Having loved Bloodborne and to a lesser extent Dark Souls III, I never considered myself a fanatic of the Souls games. With Elden Ring, however, I admit that I am a fanatic.
Elden Ring is by far the best game that FromSoftware has made to date in my opinion, and is among my favorite games of all time. Yes, it is almost identical to Dark Souls in some respects (e.g. animations & combat system), but its open world changes almost everything, from how the player approaches the game, to the size of the areas, the variety of the level design, traversal, and exploration.
In terms of content based on the game's open world, it is so large that it makes you feel like it refuses to end. It is certainly one of the largest games I have played, and what impressed me most of all is the amount of quality content it has. As the first open world game from FromSoftware, it managed to prove to me how talented these developers are, because not only is it huge in size, but it also has the best world I have seen in an open world game.
Now, in terms of equipment, builds, and items, the game has almost infinite content for the player to experiment with. However, I wish I could say the same for most of the optional bosses. The important, main bosses of the game are easily the best I have seen in Souls games and among the best I have seen in games in general, but unfortunately the game is so big that it falls into the trap of recycling content, especially optional bosses, although it is somewhat justified by its size. However, it is worth mentioning that the game's content is recycled in some cases.
The combat system is reminiscent of Dark Souls III but faster and has many new mechanisms that make it either more enjoyable or more accessible to people who have not previously dealt with Souls games.
Also, in addition to the endless open world, the game has something more linear called Legacy Dungeons, which follow the level design philosophy of Dark Souls but do it even better than Dark Souls itself.
Finally, I want to close by saying that I really appreciate how even though FromSoftware has been making games with a similar foundation for the past 10+ years, it has finally managed to create something innovative for this foundation they have been using for so long. This means that Elden Ring is not just a culmination of a category of games, but it is also the evolution of this category.
Well done FromSoftware, and well done again.