distance, but way, way below us. the first of many "Miyazaki was lying when he said the dlc was the size of Limgrave" moments
Can we see a video overlaying the Shadow of the Erdtree map over the Lands Between Map? It would be amazing the two next to each other, particularly in a way that highlights the elevation similarities and differences between the maps.
If you're further interested in how well the low poly versions of levels you can see from a distance match their actual high-poly counterparts in the souls games, the RUclipsr Illusory Wall has made several videos covering this very topic, using bloodstains, prism stones and much more. They're very interesting, I highly recommend checking them out!
Would love to see a similar video but mainly about how often the devs keep consistency between the overworld and underground dungeons. For example Gelmir Hero's Grave has a boss room where there are windows and light coming in implying that the boss room is next to an outdoor area. Or how Darklight Catacombs seems to break the consistency by, according to map, having the player traverse the sea to get to abyssal woods. Or the intersection between perfumer's grotto and atlus tunnel.
Yesss this!! I was always fascinated by those Hero's Graves and Catacombs which had huge windows awash with sunlight in the boss rooms. And the intersection between Perfumer's and Altus was so unique!
There's one specific spot where the menu map doesn't match the rendered overworld, and it's when you just arrive at the Haligtree. The border of the consecrated snowfield is rendered further than it actually is, as a manner to emphasize the length of the travel to the Haligtree. You can easily check it by playing with the map markers.
With all the allusions to England, Ireland, Greece, and Rome, a North Atlantic island location was a perfect choice cuz natural fog and mist can help hide loading spots, just like back in the day when Silent Hill used fog to do the same. It's also matches up with the inconsistent weather patterns😄
Excellent video! I'm still slowly working my way through the DLC, so I've had to wait to watch your other recent uploads, but it was refreshing to be able to sneak this one in!
Great video! I *think* there may be a few abstractive narrative elements subtly woven into the map design as well but these were really enjoyable details, thanks for the work you put in to sharing them!
The in-game map is also slightly off from the overworld. If you place down a marker at a landmark, you can actually see the light beam is slightly further off from where you put it. Even if you're standing next to it, you just more easily see that they don't quite line up. Granted, it's a discrepancy of about five-or-so metres, so it's not gamebreaking. Just, a very small detail I noticed.
i've often wondered if that's just bc the hand drawn map, being a drawing, was traced over the polygonal map, but not perfectly done, hence the discrepancy.
@@Boss_Fight_Index_muki Could be, or that the Drawn map and overworked map were worked on at different points. As in, the drawn map acted as a reference, then from there it was altered to suit the Overworld. So over time the geometry may have just slightly shifted from its reference point. Unnecessary for a pleb like me, but a fascinating glimpse into the kinda work that would need to go into making a world like this and then having an accurate map.
this is exactly the kind of thing i am interested in, very cool video. so many details in the world and its so beautiful and fascinating, and it looks incredible from every single spot on the map.
very insightful, I am currently working on a topdown pixelart game and I'm trying to absorb as much as I can from fromsoft's library of tricks, even if in my case it is a lot simpler since I don't really rely on landmarks for now (but I might in the future by foreshadowing distant locations with a background, nevertheless it will be a lot easier than what they had to do for elden ring) lovely video, and very cozy music too c:
Everyday I continue to be more amazed by the love FromSoft puts into their games, especially when compared to most other big game studios. In 2022, they made a fan out of me, and every time I see one of these videos, that appreciation of FromSoft grows. I'd love to just sit down and ask someone who worked on these games all about their time and hard work they put into it
As much as i enjoy the new dlc content, its pretty cool to get some context on things like this, knowing how much work goes into getting the Super Overworld to look just right must be tough.
This does make me wonder about certain things that are inefficient. Bushy's video on the mod where every enemy was always aggro'd had him being shot at by the Golem Archer in Mountaintops as early as fighting Draconic Tree Sentinel, and as late as crossing the chains past the Guardians' Garrison. So that Golem has his AI loaded in the entire time.
The first time I got to the top of a tower, I remember how fun it was to compare the map with the view from atop and see how the landmarks matched so nicely. Seeing how much effort it must have taken, makes me appreciate even more the level of detail in the map.
There's also the fact that even though you can traverse the entire open world without a single loading screen (except maybe the Haligtree), there’s actually few areas where transitioning between regions with different sceneries is done completely seamlessly - most of the time there is a lift, a tight passage, a cave, a gate, or something similar that conveniently obstructs the view, allowing the game to load the new assets in the background while you're going through them. The few examples I can think of where that's not the case are Limgrave-Caelid, Limgrave-Liurnia (when you go around Stormveil) and Altus-Gelmir.
I just noticed what you mention when I was playing around with ERTool some time. Miyazaki really did put a lot of thought into making this masterpiece.
They did it with ds1 which to this days is exceptional in terms of level design and was unique, so its not a suprise at all to see that they were able to do it a second time with elden ring
I've been looking forward to a breakdown like this, super interesting to see how they managed to handle these when the same tricks used in older games wouldn't work anymore.
Such a beautiful world. A living painting. Amazing work from the team at Fromsoft, always eager to push the bounderies of their projects and try new things. People like to complain and say open worlds are boring and empty. This is just not so with a game like Elden Ring, so many amazing moments around every corner and the world is an unparalleled artistic wonder. Setting the scene is imortant in an open world, having these expansive open areas helps frame the scene and give that cinematic, immersive atmosphere as well as luring you towards points of interest. Something they have done very well with this game. The attention to detail is phenomenal and the number of scenic spots that look across such a wide area is amazing. With such intricate and creative areas hidden away off the beaten path that come as such a fantastic surprise. A gripping and yet strangly calming adventure in a wonderful fantasy world.
Wow, I remember DCing constantly when cooping with my friends traveling to certain areas and I think the grid had everything to do with it watching this now. Thank you!
