A couple of nights ago, I was running around in the Altus region of Elden Ring. There was a little marker on the map showing where the detailed map could be found - way off to the south, where I couldn't go because of a cliff. I had just come from the west and was at the northern edge of the map, so headed east until I found a little geyser thing that let me jump down to the bottom of the cliff and strike out to the south.
It was getting dark and rainy, so I couldn't see much, but I placed a guide beacon on the spot I wanted to go. There were... things in the dark. Probably about 10ft tall and hunched over. I trusted Torrent, my spectral horse/bull/download protocol to carry me through, though, and I zipped by them before they could swing at me. I lucked on a grace save point (they really stand out in the night) and passed time until the morning. (Note: the game does not fill out the map as you go. You have to grab the map item to fill out a section of the map!)
The next morning was foggy, so not a lot of visibility help, but enough to be able to see the nasties before bumping into them. I kept going south'ish and quickly ran into another cliff towering above me. I had already been to the west and knew there was no way up there, so I followed the cliff east, then se, then east, then north for quite a ways, then it started bending back to the west... frak. I was down in a giant bowl.
Fast travelled out back to where I started and just kept going east. It bent north, passing some windmills and a village with very odd people in it. I kept going around the bowl, only above it now instead of inside it and going the opposite way. EVENTUALLY I should get to that map thing, right? Wrong. The road kept going upward until, eventually, I came to another cliff with no way down. Eeeesh!
So, I went back to a fast travel point much closer to where I started the game. I was able to ride straight to the map item in just a few minutes.
I write this because I haven't had anything like that happen to me in a decade or two! It was, essentially, a gigantic maze! One I would have totally avoided had I just gone after the map from the starting area like a normal person instead of when coming out of Volcano Manner, but still! A maze! I this millennium!