Introduction
Video games are a staple form of entertainment for me. I remember when my dad brought home a Nintendo 64 and loaded up Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. My sister and I were too young to even understand the objectives of these games, but we still managed to have fun exploring and learning the basics of the game. Fast forward a couple decades and I have hundreds of games under my belt. With weeks worth of time spent playing, exploring, learning, and at times memorizing the ins-and-outs of some awesome (and some not-so-awesome) titles, I have often thought with a little extra consideration of the user experience, these games could be even better.
I’ve decided to continue this blog series diving into the UX of a few of the many games I have played over the years. I don’t know how long this series will be, but I will remain as objective as I can regardless of my overall opinion of the games.
The three UX features I want to focus on are the following:
• Menu Navigation
• Controls/Combat Mechanics
• World Traversal/Interaction
I am going to use the Nielsen Norman Group’s definition of usability to rank the overall UX of each game. The five components of usability I will be analyzing are learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. I plan to give each component a ranking out of 5. The average of these rankings will end up being the overall UX ranking for each game.
Overview
“Elden Ring” is an award-winning game by the creators of the Dark Souls series, FromSoftware, and for good reason. Creator Hidetaka Miyazaki teamed up with George R.R. Martin to build the deep and mysterious lore of “The Land’s Between”, meaning gamers expected something great from the masters of their craft.
While this game could be reviewed in great detail for its story, characters, expansive landscape, and visual design, I am going to be focusing on the user experience. This game was FromSoftware’s first venture into an open-world style of “Soulslike” game, and it worked out better than anyone could have expected. Since I have experience with all of the Dark Souls games, my viewpoint for the learnability and memorability is biased. I have tried to review these aspects of the UX from the point of view of a new player.
With some small improvements, Elden Ring could be a perfectly usable game, but has made purposeful and strategic sacrifices to maintain the level of difficulty FromSoftware has a reputation for.
Features
Menu Navigation 5/5
Primary Menu
This game does not have a conventional pause feature, so the primary menu is overlayed over the gameplay. Only when you navigate to the specific sub menu does it cover the screen. This primary menu has 7 options for sub menus relating to different features the player will need. On the right side of the screen are quick-access inventory slots. The only way to interact with these options is to use the arrow buttons and selecting the sub menu or inventory slot you’d like to work within. This is an easily learnable menu and is reminiscent to a dropdown or hamburger menu you might find on a website. To aid in the efficiency and memorability of these menus, the designers added logos to further distinguish what each category is. The order this menu is structured is also intentional. Equipment is the most important sub menu players will need to access so it is the first option, item crafting and inventory are both usable in the field if the player can act fast enough (remember, no pause function means you have to act fast). The other four options are not typically needed quickly so it makes sense they are further down in the menu architecture. Room for error in this menu is very limited since the sub menus have been condensed into easily distinguishable groups.
Equipment Sub Menu
I’m not going to go over every sub menu, but I’d like to spend some time on the Equipment menu. For brand new players to this style of game, I think this is where the largest learning curve lies and room for error is greatest in the menu navigation. There are many slots for players to equip different types of weapons, shields, armor, perks, and inventory items. There’s a lot to look at and a lot to customize in this menu, but luckily the designers included icons for each slot to help increase the learnability of what each slot’s function is. This menu definitely suffers in efficiency. While it is likely the creator’s idea to make the player slow down and think carefully about the equipment they want to go into the next battle with, for this UX analysis it cannot be ignored. Luckily, the deliberate slowed down nature of this menu makes it near impossible for players to not memorize the functions and locations of each slot. This menu is also satisfying to use because the stats of each piece of equipment are displayed plainly in the middle of the menu, getting rid of the need to go deeper into the menu architecture to get this information.
Map Sub Menu
The last sub menu I want to discuss is the map. Notice how this was not even option on the primary menu? The map is only accessible with a separate button on the controller. This was surely intentional to keep the UI clean and organized. No other game by this creator has featured a usable map, so did they do it right with this game? On the map, players have the option to travel to fast-travel points throughout the world and mark points of interest, that’s it. It is an extremely learnable, efficient, and memorable user experience because of how simple it is. While some errors can be made in selection due to the layered verticality and expansiveness of the map, these errors can easily be corrected.
After reviewing how learnable, memorable, and limited room for error there is for the menu navigation of this game, I am going to give it a five out of five score. You can tell a lot of thought went into what was necessary to have in the primary menu and what order to display them in. From the primary menu down to the smallest selections in the sub menus, designers added in icons to greatly increase the efficiency and memorability of how and why to use the features in each menu. The map is a great example of “less is more”, allowing players to plan routes themselves, and not bogging them down with too many options.
