The thing about Elden Ring being called a masterclass in sandbox games really doesn’t make sense to me, and I really [i]really[/i] like it. None of the systems have changed save for instead of clever inter-connected levels we have sandbox and the addition of mounted combat. Enemies have been recycled from basically the foundation of the Souls series, there’s a lot of recycled (mini-)dungeons that are not particularly well designed even at their baseline design, and ultimately the mounted combat in the game is not particularly good on top of all of that. Elden Ring sacrifices cohesivity for a sandbox with what I would describe as “the greatest hits of Dark Souls”. 

That’s all it is. It’s a music compilation. It’s fun, but generally speaking it doesn’t do anything new and that includes its outdated multiplayer system.