I didn’t play much Elden Ring as it strayed too far from what I liked about the earlier Souls games, personally. Demon’s would only give you a checkpoint after killing a boss, though you could open up shortcuts instead. Dark Souls 1 had a few more checkpoints but there was none of this respawning right outside the boss door that you get in ER and some of the later series games (to make up for the overtuned boss challenge in those games).
This meant, at least on your first playthrough, you tended to be doing this slow, tense exploration of hostile areas. Because dying would not only cost you progress, but potentially your next level if you failed to retrieve your souls.
I didn’t play much Elden Ring as it strayed too far from what I liked about the earlier Souls games, personally. Demon’s would only give you a checkpoint after killing a boss, though you could open up shortcuts instead. Dark Souls 1 had a few more checkpoints but there was none of this respawning right outside the boss door that you get in ER and some of the later series games (to make up for the overtuned boss challenge in those games).
This meant, at least on your first playthrough, you tended to be doing this slow, tense exploration of hostile areas. Because dying would not only cost you progress, but potentially your next level if you failed to retrieve your souls.