Controls/Combat Mechanics 3.5/5
While this game is known to be difficult, it does not lie in the basics of the control scheme. You can block with one button, attack with two other buttons, do a special attack with one more button. That’s it…mostly. Sure there are options to cycle through weapons/spells, dodge and parry attacks, heal or use items, but none of it 100% necessary except those four fundamental controls. The initial learnability of these controls is simple, but gets much more difficult when trying to combine them to be a better, stronger, faster fighter. This game forces players to memorize these basic movesets and become efficient at utilizing them in the way that best suits them. The enemies are unforgiving and if you don’t know how to use the basic controls, you will die. I think where this game loses some usability points is in that high demand for efficiency. New players and veterans alike often struggle seemingly endlessly to become efficient enough to take down the toughest enemies. There is large room for error when combining all the controls in a high stress battle. Hitting one wrong button might cause you to die and need to start the battle over again from square one. Again, the creator has done this intentionally to greatly increase the satisfaction of when the player utilizes the controls and combat mechanics to win the battle.
Even though the creator intentionally designed the game to be difficult, the room for error and difficulty to become efficient are a detriment to the user experience for many players. For this reason, I have to give this category a 3.5 out of 5. I am taking away two points for the efficiency and room for error, but adding a half point back for the increased satisfaction when players get the hang of it. Coming up with improvements for this user experience is tough. Without the difficulty, this game creator would not have the reputation for creating the great games he does. It’s the difficulty in the struggle that increases the satisfaction when players win. Some chance for error could be reduced by limiting certain actions during fight scenes (ie, accidentally using an item you didn’t want to use), or being able to cancel an action mid-use in order to gain back time you may have lost, especially when you did an action by accident.
World Traversal 4/5
Unlike other FromSoftware games, Elden Ring has a map. This makes travel far easier than in those past games. As players wander through this massive open world, they can find these checkpoints called ‘Sites of Grace’. After sitting at these checkpoints, they appear on the map and can be used to fast-travel instantly. The ‘Sites of Grace’ all have unique names and are surprisingly memorable and learnable. Fast-travel is great in this game, considering there are basically two maps, an overworked and an underground area. The use of topography depiction on the map helps with accuracy and efficiency, but can lead to a chance for error. The added names usually help with recognition of a point that may be up on the hill or in the valley, but there still lies the opportunity for error and dissatisfaction.
Players have two standard ways of transportation across the world; running and riding your summonable mount. Running is best for crawling around dungeons, with a small jump feature add lots of traversal options in the various dungeons that are strewn over The Lands Between. Riding your mount named Torrent, players can travel at a faster pace and have a double jump for further open-world traversal options. There is no usability issues with these basic functions.
Many open world games these days have a mini map displayed somewhere on the UI, Elden Ring does not. There is a compass at the very top of the UI that will show any point son the map marked by the player. No path or traversal aid to help guide players is available either. Also, there are no interior maps of castles or dungeons, meaning no sense of verticality or room layout exists. While this difficulty to navigate is supposed to fit thematically with Elden Ring, from a user experience perspective, it is a hindrance.
I am going to give the world traversal a 4 out of 5. A few small improvements to the map could make a world of difference in increasing the usability of the traversal of Elden Ring. 3D topography would make more easily discernible, even if subtly added as to not disturb the ‘ancient' themes of the game. Theoretically, they could have added a guiding feature, like a small visual cue showing the general direction of where a player needs to go, but I personally think this would cut out some of the adventure of finding those hidden things across the world that comes with just exploring. I think this sacrifice to usability is worth it. The last improvement I would make would maybe make it possible to zoom further in on indoor areas on the map to show verticality and general room layouts.
Summary
Elden Ring scores a 4.2/5 for its overall user experience. The designers for this game took great care in structuring the menu architecture. Any areas where there could be confusion were given signifying logos to help with the learnability and efficiency of using the intricate menus. Traversing the world is a near flawless experience, but could benefit from some added dimension to the map to help with ease of navigation. And finally, the controls/combat mechanics are the most complicated user experience for this game. There is lots of room for error and dissatisfaction stemming from the controls, but unfortunately would be hard to change without sacrificing the difficulty expected from these types of games. I think that the designers have made smart conscious compromises to usability in order to create a greater sense of satisfaction when overcoming the hardship the game creates.
