Elden Ring is one of 2022's most anticipated games, and director Hidetaka Miyazaki has been dropping hints and details about the game to get players hyped. Most recently, he has gone on record saying that more people will complete it compared to other FromSoftware series' like Dark Souls.
PlayStation Blog's latest interview with Miyazaki shed some light on FromSoftware's development process with Elden Ring. Previous games have become infamous for their steep difficulty and unforgiving battles, but Miyazaki is confident that fewer players will be deterred by challenging gameplay this time around.
Miyazaki stated: "...the player’s level of freedom to progress through the world or return to a challenge later are all elements that I feel will help people get through the game at a more leisurely pace." Elden Ring is determined to be different to the Soulsborne games, and its open-world setting is likely to break up the standard semi-linear progression. With Miyazaki's vote of confidence, Elden Ring's more open environment will reduce the number of players getting stuck at one difficult boss with no other way to progress or spend time playing. Other elements like balancing the player’s gradual exploration alongside boss fights was "a significant challenge" for FromSoftware, but it made sure to emphasize more player freedom as they progress.
Some would argue the difficulty is FromSoftware's best selling point, but Elden Ring is not a drastically easier game even though the formula has been dramatically changed. "There isn’t a focus on pure action," says Miyazaki, highlighting more adaptive gameplay styles when taking on overworld bosses, with mentions of stealth being incorporated into exploration and battles. Sneaking across an unpredictable landscape to attempt a risky stealth kill offers just as much challenge to players, and offers multiple opportunities to defeat bosses if gamers have a certain preferred playstyle.
FromSoftware's producer Yasuhiro Kitao gave a rough estimate of Elden Ring's completion time which, combined with Miyazaki's hints about what is to come, paints an ambitious product. If FromSoftware expects players to finish Elden Ring despite a larger open world and more optional encounters, then it runs the risk of over-correcting the difficulty issue from earlier Soulsborne games.
Hidetaka Miyazaki mentioned the dev team "learned some valuable lessons" while making Elden Ring, and with FromSoftware's strong track record it looks to have paid off. The best features from previous games being injected into a vast overworld will win over a lot of players on concept alone. With less than a month to go until release, longtime fans and new players are all ready to explore FromSoftware's new offerings.
Elden Ring is set to release on February 25 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: PlayStation Blog
