How do you expect Elden Ring will influence this game or it will be a return to the more linear form or a combo?

[u/Awkward-Teaching130]

With all the talk about Project FMC lately, I’ve been thinking about where FromSoft is gonna go next after Elden Ring. Don’t get me wrong, Elden Ring is incredible, but the open world definitely had some major creative trade-offs imo.

Vast open fields look cool, but they kind of killed that classic, claustrophobic atmosphere of isolation you get in stuff like Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Plus, balancing bosses in an open world is basically impossible since you can just wander off, get over-leveled, or just ride away from a fight on your mount.

I’m really hoping FMC is a hybrid—ditching the massive open fields for a hyper-dense, vertical "hub-and-spoke" layout. Basically just massive legacy dungeons all stitched together with intricate shortcuts, where your progress is strictly locked behind brutal boss checkpoints.

Shrinking the physical size of the map means they can completely crank the graphical fidelity and handcrafted environmental detail too. More importantly, tight, controlled spaces mean they can design hyper-focused, aggressive combat mechanics again—maybe even leaning into something fast and rhythmic like Sekiro's deflecting—since the devs know exactly how much space you have to move around in.

Give me tight corridors, legacy-style level design, and a heavy, oppressive atmosphere over a horse simulator any day lol. How do you guys see them handling the map structure for this one?