Hi Zullie! Ive been wondering where the models are for the dragons that crash into us in several places. Like agheel and lansseax? I could a swore I saw agheel on a cliff somewhere from the lake, but in successive playthroughs I can't see him!
the loading area chunks thing, while common in games like this, made me realize something that i saw talked about in a small twitter thread. and that this game lacks a problem a lot of other open world games dont deal with: masking LOD pop-in. like i cant say i recall much of anything like getting close enough to a spot and then BOOM a group of enemies or a whole structure visibly load in. another one i realized is an absent problem i see never talked about is CAMERA based LOD pop-in. which is that thing where the default camera distance from your character can be just out of range of having an object loaded in, but if you stood still and rotated your camera, you would see it pop-in on the edge of your screen as the camera is no closer to the object.
I have to admit that I truly and wholly love these tricks that make the world feel so genuinely connected and real. I am sure this was a development Hell but it sure did pay off because it is BEAUTIFUL. The base game has wonderful consistency and detail even from afar as shown with Castle Morne, but the DLC is even more delightful to bask in and just look at everywhere you can see from any area.
beautiful. i do so love these types of videos and appreciate the creativity fromsoft or any dev puts into these kinds of clever solutions tricks and illusions. these lines of thinking and clever ways to implement things you don't actually have the rendering power for is something i've found has died off more n more as devs lazily rely on technology now and rarely take shortcuts or have to get creative due to hardware limitations. which is a shame. some of these creative clever tricks are what made me so passionate about gaming. i've had my mind blown so many times with what the trick was how they pulled it off and how i never had any idea in game until said illusion was broken/explained in any case i hope we can see new devs in the future pick up and keep alive some of these wonderful old tricks that even now have practical modern application, even if it's becoming abit of a lost art.
I am still in awe of how *good* the game looks with how many tricks and shortcuts they use. Like actually doing things that hide things without spending resources like others do for greater photo realism. It's an aesthetic that really works.
IIRC in a DS2 developer interview the team explained that the reason for a lot of wonky area placements is because the PS3 and XB360 had issues with loading in everything at once. This is also the reason for the graphical downgrade the full release game got versus what the trailers and Network Test showed; they just didn't have enough power.
@@sunbleachedangel eh, not consoles in this instance. It was Bandai Namco who apparently made the decision; the game was SUPPOSED to just be released for PS4/XB1, but good ol' BamCo wanted to maximize profits so they pushed for it coming out on PS3/XB360 as early as they could which was before the PC version was ready. Fun fact: DS2 sold about 75% of what DS3 did at launch, and that was without PC; if you include the PC sales of DS2 in launch sales, it *outsold DS3* and that was on Windows Live instead of Steam. If BamCo had simply waited 9ish months and allowed the game to release simultaneously across all systems (PS3/4/XB360/1/PC), then it would have been a much more finished product and would have outsold DS3. More likely tho would be that DS3 would have been an even bigger success lol
@@OMIMox I remember when they were releasing AC6 they decided to remove all the regional prices on Steam and the game became like 60% more expensive (or more, I don't remember) where I live, very cool
An example of this was made apparent to me when I was trying to study the landmass to the north of the Lands Between- I was trying to explain to people where the best spot to see it was (somewhere in the Haligtree), but I and many others were confused since it appeared to be both north and northwest at different times and from different angles- clearly not something you were ever supposed to notice or scrutinize, but it made me suspect something like this was the case
I remember Josh Sawyer & some staff from Obsidian that worked on New Vegas back in the day regretted making landmarks as visible from other areas as they were, 'cause technical limitations made that like. Really jank up a lot of their other ideas and efforts. So impressive how this stuff works, and how amazing it all comes together! I can't imagine the workload and stress of game design.
You can see early prototypes of the Jagged Peak pretty easily by zooming in on it when standing inside Belurat Tower, including dragons that used to circle the peak in a strange way and placeholder arrows showing the developer plotting out the path up the mountain. The only other place I've been able to spot the early LOD that has flying drakes is when you're leaving Shadow Keep on the bridge travelling west to the plateau. I captured some footage but it's pretty easy to spot from right outside the door to Divine Beast Dancing Lion and looking towards the peak.
@@anonisnoone6125 I layered them over each other once. The overworld map is slightly below where it needs to be. You can tell via the minor erdtree nearby (that Godwyn is attached to)
Fascinating. I always wondered how the hell they do it without load times. Incredible. Coming up with this must've been very challenging and clever too. The engineers and devs need to have significant amount of know-how
Truly beautiful. Are hidden boss arenas, such as those for the Ancestral Spirits, loaded in when you are nearby them as well, or do they only pop up when you've triggered their "door" mechanic (touching the spirit corpses)
miyazaki: we need to make the map landmarks visible from any point of the game, just like DS1 team: but the map is too big miyazaki: you guys will figure something out
A while back I caught an oddity with the map markers that I think relates to this. If you enter the underground areas from near the three fingers, put down a marker before hopping down into the underground map area and you can see the distance moved is off, with the beacon actually vanishing from where it looks like it should be but remains on the map.
I'm really curious how the two Siofra River wells work. You can go down the one in Limgrave, travel to the other one, go up it and arrive in Caelid. I wonder if the distances involved match up to overworld.
As their tech and hardware keep getting more powerful, I'm extremely excited to see what they can accomplish in their next games. If they could implement a similar LOD technique to UE's Nanite (it's a core UE5 feature which essentially removes LODs and instead breaks each mess down into pieces, loading in dynamically more or less parts depending on the amount of distance to the object, frame real estate/pixels the mesh is taking up, etc.)...they could push even further on delivering this extremely believable worlds. Actually, and I know this game got hated on by influencers and reviewers but I think unfairly, Star War Outlaws shows signs of inspiration from FromSoft's approach to world scale and locality. It shares the same type of accuracy of map element and backdrops within its large planetary maps, though it is split into a few planets. Excellent to see FromSoft's excellent world build giving rise to those same great ideas elsewhere in the industry. Art is about collaboration and cooperation, not just competition.
