Sombrero wrote on Today, 10:45:

Out of curiosity, how does the exploration work in these games? Are the areas gated by high level or otherwise difficult enemies giving you an "open world" but with a clear intended path or can you more or less choose a direction freely?

It depends on the game. In DS1, you can go pretty much everywhere right off the bat, if you take the Master Key starting gift (kind of a lock pick). The Thief class starts off with that by default, but everyone else can choose it as well. You will find it eventually through normal gameplay, if you didn't choose it at the start. A few plot related areas remain locked off behind magical barriers until you obtain a certain item, but otherwise, you can go anywhere you want. That said, the enemies are very strong in areas where you're not supposed to be, so you'll likely get one shot if you try to fight them early on. But you can run past some of them if you're careful, and sometimes grab certain items that they are guarding. Talking to NPCs will give you hints where you're supposed to go, but generally, it's all up to you.

DS2 is similar to a degree, but a bit more linear. There are several paths available to you at the start, but they converge eventually, so you can choose to go wherever you want. Later on, it becomes more linear, though you still get some choice in the order of areas that you want to tackle. From what I've seen of DS3 so far, it appears to be similar to DS2, but I'm only a few hours in so I don't really know. As for Elden Ring, that's supposedly a true open world experience, but I haven't played it yet.

Oh and, Demon's Souls is a collection of areas, all of which have four levels, I think. You can access the first level of each area right from the start, but you need to finish that in order to proceed to the second level of said area, and so on.