To start this is coming from a guy that enjoys fromsoft games I was a fan of the kings field games back in the 90's and am an avid Armored Core fan.

Demon souls and bloodbourne are my favorite among the soulsbourne library. But I feel as time goes on these games are becoming very safe in terms of changing the formula up.

Elden rings shtick seems to be that it's "open world" which I think can be argued weren't a lot of the souls game somewhat open world/metroidvania? Unless the game is breath of the wild levels of open world I doubt many people will be impressed. And the gimmick of this game like the past 3 games is "be aggressive" again not really new.

The souls games have become very packaged and seem to want to keep the formula the same and change as lil as possible. The UI and gameplay is no different than prior games its simply open world and has george rr martin in charge of world building/story...which means oh he made item descriptions...sorry but item descriptions do not a good story make.

I just feel these games are becoming more like sports games. Mostly visual updates with little in change of gameplay or structure.