You know where I noticed this? In the stairs before the consort radahn fight after you come out of the elevator, one day I was chilling and started to look right of the stairs to see what places I could see, and to my surprise, a lot of stuff seemed to be closer or misplaced, and I started opening the map and compare "ok, but why is this here if it's a bit more over there? woah woah and why is that here and not there" and if I placed a marker, sure, it pinpoints what I was supposed to mark but, the landmark seemed misplaced, interesting haha
I noticed that, for whatever reason, the distant scenery from the Limgrave Divine Tower doesn't work correctly. the Minor Erdtrees aren't loaded and half of Caelid is literally missing, but this isn't an issue from the more distant Divine Tower in Liurnia always annoyed that it was never addressed lmao
I love that just as the Notre Dame was a collaboration between ingenious structural engineers and highly skilled stonemasons, Elden Ring's world is a collaboration between the ingenious backend engineers and the highly skilled environment artists.
Man as someone who's been working on his own Open World game, and as an early souls nut, It's freaky how close some of these techniques Fromsoft has developed are to some of the things I've fighred out individually as well. It's like if you thread similar-ish ground, you are bound to find similar but not always equal solutions.
This explains the random hitching we get while traveling in game, we're probably crossing these grid borders and the game is trying to stream a large a large amount of detail as we're traveling.
I LOVE the map! Not the actual Map per se but geography and topography in the lands between. Whenever I feel the map is too big I then realize that everything actually is so close and when I think it's too small I can see where I want to go only it's actually far away...
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Another complication with the open world is that the developers have much less control over what the player is seeing at any given moment. It's obviously easier to smoothly hide the transition from the exaggerated mockups to real terrain when you can force the player through a tunnel or block it off with buildings, but Elden Ring has far fewer chokepoints that could realistically be used for that sort of trick.
we've watched them become masters of illusion over these many years. i suppose we could call them magicians
I would love to know if this factors into the Erdtree's transparency from certain vantage points or if that transparency is a deliberate design decision made by FromSoft. Could have interesting lore implications. Fantastic video - thanks as always.
I personally like to think that it's thanks to videos like yours that we can truly appreciate how much effort was put into games like Elden Ring
They still did a fantastic job with the sheer density of curated landscapes, using the funnel technique that Zelda had arguably brought to its final maturity just 5 years before
@@a10bam420 Wizards?!?
Dishonest.
I think Miyazaki recently said that Elden Ring is as big as they're currently willing to go and they aren't going to be making a game of similar scale again for quite some time. Honestly I can't blame him, the development of Elden Ring and SotE must have been one hell of an undertaking
Honestly I hope the game industry as a whole takes this in too. I think games are getting too big to be sustainable, even for huge game studios. They all suffer from some kind of content repetition and technical difficulties (even Elden Ring does) that makes me wonder if it's worth it for all big studios to collectively decide to make huge "200 hours of content" open world games instead of denser, more focused games.
@@alfonshedstrom9859 True that. SOTE is peak example of this. The scenary is outstanding and the outworld is astonishing, but then there are just a bunch of legacy dungeons that also feel small and simple, unless you really force yourself to explore them thoroughly. Shadow Keep could have been an epic dungeon with more intrincate levels and passages.
@@alfonshedstrom9859 It isn't. I think the whole "open world" things gets treated like a marketing opportunity now. Open world isn't really a 'type' of game when you think about it, just a presentation style. Within the open world, you can places attributes and features that would ordinarily be in games on their own. It's a sandbox that you put pieces of other games into, for us to go in the sandbox and play with.
So you have this melting pot, a crucible, the worldspace and mechanics that place and move things around. I think the possibilities for all of the different kinds of appeal that will fit into that space are a bit seductive for everyone. The worldspaces have grown in size and range of stuff in them precipitously, and at this point, every open world is a hype-azz "This game has ALL OF THE THINGS!!!! You won't just forget all other games, you'll forget your own mother's NAME!"
Also consider that leading up to open worlds as we know them becoming technically possible, we lived in a world where video games were often publicly measured by the amount of hours of play the game offers. And then open worlds come along and Mr. Krabs jaw hits the floor at the triple-digit play hours they can now get players to clock. Now, things have gone so far in that direction, everything feels barer and less cohesive.
I used to love open-world games man. Now I shudder when they come out, at the project each one will be and the amount of them there are. Just give me a coherent linear game with a range of ways to progress in a tight and nuanced gameplay system, or a good metroidvania layout plz
I honestly think the playerbase might be burnt out a little on a game this scale again. I know Id love to play a smaller scale souls game again.
@@alfonshedstrom9859 I honestly am sick of open world games beyond MMOs, there's no justification in my eyes to create a massive world for what is essentially a singleplayer game with optional multiplayer features tacked on, it's just unnecessary.
Fromsoft has always impressed me with the ability to make the world feel loaded in, all at once, despite a lot of clever trickery being employed.
Comes at the cost of the framerate being cpu bound quite a lot of the time.
I mean that's a lot of games. This isn't a fromsoft secret
@@piusdoe8984 I mean.. to be fair, I never said it was exclusive to them, just that Fromsoft games have always served as an example of that technique done well.
@@MaelstromALPHAelevators and tunnels everywhere is not doing it well lol
@@jarlbalgruuf2415 Whattt?? U don't like the loading screen elevator??? I think it's the best part of the game..
Actually insanity they were able to put this together so well and not have the entire thing implode on itself. It's things like these that intentionally go unnoticed that gives me an unbelievable amount of respect for developers. Props to the people who worked to achieve this
When I first played the dlc, I remember going to the right side of the gravesite plain and looking over the edge and seeing that furnace golem all of the way in Charo's hidden grave. It blew my mind seeing it from so far away.
It hurt my eyes
I remember looking down on hidden grave and cerulean cost and thinking like "holy shit no way is that just for decoration or can we actually go down there" and not getting there for about 2 irl days
Seeing that is how my first death in the DLC came about, when I forgot I was on Torrent and went to backstep out of the telescope and just charged Torrent off the edge instead
I've noticed that every continent in Elden Ring has a foggy / poor visibility area in the center (Mistwoods, Stormhill, central Liurnia, Swamp of Aeonia, Holy Snowfield, Abyssal Woods, Fog Rift...) and I'm fully convinced this is a trick to reduce how far the player can see: if you're inside the fog, you can barely see the outside. If you're outside it, you can't see inside it and whatever's on the other side is so far it's always the low detail LOD.
