Elden Ring - Is Gold

Elden Ring has officially gone gold

Elden Ring is no longer a meme nor a dream. It's really coming and, according to an interview with FromSoftware's Yasuhiro Kitao during the Taipei Game Show, will definitely launch on time. Elden Ring had a short delay from its originally announced January date to February, but it sounds like any other pushbacks are off the table now. Elden Ring has officially gone gold. "Please be assured, the title will be ready for sale on February 25th," Kitao says.

In as much as the terminology matters when so many of us will be downloading Elden Ring, "going gold" means a version of the game exists that's ready to be put on a disc, slapped in a box, and stuck on a store shelf. Practically speaking for PC players, it means that Elden Ring is completed and ready for sale.

"The master version has already been submitted," Kitao explains in response to a question about whether development is going smoothly. "Right now, the team is working on a day one patch, to make sure everything in the game is just so."

In earlier parts of the Q&A interview, Kitao explains how the release version of the game differs from the version that some players got to try during the Elden Ring network test in November. Unsurprisingly, Kitao says that major parts of the game like the levelling system and the legacy dungeon areas are the same but that "myriad small things have changed," like item flavor text being fixed and enemy placement being tweaked.

He also mentions that the release version will of course have the full character creator, unlike the network test where only five classes were available. Details about character customization leaked earlier this month, proving that, yes, you can make a horrifying character with a wild skin color. Even if you do, Elden Ring's characters look a lot prettier than past Souls games, in part thanks to FromSoftware feeling a bit pressured by the Demon's Souls remake to nail their own snazzier, now-gen graphics.

Elden Ring is launching on February 25th and is currently the most wishlisted game on Steam.

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Redglyph said:

Apparently, the main part of the game is 30-hour long.

Elden Ring’s estimated length is around 30 hours for its 'main route' (PC Invasion).

EDIT: and with some chance, they'll have the time to fix this

It is now possible for Dark Souls 3 invaders to run code on your PC without permission. AKA RCE, Remote Code Execution. This same hack is possible in Elden Ring. (reddit).

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Elden Ring has officially gone gold

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JDR13 said:

Is there a pun intended in that headline?

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Alrik Fassbauer said:

They still produce game discs (be it CD-ROM or DVD) ?

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JDR13 said:

Is there a pun intended in that headline?

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Redglyph said:

It is now possible for Dark Souls 3 invaders to run code on your PC without permission. AKA RCE, Remote Code Execution. This same hack is possible in Elden Ring. (reddit).

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SirJames said:

Yeah, that's a bit of a worry. Hope they get that sorted out.

I had a hacker invade me in Dark Souls 2 who fired a spam of Soul Lances at what I would guess was 1 per frame. Never saw it again, though.

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Thiraury said:

I'm expecting a Dark Souls 4-ish game, which is just fine for me

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How has the ongoing discourse around game difficulty and accessibility impacted the way you’ve tailored and maintained FromSoftware’s trademark difficulty in Elden Ring? Was this something your team has been trying to be more mindful of?

Yes, we have. It’s a valid discussion. I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress. We understand that Souls-like games are regularly associated with impossible levels of difficulty with high barriers to entry. But we try to design the games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable in itself. So we hope that with Elden Ring and the new options it provides, it will be a success in that respect.

In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I think more players will finish it this time. As I mentioned, 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. Also, there isn’t a focus on pure action. The player has more agency to dictate their approach against, for example, the field bosses in the overworld and how they utilize stealth in various situations. We’ve even reduced the number of hoops that you have to jump through to enjoy it in multiplayer. So we hope the players embrace that idea of receiving help from others. And we feel like the overall clear rate will go up this time because of these things.

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danutz_plusplus said:

Some new gameplay on a new area. I think it’s gonna be a great game world to explore.

https://youtu.be/95cTNvgo5Cs

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JDR13 said:

I was hoping it would be more of a Dark Souls mixed with King's Field type experience, but I've come to realize that the early previews gave me the wrong impression. This is obviously a lot more Dark Souls than anything.

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