Of all Elden Ring's achievements, it's the sprawling and detail-packed world of the Lands Between that make your tarnished jaw drop again and again. Towards the end of the game, when I knew I was approaching the home stretch and probably wouldn't play it again for a long time, I suspended the search for Great Runes in order to just bum around, warping from place to place to remind myself of some of the game's grand sights.
Clearly I wasn't the only one who felt such an urge. "My friend and I have been on a mission to create a Geoguessr-like experience for our favourite games," writes TheEdenChild. "Elden Ring was high on that list, and I'm happy to say after much trial and error, we were able to capture over 8000 locations in the overworld of Elden Ring".
You can play the game in your browser here, and the most impressive aspect of it is how it recreates the Geoguessr-style interface of being able to zoom in and around a given image: these aren't just static shots. "We captured hundreds of thousands of raw images, before stitching them together to create the 360 degree panoramas," writes the creator. "We also created a semi-decent satellite map of the world, to allow more accurate guesses (if you zoom in enough, you can see animals). We also have custom settings, leaderboards, and multiplayer support, with plans to add more features in the future!"
Well, despite all my sight-seeing, turns out I was a bit crap at this. There's quite a few churches that look similar, in my defence, but it's nevertheless great to revisit such a memorable place. Elden Ring was a worthy winner of PCG's game of the year 2022, and for some this environment alone was the year's gaming highlight.
