I feel like it’s really a mixed bag. Like some of the other comments I think overall I’d rather them go back to a smaller more interconnected world though. If I’m really honest I don’t think any game has been as good as the first half of dark souls 1. Purely on level design. I liked the almost metroidvania layout.
I like that you can go the wrong way, although accidentally sitting at a bonfire could screw you if you were too far into the catacombs. While you aren’t gated by skills like in a true metroidvania I like that you either have to find keys or find alternate routes to areas. While going through undead burg and beating the gargoyles is clearly the intended route you don’t have to do that. I like that taking the master key opens up whole new routes for you and I love the amount of times you open a door back into an area that you know. Taking the elevators down from the parish and seeing firelink again might still be one of the best feelings I’ve gotten from any game.
Since then they’ve only gotten more linear. DS3 in particular feels really linear with just occasional forks in the path that dead end. For being one of my favorite games in most other ways the layout and progression is really lacking IMO. Even within areas I didn’t feel like they were as interconnected as I would have liked.
The open world of Elden Ring does provide some of what I liked about DS1. You can absolutely go the wrong way and are likely to with things like chest traps sending you to Caelid. You can skip over an amazing amount of the game which I feel like is a strength. It keeps the game from feeling too linear and giving players options to explore more before taking on certain challenges. I loved finding extremely hidden caves and tombs and treasures in the world. And I was often shocked at how much bigger the map was getting. Going underground and seeing stars and realizing that this whole underground world is as big as the surface was awesome.
But I do feel like I could have done with something in between. Areas that are a bit smaller with more interconnected features. Ladders to open shortcuts and one way doors and elevators that loop around to familiar spots and less caves and tombs to keep them feeling fun and relevant. I personally understood the amount of re-used assets but you could have done away with a lot of them and kept the really interesting ones and been able to re-use things more sparingly, cut down on the amount of dungeons with a regular enemy as a boss, less watchdogs, less tree spirits.
If the next game is open world it certainly won’t keep me from playing it but I’d be happier with a little less space between the “legacy dungeons” and making those legacy dungeons and bit more expansive and interconnected I think. Keep the areas that you stumble across fun and meaningful where now it’s a really mixed bag on whether or not a given cave is worth the effort or not.
