Ok, so I've been playing over a week now when I can, and here's a wild take to spark some discussion (especially given the odd simultaneous release of Elex II): If Elden Ring was the first souls-like game ever published, with none of the history and reputation of frustration and repetitiveness that those games have, I submit that we would all be praising this game as building upon the foundations that Gothic 1 & 2 built, and taking it to a whole 'nother level.
My experience exploring the world is giving me massive flashbacks to the open world of Gothic 2. From the complete lack of hand-holding, to the way we need to find the difficulty boundaries on our own, to the way we get our ass kicked early on if we fight something we shouldn't, and later kick it's ass when we're geared and levelled up (Remember what happens if you stray off the road into the forest when heading to the first town in Gothic 2? I sure do).
Past FromSoftware games were mostly on rails, and if you were going up against a tough boss, you had little choice but to keep trying til you beat it so you can continue progressing. Not so with this game. I've made a conscious decision to walk away from a boss or area if I die more than a couple times, and the game is totally playable that way, with huge multiple areas in the beginning section of the game where you can be successful and get geared up and help you come back to overcome the hard challenges (I recently killed one of the major world bosses 40 levels after I first ran away from it like a scared schoolgirl). Just last night I spent a good 6 hours uncovering 2 large portions of my map, and exploring 3 catacombs/caves and taking out the mini-bosses and getting some useful loot, and the whole time I died just a couple times and was never at risk of losing my runes. And this was in an area completely off the rails from the main story path. The world is freakin' huge....
Elden Ring is the incarnation of what the Soulslike genre should have looked like from the start. Opening up the world and giving us other options besides banging our head against the wall has improved the enjoyment and fun factor 100x for me. Brilliant game, absolutely brilliant....