Elden Ring player proves how small the map really is when you cut optional content

gamesradar.com:

An Elden Ring player has illustrated the minimum amount of the map that you need to explore to finish the game.

Elden Ring is by far From Software’s biggest game to date. You can literally spend hundreds of hours wandering around the Lands Between, exploring dungeons, battling enemies, completing quests for NPCs or simply admiring the scenery from atop your trusty steed Torrent.

Unlike Dark Souls, From Software has added a map this time around, and while it doesn’t provide a ton of information, it certainly helps you get your bearings in Elden Ring’s enormous open world. But just how much of this sprawling land do you actually need to explore if your only goal is seeing the game’s ending credits? Well, wonder no more, as one Elden Ring player has answered that very question. So if you’re not one for spoilers, avert your peepers now.  

As evidenced by this image from Spicy_Slice, shared on the Elden Ring subreddit, you actually need to explore very little of the Lands Between to beat the game. Surprisingly, it’s little more than a straight walk through the middle of the map to the handful of bosses that you need to beat to reach the end of the story, and you can even use some teleport shortcuts to cut the journey even further. 

Not that we would recommend this hasty approach, mind you, as hightailing it to the end means that you'd not only miss out on loot, memorable optional bosses, and basically, the majority of one of the year’s best games, but you might find yourself rather underleveled for Elden Ring’s tough final stretch. But it is nonetheless interesting to visualize just how small the game's critical path really is.

Since the game’s release, Tarnished have been flocking to the Lands Between in record numbers,