Elden Ring features a massive open world to explore, but its true size isn't made clear until more map pieces are collected and players progress through the story. The new world of The Lands Between is incredibly detailed, steeped in lore, and littered with appropriately nightmarish bosses to overcome. When first starting Elden Ring, the game's world map is shrouded in mystery, and its full size and scope is only revealed through exploration and the discovery of regional maps.
Elden Ring was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, director of the Dark Souls series of games, and features world-building lore written by George R. R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The game is considered a masterpiece of the Soulslike genre of games, and is understandably massive in its gameplay and narrative scope. With so much depth in its design, it is easy to understand why it can take over 70 hours to fully beat Elden Ring. Most of the game's hefty playtime can be directly attributed to fully exploring its sizable world map.
Elden Ring's world map sets itself apart from other Soulslike games, in that it brings a larger open-world element to the fore. While previous Souls games progressed in a linear fashion, Elden Ring encourages players to grow through exploration and side-quests, with literally hundreds of paths for players to choose from. Players begin the journey through The Lands Between in Limgrave; from there, players can visit four other major regions in the world. Heading north brings players some of the hardest boss encounters in the game, while heading south gives easier loot opportunities for new players struggling in Elden Ring.
How Big Elden Ring's Map Truly Is
Each major region of the Elden Ring world map is large enough to be divided into smaller regions within, with a total of 14 minor regions in total. Fast travel options can be unlocked as players progress, but until that becomes available players are still required to travel by foot or on their faithful steed, Torrent. One intrepid Reddit user called Lusty-Batch even used the length of their horse and a bridge to determine that Elden Ring's world map is 79 square kilometers big, and is actually larger than Grand Theft Auto 5's world map. However it is measured, Elden Ring's world map is a sizable challenge for any Souls player.
Elden Ring is a truly worthy successor to the Souls mantle, and keeps Dark Souls' themes alive in a new open-world environment. Miyazaki, Martin, and the rest of FromSoftware have crammed enough lore, story, and challenge into the castles, ruins, and dungeons of Elden Ring to make it one of the highest-rated video games of 2022. To fully experience all that Elden Ring has to offer, players must travel its lands, discover its secrets, and conquer its world.
Source: Reddit/Lusty-Batch