Elden Ring and Open-World Games

<p>This year has seen the release of three great open-world games: Dying Light 2, Horizon Forbidden West, and Elden Ring. What do they all have in common? And what do they all do differently? This week, Kirk shares his new taxonomy for open worlds in video games and the Triple Click crew figures out what they like most in an open world.</p><p><strong>One More Thing: </strong></p><p><strong>Kirk: </strong>Public Defenders</p><p><strong>Maddy: </strong>Elden Ring</p><p><strong>Jason:</strong> Steam Deck</p><p><strong>Links:</strong></p><p>Steven Lumpkin's Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Silent0siris/status/1498408412555747333</p><p>Maddy’s articles about getting into Elden Ring: <a href="https://www.polygon.com/22948213/should-i-play-elden-ring-dark-souls-fromsoft-easy-hard">https://www.polygon.com/22948213/should-i-play-elden-ring-dark-souls-fromsoft-easy-hard</a> and parkour in Dying Light 2: https://www.polygon.com/22941196/dying-light-2-stay-human-climbing-parkour-techland</p><p>Support Triple Click:<a href="http://maximumfun.org/join"> http://maximumfun.org/join</a></p><p>Buy a Triple Click t-shirt: <a href="https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-sh">https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-sh</a></p><p>Join the Triple Click Discord: <a href="http://discord.gg/tripleclickpod">http://discord.gg/tripleclickpod</a></p><p>Triple Click Ethics Policy: <a href="https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/">https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/</a></p><p><strong>ECOTAG: Kirk’s Open-World Personality Test</strong></p><p><i>Video game open worlds can be broadly thought of according to three metrics: Emergent vs. Controlled, Opaque vs.Transparent, and Aesthetic vs. Gamey. IMPORTANT: These are gradients, not on/off switches, and they’re for categorizing the open worlds, not the games as a whole.</i></p><p><strong>EMERGENT→ CONTROLLED</strong> (How dynamic/simulated is the open world?)</p><p><strong>OPAQUE → TRANSPARENT</strong> (How mysteriou