(The areas that don't have this have natural chokepoints: the underground rivers has narrow caves, the great bridge and the mountain spires in the Mountaintops, and the legacy dungeons can just use traditional sight-obscuring corridors whenever they need to)
I wonder how much this was because of technical reasons and how much was design reasons - there's that infamous spooky statue halfway through Shaded Castle thanks to a LOD switch so maybe there were a lot more obvious pop-ins that they had to add foggy areas to obscure?
They optimized the technical limitations to create an interesting design. Even if you could see across the map, at all times at all angles, I think most players would find that boring. Exploring through an area, and finding a new viewpoint which reveals a new/different part of the map is extremely rewarding and visually exciting, imo. I think that they intended to obscure the map regardless of technical limitations, however they probably used the limitations as a framework for what designs were possible/optimal
What statue? Could you explain that one for me?
@@jeeBisOkay In Shaded Castle, one of the types of statues that line the later corridors has a detailed model that faces forward but a low level of detail model that has its head turned the side. This discrepancy is used intentionally to make the statue appear to be looking at you from a distance but then have it snap forward again when you approach, the easiest way to notice it is in the hallway immediately after the Shaded Castle Inner Gate grace. Stand where the spirit is and approach the ladder.
@@jacobperry2491 oh cool
The fog also looks really good, so that's a solid 2 for 1
I absolutely adore it when they foreshadow future areas in video games. Like how you can see Anor Londo from the undead settlement in Dark souls III, or how you can see the Giant's Forge from Limgrave in Elden Ring. I find it to be really cool when they do that and it's impressive how well they did it in Elden Ring. Probably my favourite example of foreshadowing a future area in a FromSoftware game would be Drangleic Castle in Dark Souls II. I just love the way the place is presented. Something about it is just so cool to me, seeing the ominous tower from Majula, and then later at Cardinal Tower, and then from the shaded woods nearby with how you can see the rays of sunlight cutting the Castle's silhouette through the fog, and then when you actually get there it's really cool.
Same here!!! And also when you can see older places at new ones (I loved watching at Irithyll bridge from Anor Londo)
Stg, sometimes i play elden just to go from vista to vista and realizing how many future areas can actually be seen, specially in limgrave. When I first noticed the forge in the distance in NG+ I felt it so hard
Yeah, seeing Drangleic Castle is so fucking cool, though I didn't realize you could see it from so many places! I only thought it was visible from Majula. That's very cool :3
I love how Drangleic Castle's position totally shifts from one side to the other when you go through the tunnel approaching it. Dark Souls 2 best game.
We don't talk about iron keep 💀
Every time I see a Furnace Golem from across the map, my mind is blown all over again.
Love the Lands of Shadow map for that.
Guess the furnace golems have to be appreciated for SOMETHING.
@@LazzyVamples I also like the one by the Shadow Fortress that you can lure right into the encampment and have it kill everybody. So that's two things to appreciate.
@@wadespencer3623 It also can be used to destroy Marika's statue at the same camp. Three things. Wait, she punished the hornsent... two and half.
Yeah, I think the Lands of Shadow map is a regression in a lot of ways (mostly due to the flow between areas and the topography being really confusing at times), but the omnipresence of the Furnace Golems is a really nice touch.
This is why we do not see Farum Azula in the open world. In reality, if it was part of the game world around Lands Between, we would clearly see it in every location because it’s just that big despite the distance.
You can see it from the Isolated Divine Tower, but I suppose that’s special programming?
Currently there's a mod that make Farum Azula appear from every point in Lands Between, kinda low quality but it's very cool
@@theminorthirds That's because the super overworld isnt the only low detail version of the overworld the game uses, it's just the one that's used when you're in the open world. Each legacy dungeon has its own low-poly version of the overworld, presumably so they could better customize the overworld LODs for each individual legacy dungeon. So the Isolated Divine Tower just has a separate version of the overworld that includes Farum Azula. Since these LODs are entirely separate from one another and they aren't all updated every time the map is changed, some of them actually show previous iterations of the world design. My favorite example of this is in the DLC: the low-poly overworld used when you're in Enir-Ilim shows a path leading from the Prospect Town Ruins (the one on that cliff to the left of the entrance of the DLC) up to the top of the plateau you go under to get to Belurat, an area that isn't reachable in the final game.
@@reblaw89 Just watched a video of the mod in question - I can definitely see why they didn’t make it visible in the Open World considering that you can see it all the way from the starting location and it’s almost as prominent as the Erdtree.
Elden Ring’s open world is nothing short of a technical marvel especially when you consider all the little details and nuances to level design that they managed to preserve on top of the sheer scale of it all.
Not to mention how the scenery is always akin to a moving painting at all times.
ER's base game map design isn't really all that. It's just like any other open world. Don't get me wrong, most of it's gorgeous, but it doesn't do anything special and I honestly don't get y it's praised like it changed open world games (Removing story objectives isn't really that special).
The dlc map on the other hand, is vastly superior in design cos of it's verticality and forcing u to explore to get to different areas of the map and it does what people claim the base game map did. It changed open world design. The only sad thing about the dlc map is that there isn't really any area that feels like Limgrave or Altus.
@@anonisnoone6125limgrave is a one time experience impossible to replicate again in the game. The same way firelink shrine, or yahrnam felt the first time. There are better areas but the magic of first experience is immaculate
@@anonisnoone6125 It feels memorable. It's like those open world games that have a very unique and memorable design, like for example skyrim. If you play skyrim once or twice you'll pretty much remember where everything is located, and the same can be told about Elden Ring's map, but i doubt you could remember Ghost Of Tsushima's map or The Witcher 3 map cus it just hard to understand them, there are no major landmarks, everything kind of looks the same, and because most of the locations hold the most basic loot imaginable you can't remember locations per items like in Elden Ring or Skyrim. And sure it's nothing special, but somehow not all games are able to make such open world's that you'll be able to memorize really fast.
