LogFAQs > #972984166

Beyond being open world, the two games are nothing alike.

W3 is very story focused, either through the main quest or the side-quest. There is a lot characters and dialog. For the most part I consider the story/writing to be really good, especially a lot of the sidequests and the DLC. And the world building is good, though it also has the benefit of being built on an entire book series (that you don't need to read, nor do you need to play the previous books). The combat is serviceable. It's not terribly deep or overly complex. Unless you start the game on the highest difficulty it's unlikely that you are going to die often.

Elden Ring, is story second. That's not to say the story isn't there but its delivery is very indirect. There are side-quest but they don't include much dialog and you have to track them yourself. The story is fine enough, but it is certainly not a game I would tell someone to play for the story. Where the game thrives is combat and exploration. The world is beautifully grotesque and begs you to explore it and combat is very involved. You have a lot of freedom in how you build it but regardless of what build you use, it's going to be hard. You'll die. A lot.