Elden Ring - Director Discusses Story & Gameplay

Frontline talked to game director for Elden Ring, Miyazaki, in a two part interview. The first part is about G.R.R Martins involvement and the story while the second part focuses on the gameplay.

In contrast to the open field, Elden Ring also includes Dark Souls-style maps with verticality such as castles, which they call “legacies”. The jump greatly improves the freedom in exploring such maps, and Miyazaki thinks that Dark Souls series fans will find this very refreshing.

They discuss the battles next, with Miyazaki saying that the heavy, high-tension combat remains present. The game does however give the player more options in combat as well, such as the ability to counter directly from a shield block, and he hopes that players will enjoy the new strategic approach to combat, which gives them more options to employ.

The interviewer says that with so many new options, the boss battles must be tougher now, and Miyazaki acknowledges this, saying that bosses are a special experience, being climaxes in the gameplay. At the same time, however, they wanted to avoid having situations where tough bosses would stop progress entirely, and did their best to reduce the chances of this happening. As he said earlier on, Elden Ring is designed to give the player freedom of choice, and the player can choose to leave certain bosses for later, or in some cases even clear the game without defeating them. Additionally, they have made it easier than the Dark Souls series for the player to be able to have other players help them out in multiplayer.

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