I dunno. I find them on average a bit ham fisted. I love those elements in their games for sure, but it never moved me like certain environments in the last of us, for example.

Elden ring is really more linear than it is open world, so much content being locked behind certain progress milestones (and difficulty curve unless you’re very good). You have no lasting impact on the game world, and the gameplay loop is heavily centered around dying and respawning at checkpoints. It has more in common with a Mario game than with, say, skyrim. Linking the “levels” together I guess has some aesthetic benefits, but honestly if you entered each area directly from the roundtable hold would the experience have been materially different?