@@SimplCupLiterally. I'm pretty sure if you gave a random location of a fromsoft game to a souls player, they would know almost where it's located and its name
There's literally nothing exceptional from technical standpoint about it in ER. It's just layout with very little going on in it and as a player I had no reason to engage with open world in any way other than just running through.
Bet the dev team felt a relief while working on AC 6 with the player being confined to fairly small mission locations with invisible walls and mostly narrow spaces for navigation
It was probably like the "lunch break's finally here" relief before getting back to the grind lol
On one hand yes, but AC6 is actually massive. The scale of it is insane in a one to one comparison with Elden Ring. I'm not even sure how they handled the loading and size of such massive areas.
I remember first noticing the misaligned bloodstain years ago, and rather than "ew, they lie to us" I though "Oh cools, so that's how they make it feel so big, neat". I love figuring out things like that not by actively looking for them, but rather noticing something being off. Like how illusory walls tend to subtly stick out in a way that draws the attention without being glaringly obvious, though that might be the devs intentionally setting up scene lighting to draw players' sight to them
The occasional purely barren section of a wall when nearby walls are more detailed, or one section like the rest being framed by the lighting or nearby environmental objects in a way that stands out. My favorite is the illusory bookshelf that has no books as the hint.
I like the wavy hidden walls in Demon's Souls.
The DLC open world design is incredible. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the base game's open world, but From upped the game with the DLC. The verticality, scale, and interconnectedness of the open world was incredible to discover the first time.
Sometimes I wish I could sit here in the Korok Forest at night and watch obscure souls videos forever. I'm always happy when one of your videos pops up, Zullie. Thank you for taking the time to share your findings with us.
I humbly await the day Zullie starts tearing apart TotK/BotW, and that one peaceful track from Demon's or the Majula theme is playing. :B
fell in love with the level design in Eldenr Ring. You can see distant castles, buildings and churches, and actually visit them if you want. And everything looks so massive!
This is the sort of thing you just don't think about when it comes to game design. So many people think of a game they like, and go 'Wouldn't it be cool if that was open world?? Why don't they do that?' Well, it turns out taking an existing game formula- and as this video shows, design, architecture, and layout sensibility- and just adding an 'open world' element into it poses challenges on a technical level people might not expect. Sure, the challenges on a design level are obvious- 'How big?' 'How do we fill all the space?' 'Where and how often should free travel be restricted?' but technical issues like 'how does this effect our existing methods of distance rendering?' might not be as noticeable to players that only see the before and after, not the process.
A good example of what happens when you don't deal with any of that and just slap an open world onto a game is Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
It’s a testament to FromSoftware’s development team that they were able to translate the gameplay of Dark Souls to an open world so well. I was really skeptical that the move to an open world environment would compromise on the level design but it’s amazing how they were able to make such a large open space interesting to explore, while still keeping the classic Dark Souls level design within the game’s dungeons - in fact, Stormveil Castle and Leyndell are some of the most intricately designed levels I think I’ve ever seen in a Souls game.
One place you can find it break down is Castle Sol looking out at the Haligtree. It's surprisingly difficult to place a pin on the Haligtree that LOOKS like it's on the Haligtree from Castle Sol.
Similarly from the Haligtree looking at the volcano, or distant scenery in general.
Fun fact, you can see Niall in his arena from way up on the hilltop over Castle Sol
the haligtree was moved quite considerably on the map in one of the early updates to the game. could be why that happens.
The "super overworld" is such a cool sounding thing i cant believe you didnt make it up
This is simple Level of Detail, but instead of from level-0 it's from level-4 (or whatever is the lowest level of detail in Elden Ring) this is how 90% of open world games handle their massive view distances, they have a very low resolution/detail version of the map (or the chunks themselves) this allows them to remain accurate to a point.
Then the game shaders dither fade the high detail as you move away, allowing the transition to look more natural and tricking your eyes into accepting the level of detail.
I love you Zullie the Witch (we all say in unison)
I love you Zullie the Witch
Hear, hear!
I love you Zullie the Witch
I love you Zullie the Witch
I love you Zullie the Witch
1:41 Playing on a decent potato, yet still a 7+ years old decent potato, I can concur that not only does the game have to work with the fact you can be staring at a scenery-level structure and watch it come to details as you approach (contrary to previous FromSoft games who could use elevators and corridors to hide loading a chunk), but I occasionally find myself in the predicament of riding Torrent ON an un-loaded part of the map, and having the rocks I'm climbing loading beneath his hooves. Accuracy between the different stages is VERY important when your game can behave like this!
Poor potato doing its best, may great Fortune be upon thee
@@arya.n.8252 hehe it does. It's still a good potato, I can play the majority of modern games and enjoy them 😊
@@NWolfsson Can i ask what parts does the potato have ?
@@ventus5816 May have had a few parts updated, but not that much:
-CPU: Intel Pentium G4560
-Motherboard: Kaby Lake B250M-D2V-CF
-GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970
-RAM: Avexir 16GB
@@NWolfsson Holy shit, that's so low below minimum spec, if you can play Elden, its really doing a lot to keep it running, a True Potato
I hope everyone is having an Umbasa weekend
And an Mmm-bop to you, as well. :P
The difference between the overworld map and real map is really obvious in Gravesite Plain, the wheat loading in is a bit jarring.
I love Elden Ring, but I hope we get a tight and interconnected map for the next one. More verticality, secret passages and shortcuts and interwoven areas that blend together seamlessly.
