Third-Party is a series of guest blogs where developers talk about specific games, mechanics, levels, and more. This week we have Nate Purkeypile, former lead artist on Skyrim, Fallout 4, and more, talking about the open-world design ethos of Elden Ring.
My name is Nate Purkeypile and I have been in games for over 18 years now, but in all of that time, nothing I have worked on has had as much lasting impact as Skyrim. To this day, Skyrim is played by a shockingly large number of people, and that number never seems to go down. Some players are new, but other people keep coming back to it year after year. Other things I’ve worked on have also done really well, like Fallout 3 and 4, but nothing has had the staying power of Skyrim.
At the time, we had no idea it would last so long. In fact, while making it, the game was not even that fun for a long time. Things were broken, missing, unbalanced, and unstable. It’s so hard to know how a game will turn out until it’s almost done. It’s not like making a movie where a scene might be shot and you have a pretty good idea of what it’s like. There are so many moving pieces that all need to be complete before it even works at all.
After release, it became clear that it was a big deal and it was going to do better than anything we had ever made. So why is that, and what does that have to do with Elden Ring?
Elden Ring is an amazing game and one that I think will have significant staying power. The open-world design/philosophy of these two games have a lot in common, and this has a lot to do with why they resonate with people. When Skyrim came out, there weren’t that many open-world games. It was a lot harder at the time, but as technology improved and players demonstrated a clear desire to play this kind of game, more and more open-world games launched.
Despite Skyrim‘s success though, I’d argue that very few games actually follow the model of what made that game work. This is not to say those games are bad – in fact, I have enjoyed a lot of that other style of open world. For instance, I think Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and Watch Dogs 2 are amazing games, but there’s a clear philosophical difference in the way those games are designed compared to games like Skyrim and Elden Ring.
Skyrim and Elden Ring both follow the core idea that wherever you go, you’re going to find something interesting. Side content isn’t clearly lower budget and less fleshed-out. In fact, I’d argue a lot of the best content are the random things you discover on the side in Skyrim. It’s also okay if you miss them.
That sounds like a terrible idea at first because games are incredibly expensive. It makes sense to point players at all the amazing and expensive content that was made and say “Look at this! This rules!” While you ensure players see more of your game this way, something essential is lost when this happens. Suddenly, instead of being a world to explore, the game becomes a list of tasks. Again, this can be fine and it’s certainly easier to play and make a game this way, but the emotional experience of playing the game is completely different.
So often when playing Elden Ring, I think, “I had no idea this even existed.” Or, “I don’t even know what I’m looking at, this is wild.” That sense of discovery and surprise is key. This doesn’t happen if you hold the player’s hand and tell them exactly where to go. Some games these days even go so far as to list the number of secrets the player has found. By definition, that stops it from being a secret. You already know it’s there, you’re just trying to find out where exactly it is.
One of the things that I built in Skyrim was a place called Blackreach. It is a massive underground cave filled with glowing mushrooms and ruins. It’s big enough to support a battle with a huge dragon. It’s not like any other cave in the entire game – it’s more like a whole new landscape to explore. The player is also never told to go there and it’s a complete surprise when they find it. To this day, I have people who tell me it is one of their favorite places and experiences in a game. That sense of utter shock and surprise has made that place resonate with people for years and years. Also, Blackreach was not even supposed to be in the game and we snuck it in, but that’s a whole different story.
Elden Ring takes that experience of discovering Blackreach and doubles down on that feeling – particularly when you stumble upon Siofra River for the first time. The term “open-world” is used a lot, but I’d argue that Elden Ring is actually more like a very wide and large level. In a lot of open-world games, you can basically go anywhere. Sure, there might be some mountains or cliffs here and there to keep you hemmed in, but you can go basically anywhere from the start. Elden Ring is very specifically designed. It’s paced out to hit you with reveal after reveal, allowing it to constantly surprise you. FromSoftware even cleverly disguises how big the world is with how the map is unveiled.
These days, I’m working on a solo indie game where you hunt monsters from folklore in an open world. It’s called The Axis Unseen, and you can wishlist it on Steam or the Epic Store. After Elden Ring came out, I had someone ask me, “Does Elden Ring give you any ideas for your game?” While it doesn’t give me any specific ideas, it proves that there’s an appetite for open-world games like this. It’s a philosophy I have wanted to embrace from the start and I’m very happy to see a game like Elden Ring do so well. The team at FromSoftware deserves every bit of praise they get for it. Like a lone player following the ghostly echoes of a recently murdered stranger, I’m incredibly excited to be building another world that follows this design philosophy.
Elden Ring is designed so well and you can tell how much time they spent thinking about exploration and mystery. Everything is in a specific place for a reason. Players come to these games to be transported to another world. By designing these worlds in such a specific way, players can feel like they are really there. For that reason, I think Elden Ring will end up becoming as timeless as Skyrim. I have been a huge fan of FromSoftware’s previous works, especially Bloodborne, but Elden Ring is a large step forward, and one that I hope has a lasting impact on games as a whole.
Written by Nate Purkeypile on behalf of GLHF.
