Description
Two of the most anticipated open world action RPGs, Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring, are coming out this year, and fans are already discussing the key differences between the two games. Although both games feature immersive open worlds, they have completely opposite views on how players should experience them. Hogwarts Legacy, developed by Avalanche, places a strong emphasis on story-driven gameplay. Players will assume the role of a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry student, exploring the magical world created by JK Rowling. The game's open world is vast and full of activities to discover, but it's mostly tied to narrative progression, with rigid side quests and collection-based activities. By contrast, Elden Ring, developed by FromSoftware, offers a much more emergent open-world experience. The game's open world is almost entirely free to explore, with discovery being its main focus. Players can spend hours wandering in any direction, finding new areas and enemies without having to deal with difficult boss fights between Limgrave, Liurnia, and Caelid. The game offers a wide range of environments, from colorful biomes to spooky dark landscapes, and the Lands Between stretch is packed with NPCs to meet and talk to.
Elden Ring introduces open-world crafting and exploration into its traditional Soulsborne formula, delivering an immersive hundred-hour epic setting in a dark fantasy setting. The game offers its players a huge environment to explore and a rich mosaic of knowledge to discover, while giving them the freedom to choose how they want to progress through the game.
By contrast, Hogwarts Legacy is locked in narrative progression and players must follow a marked path and linear quest restriction boundaries. Players will need to use Revelio almost every five seconds to find anything in the area, as much of their gameplay revolves around finding loot or collectibles. Additionally, Hogwarts Legacy's Broom Flight is only unlocked later in the game's narrative, discouraging open-world exploration early in the game.
In conclusion, while the two games share some similarities, such as a turn-by-turn map reveal effect and an open world filled with activities to discover, the main difference between Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring lies in the emphasis placed on storytelling versus exploration. . Action RPG fans will no doubt be drawn to both games, and it will be interesting to see how they stack up when they release in the coming months.