One of my favorite parts of Elden Ring is the detailed exploration of places like Stormveil Castle, The Academy, Volcano Manor… etc. being able to climb up and around, on top of roofs and ledges, and explore those densely packed areas is so much fun! It’s wild how much stuff is completely optional and hidden, and if you see an interesting area you can basically go there! That’s what I want more of…
I’d love to play in a densely packed city with tons of secrets and hidden pathways, or a less depressing version of Blight Town where there’s just hundreds of platforms and ladders and hidden nooks and crannies or mysterious cave systems with hidden branches and connections! That’s one of the coolest things about Elden Ring… exploring those mysteries underground, unsure of what lurks around the next corner and picking a random passage to see where it leads and then boom! You’re in a huge area with an ancient structure and an alien wasp is shooting lasers at you! Hahaha
It's incredible how underrated the Elden Ring map is for being open world, any position of the player is a painting, the map is connected almost perfectly and almost everything you see in the distance can be accessed, even if not, it is logically designed, the Sote map is another level adding that sick verticality
the nature of the world's progression probably also helps with this: you start from the bottom, and make your way up to the mountaintops. when you're below a cliff, you can't see what's on top, reducing the level of detail required for ground objects since they aren't visible from the lower levels. and when you're up high, it makes sense to have clouds or fog obscuring the view of what's below, to emphasize the height you've scaled.
The fact that you can see cerulean coast from the top of scadu altus will never not be impressive to me
Probably this approach is one of the reasons why these games look so incredibly magical, the vistas always look like paintings.
What got me the most was when I were exploring Jagged Peak I turned around to see Shadow Keep clouded in the distance. What was an entire multilayered and detailed playable area is now recontextualized as this pretty background object when I'm high up somewhere entirely different
@@alfonshedstrom9859 Another great example is how in the base game, wherever you go, you are going to see this mighty golden tree in the distance, always. It follows you on your entire journey, the moment you set foot in Limgrave, you see this tree that's going to be your final destination. Simply magnificent.
I'd like to see a closer look at the DLC map. I definitely feel like there were more moments there where a marker placed on the map wouldn't match the corresponding location in the distance. I suspect SoTE is playing a lot more dark souls-style distance tricks, and hiding them behind tunnels and passages in the open world.
I've loved your work since I first discovered you, before you took your hiatus, just wanted to say, thank you for presenting such well thought and intriguing content! I don't watch many videos to completion, but I don't think I've failed to finish a single one of yours for years!
the best part of Zullie's videos is the soothing Zelda and King's Field music
it's soothing until Zullie decides to use dark reality for the background music.
Love how this channel reveals insight not only about in-game lore, but also actual game design processes and challenges.
me and my friend's first moment of awe with the dlc came with seeing one of the furance golems way off in the distance, but way, way below us. the first of many "Miyazaki was lying when he said the dlc was the size of Limgrave" moments
Can we see a video overlaying the Shadow of the Erdtree map over the Lands Between Map? It would be amazing the two next to each other, particularly in a way that highlights the elevation similarities and differences between the maps.
If you're further interested in how well the low poly versions of levels you can see from a distance match their actual high-poly counterparts in the souls games, the RUclipsr Illusory Wall has made several videos covering this very topic, using bloodstains, prism stones and much more. They're very interesting, I highly recommend checking them out!
Would love to see a similar video but mainly about how often the devs keep consistency between the overworld and underground dungeons. For example Gelmir Hero's Grave has a boss room where there are windows and light coming in implying that the boss room is next to an outdoor area. Or how Darklight Catacombs seems to break the consistency by, according to map, having the player traverse the sea to get to abyssal woods. Or the intersection between perfumer's grotto and atlus tunnel.
Yesss this!! I was always fascinated by those Hero's Graves and Catacombs which had huge windows awash with sunlight in the boss rooms.
And the intersection between Perfumer's and Altus was so unique!
There's one specific spot where the menu map doesn't match the rendered overworld, and it's when you just arrive at the Haligtree. The border of the consecrated snowfield is rendered further than it actually is, as a manner to emphasize the length of the travel to the Haligtree. You can easily check it by playing with the map markers.
Everytime I watch a video of yours it just makes me remember the joy of playing the games you take the music from for your videos. I love it!
The fact that you always find such in-depth detail of these games, blows my mind every time. Love these videos and seeing the inner workings
With all the allusions to England, Ireland, Greece, and Rome, a North Atlantic island location was a perfect choice cuz natural fog and mist can help hide loading spots, just like back in the day when Silent Hill used fog to do the same. It's also matches up with the inconsistent weather patterns😄
Zulliw I love your videos and getting to learn more about how these collosal games work, thank you for all you do!
Map is map
Excellent video! I'm still slowly working my way through the DLC, so I've had to wait to watch your other recent uploads, but it was refreshing to be able to sneak this one in!
Thanks for making this one. Something I've been wondering for a while!
Great video! I *think* there may be a few abstractive narrative elements subtly woven into the map design as well but these were really enjoyable details, thanks for the work you put in to sharing them!
Your videos help me further appreciate the work From puts into their games, thank you!
The in-game map is also slightly off from the overworld. If you place down a marker at a landmark, you can actually see the light beam is slightly further off from where you put it.
Even if you're standing next to it, you just more easily see that they don't quite line up.
Granted, it's a discrepancy of about five-or-so metres, so it's not gamebreaking. Just, a very small detail I noticed.
i've often wondered if that's just bc the hand drawn map, being a drawing, was traced over the polygonal map, but not perfectly done, hence the discrepancy.
@@Boss_Fight_Index_muki Could be, or that the Drawn map and overworked map were worked on at different points.
As in, the drawn map acted as a reference, then from there it was altered to suit the Overworld. So over time the geometry may have just slightly shifted from its reference point.
Unnecessary for a pleb like me, but a fascinating glimpse into the kinda work that would need to go into making a world like this and then having an accurate map.
Commenting purely to say I love the little Zullie map icon.
this is exactly the kind of thing i am interested in, very cool video. so many details in the world and its so beautiful and fascinating, and it looks incredible from every single spot on the map.
very insightful, I am currently working on a topdown pixelart game and I'm trying to absorb as much as I can from fromsoft's library of tricks, even if in my case it is a lot simpler since I don't really rely on landmarks for now (but I might in the future by foreshadowing distant locations with a background, nevertheless it will be a lot easier than what they had to do for elden ring)
lovely video, and very cozy music too c:
Everyday I continue to be more amazed by the love FromSoft puts into their games, especially when compared to most other big game studios. In 2022, they made a fan out of me, and every time I see one of these videos, that appreciation of FromSoft grows.
