I’m with you on it, because my completionist tendencies saw me trekking between one too many copy-and-pasted side dungeons in the 50 hours I gave Elden Ring before I couldn’t take it any more and never came back to finish the game.

It’s not like the moment-to-moment combat is any less fun than the games that came before it, but since the game lets me indulge in my worst tendency of finishing every optional thing before progressing things it just felt like a meaningless checklist slog.

It’s definitely a “me” problem, but it’s just one reason why I tend to prefer a more focused experience than a sprawling open world.

Just to give the other perspective, I think Hellblade II is a masterpiece so I hope you enjoy your time with the two games as well!

I think part of the reason for people’s reactions like above are due to how it was scooped up by Microsoft and was thrust into the hype machine.

I think more often than not, people who played the first one knew what they were getting into for the sequel, and they really are Character Games first and foremost. There’s a reason Senua’s actress won Best Performance for her role in both games.

As an aside, I highly recommend watching the behind-the-scenes videos for the games if you take a liking to them.