I'd love to just sit down and ask someone who worked on these games all about their time and hard work they put into it
it's also interesting how misplaced halitree is compared to the map
As much as i enjoy the new dlc content, its pretty cool to get some context on things like this, knowing how much work goes into getting the Super Overworld to look just right must be tough.
It's one of those things that you just can't really appreciate until it's explained. Zullie doing great work as always
It presented many challenges, and I’d say they tackled them pretty damn well!
This does make me wonder about certain things that are inefficient. Bushy's video on the mod where every enemy was always aggro'd had him being shot at by the Golem Archer in Mountaintops as early as fighting Draconic Tree Sentinel, and as late as crossing the chains past the Guardians' Garrison. So that Golem has his AI loaded in the entire time.
The first time I got to the top of a tower, I remember how fun it was to compare the map with the view from atop and see how the landmarks matched so nicely.
Seeing how much effort it must have taken, makes me appreciate even more the level of detail in the map.
This was really interesting, love these videos
There's also the fact that even though you can traverse the entire open world without a single loading screen (except maybe the Haligtree), there’s actually few areas where transitioning between regions with different sceneries is done completely seamlessly - most of the time there is a lift, a tight passage, a cave, a gate, or something similar that conveniently obstructs the view, allowing the game to load the new assets in the background while you're going through them. The few examples I can think of where that's not the case are Limgrave-Caelid, Limgrave-Liurnia (when you go around Stormveil) and Altus-Gelmir.
I just noticed what you mention when I was playing around with ERTool some time. Miyazaki really did put a lot of thought into making this masterpiece.
They did it with ds1 which to this days is exceptional in terms of level design and was unique, so its not a suprise at all to see that they were able to do it a second time with elden ring
I've been looking forward to a breakdown like this, super interesting to see how they managed to handle these when the same tricks used in older games wouldn't work anymore.
Such a beautiful world. A living painting. Amazing work from the team at Fromsoft, always eager to push the bounderies of their projects and try new things. People like to complain and say open worlds are boring and empty. This is just not so with a game like Elden Ring, so many amazing moments around every corner and the world is an unparalleled artistic wonder. Setting the scene is imortant in an open world, having these expansive open areas helps frame the scene and give that cinematic, immersive atmosphere as well as luring you towards points of interest. Something they have done very well with this game. The attention to detail is phenomenal and the number of scenic spots that look across such a wide area is amazing. With such intricate and creative areas hidden away off the beaten path that come as such a fantastic surprise. A gripping and yet strangly calming adventure in a wonderful fantasy world.
Wow, I remember DCing constantly when cooping with my friends traveling to certain areas and I think the grid had everything to do with it watching this now. Thank you!
Title: "struggles"
Video: "it does a fantastic job"
Hi Zullie! Ive been wondering where the models are for the dragons that crash into us in several places. Like agheel and lansseax? I could a swore I saw agheel on a cliff somewhere from the lake, but in successive playthroughs I can't see him!
the loading area chunks thing, while common in games like this, made me realize something
that i saw talked about in a small twitter thread. and that this game lacks a problem a lot of
other open world games dont deal with: masking LOD pop-in.
like i cant say i recall much of anything like getting close enough to a spot and then BOOM
a group of enemies or a whole structure visibly load in.
another one i realized is an absent problem i see never talked about is CAMERA based LOD
pop-in. which is that thing where the default camera distance from your character can be just
out of range of having an object loaded in, but if you stood still and rotated your camera, you
would see it pop-in on the edge of your screen as the camera is no closer to the object.
This game is a modern art + engineering masterpiece.
This kind of videos always make me smile thinking just how incredible ER is.
I have to admit that I truly and wholly love these tricks that make the world feel so genuinely connected and real. I am sure this was a development Hell but it sure did pay off because it is BEAUTIFUL. The base game has wonderful consistency and detail even from afar as shown with Castle Morne, but the DLC is even more delightful to bask in and just look at everywhere you can see from any area.
beautiful. i do so love these types of videos and appreciate the creativity fromsoft or any dev puts into these kinds of clever solutions tricks and illusions.
these lines of thinking and clever ways to implement things you don't actually have the rendering power for is something i've found has died off more n more as devs lazily rely on technology now and rarely take shortcuts or have to get creative due to hardware limitations. which is a shame. some of these creative clever tricks are what made me so passionate about gaming. i've had my mind blown so many times with what the trick was how they pulled it off and how i never had any idea in game until said illusion was broken/explained
in any case i hope we can see new devs in the future pick up and keep alive some of these wonderful old tricks that even now have practical modern application, even if it's becoming abit of a lost art.
I am still in awe of how *good* the game looks with how many tricks and shortcuts they use. Like actually doing things that hide things without spending resources like others do for greater photo realism. It's an aesthetic that really works.
IIRC in a DS2 developer interview the team explained that the reason for a lot of wonky area placements is because the PS3 and XB360 had issues with loading in everything at once. This is also the reason for the graphical downgrade the full release game got versus what the trailers and Network Test showed; they just didn't have enough power.
Consoles holding everyone else back, nothing new
@@sunbleachedangel eh, not consoles in this instance. It was Bandai Namco who apparently made the decision; the game was SUPPOSED to just be released for PS4/XB1, but good ol' BamCo wanted to maximize profits so they pushed for it coming out on PS3/XB360 as early as they could which was before the PC version was ready.
Fun fact: DS2 sold about 75% of what DS3 did at launch, and that was without PC; if you include the PC sales of DS2 in launch sales, it *outsold DS3* and that was on Windows Live instead of Steam. If BamCo had simply waited 9ish months and allowed the game to release simultaneously across all systems (PS3/4/XB360/1/PC), then it would have been a much more finished product and would have outsold DS3. More likely tho would be that DS3 would have been an even bigger success lol
@@OMIMox good old bumco
@@sunbleachedangel ya got that right lmao
@@OMIMox I remember when they were releasing AC6 they decided to remove all the regional prices on Steam and the game became like 60% more expensive (or more, I don't remember) where I live, very cool
Elden Ring is a masterclass in open world game design. One of Fromsoft’s magnum opus
This is fascinating but also makes sense. In order for an open world to feel continuous, you HAVE to make sure it's accurate.
An example of this was made apparent to me when I was trying to study the landmass to the north of the Lands Between- I was trying to explain to people where the best spot to see it was (somewhere in the Haligtree), but I and many others were confused since it appeared to be both north and northwest at different times and from different angles- clearly not something you were ever supposed to notice or scrutinize, but it made me suspect something like this was the case
I remember Josh Sawyer & some staff from Obsidian that worked on New Vegas back in the day regretted making landmarks as visible from other areas as they were, 'cause technical limitations made that like. Really jank up a lot of their other ideas and efforts. So impressive how this stuff works, and how amazing it all comes together! I can't imagine the workload and stress of game design.
You can see early prototypes of the Jagged Peak pretty easily by zooming in on it when standing inside Belurat Tower, including dragons that used to circle the peak in a strange way and placeholder arrows showing the developer plotting out the path up the mountain.
The only other place I've been able to spot the early LOD that has flying drakes is when you're leaving Shadow Keep on the bridge travelling west to the plateau.
I captured some footage but it's pretty easy to spot from right outside the door to Divine Beast Dancing Lion and looking towards the peak.
The erdtree in the overworld and deeproot maps not matching has been pissing me off for months tbh
Does it really not match? I feel like that's something Miyazaki wouldn't just ignore.
@@anonisnoone6125 I layered them over each other once. The overworld map is slightly below where it needs to be. You can tell via the minor erdtree nearby (that Godwyn is attached to)
@@lm7677 Isnt that just because the tree curves?
Fascinating. I always wondered how the hell they do it without load times. Incredible. Coming up with this must've been very challenging and clever too. The engineers and devs need to have significant amount of know-how
Truly beautiful. Are hidden boss arenas, such as those for the Ancestral Spirits, loaded in when you are nearby them as well, or do they only pop up when you've triggered their "door" mechanic (touching the spirit corpses)
miyazaki: we need to make the map landmarks visible from any point of the game, just like DS1
team: but the map is too big
miyazaki: you guys will figure something out
Truly a masterpiece of a video game. One of the greatest pieces of interactive art that exists. Can't get enough of Elden Ring
this game increasingly seems like a technical marvel in the base game which was out-done by the dlc
super fascinating as always, love your insights!
A while back I caught an oddity with the map markers that I think relates to this.
If you enter the underground areas from near the three fingers, put down a marker before hopping down into the underground map area and you can see the distance moved is off, with the beacon actually vanishing from where it looks like it should be but remains on the map.
I'm really curious how the two Siofra River wells work. You can go down the one in Limgrave, travel to the other one, go up it and arrive in Caelid. I wonder if the distances involved match up to overworld.
Why this channel doesn't have 3 billion subs is beyond me.
When Looking up from Caelid you can see the Forge of the Giants but the way it looks like it looks way smaller than it actually is
Zullie, you've got to be the best thing that happened to the souls community, I'm pretty sure of that. Love you content!
As their tech and hardware keep getting more powerful, I'm extremely excited to see what they can accomplish in their next games. If they could implement a similar LOD technique to UE's Nanite (it's a core UE5 feature which essentially removes LODs and instead breaks each mess down into pieces, loading in dynamically more or less parts depending on the amount of distance to the object, frame real estate/pixels the mesh is taking up, etc.)...they could push even further on delivering this extremely believable worlds. Actually, and I know this game got hated on by influencers and reviewers but I think unfairly, Star War Outlaws shows signs of inspiration from FromSoft's approach to world scale and locality. It shares the same type of accuracy of map element and backdrops within its large planetary maps, though it is split into a few planets. Excellent to see FromSoft's excellent world build giving rise to those same great ideas elsewhere in the industry. Art is about collaboration and cooperation, not just competition.
You know where I noticed this? In the stairs before the consort radahn fight after you come out of the elevator, one day I was chilling and started to look right of the stairs to see what places I could see, and to my surprise, a lot of stuff seemed to be closer or misplaced, and I started opening the map and compare "ok, but why is this here if it's a bit more over there? woah woah and why is that here and not there" and if I placed a marker, sure, it pinpoints what I was supposed to mark but, the landmark seemed misplaced, interesting haha
I noticed that, for whatever reason, the distant scenery from the Limgrave Divine Tower doesn't work correctly. the Minor Erdtrees aren't loaded and half of Caelid is literally missing, but this isn't an issue from the more distant Divine Tower in Liurnia
always annoyed that it was never addressed lmao
You can also see a big weird rectangle with texture from Caelid Divine tower when you look at Leyndell
I love that just as the Notre Dame was a collaboration between ingenious structural engineers and highly skilled stonemasons, Elden Ring's world is a collaboration between the ingenious backend engineers and the highly skilled environment artists.
It's kind of a miracle the game executes this sense of world scale so accurately to the degree it does. All this, AND the game is a 10/10? Unreal.
Man as someone who's been working on his own Open World game, and as an early souls nut, It's freaky how close some of these techniques Fromsoft has developed are to some of the things I've fighred out individually as well. It's like if you thread similar-ish ground, you are bound to find similar but not always equal solutions.
No wonder we had to wait so long for any news, they had to figure so much out for this one
This explains the random hitching we get while traveling in game, we're probably crossing these grid borders and the game is trying to stream a large a large amount of detail as we're traveling.
I LOVE the map! Not the actual Map per se but geography and topography in the lands between. Whenever I feel the map is too big I then realize that everything actually is so close and when I think it's too small I can see where I want to go only it's actually far away...
The fact that this works _at all_ is just mindblowing to me. Modern game development is insane.