In “Elden Ring,” the spiritual successor to the Dark Souls series, players will be given a powerful weapon: freedom of choice.
Journalists were presented with 16 minutes of never-before-seen footage of “Elden Ring” in a closed-door session with Kitao. The footage included several key features of the game, including a look at a map of its world, the Lands Between.
It’s a world in which fast travel to a save point is possible from anywhere on the map. It’s a world in which summoned spirits can alleviate the pain of a harrowing boss fight. It’s a world in which many encounters are optional — and one in which a dragon might surprise you, dropping from the sky to fight you as you cross a field on horseback.
It’s also a world co-created and written by Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki and “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin. Kitao said Miyazaki presented Martin with a vision of the game, but otherwise left him to draw up all the other details. Miyazaki then used that lore to write the current-day events in the game.
“There was a lot of back and forth between Miyazaki and George to get that feeling good,” Kitao said. “After that, George kindly handed it to us and said, ‘Take it and do whatever you want with it.’ ... You can think of the current time or period of the game events as written by Miyazaki. But this is influenced to an extent by that original mythos created by George Martin.”
Martin’s writing shaped the history of the titular Elden Ring and what it means to the game’s world and characters. Kitao said the player is basically tasked with piecing that story together and figuring out a mystery regarding its ancient history.
Kitao said FromSoftware is aware that many Dark Souls players have found its stories to be fairly impenetrable and difficult to decipher. Like the studio’s previous game “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice,” “Elden Ring” will have an easier-to-grasp main narrative, though the game will retain multiple branching paths and endings. Dark Souls games are famous for their environmental storytelling, which is a big part of the franchise’s allure despite its famously challenging gameplay. Kitao promises there will be plenty for players to dig through, analyze and uncover.
“We’re often told that our games have stories that are difficult to understand,” Kitao said. “This time, we’re not just talking about the story of the world. We feel that by focusing on the characters and the drama surrounding them, we’ll paint a clearer picture and help players become more immersed in the world than before.”
Your avatar isn’t a named, set-in-stone character. You’ll be able to increase defense, magic and luck as you did in past Souls games, and tailor them to your preferred playstyle. Archers and magicians will also be able to engage on horseback as they fight off an invading dragon.
Like in “Sekiro,” players can choose to take out enemies through similarly robust stealth options, including hiding in foliage. But unlike “Sekiro,” the player character is a classic role-playing avatar, fit to be molded into a variety of classes like knights and spellswords. And unlike any FromSoftware game before it, players can summon a horse mount from anywhere in the open world.
The game will include areas called “legacy dungeons,” which appear to be classic Dark Souls-like challenge areas gated off in the overworld. Players won’t be able to summon their steed or fast travel their way out of these dangerous situations.
One of these legacy dungeons included a multi-level, enormous castle that looked about as big as the Boletarian Palace that greets you in “Demon’s Souls," the first of the Souls-like genre. But in this castle, there are multiple routes through it. You could find a route behind the massive troll guarding the main castle gate, strike it with a sleep arrow, and sneak right past the snoozing security.
The entire game, as well as its dungeons, are designed with jumping in mind, another holdover from “Sekiro.” In the legacy castle, there are hidden routes players can discover by jumping through the architecture. This design philosophy is a godsend for speedrunners, and another big reason why the game’s length is hard to pin down. All of these dungeons are handcrafted by designers, and not procedurally generated.
One thing that isn’t returning from “Sekiro” is its strict, timing- and reaction-based combat mechanics. “Elden Ring” is firmly in the slow-and-steady approach encouraged by the original Souls series. There is a new mechanic called “guard counter,” in which players can strike immediately after a normal block, but even this can be countered by enemies, keeping fights engaging while maintaining a slower speed.
Heavy attacks can break an enemy’s “stance,” which leaves them open to devastating critical attacks, similar to the stabbing and backstabbing hits of the previous Souls games.
And “Elden Ring” will have a hub with non-playable characters serving different functions. Yes, there is still a soft-spoken maiden, who will be paid in experience points for you to level up your character.
In what seems like a compromise to the famous Souls difficulty, players will also be able to summon spirits, all of whom have their own upgrade paths, to assist you in key areas and boss encounters. Difficulty in Souls games ramps down considerably once your enemy stops paying attention to you, and this option appears to always be available to anyone who finds a boss to be an insurmountable check on their skill.
The castle’s big boss was a self-described “king of all that is golden,” who uses an entire dragon’s head as an arm. During this fight, the player was able to summon a tank-type spirit to draw away the enemy’s attacks.
Kitao says because this is a new mythology, there will be no direct ties to the previous stories in the Souls series. There’s a famous theory among fans that all of From’s games live in a shared universe. Kitao was coy about whether the Moonlight Greatsword, a recurring weapon from the company’s old game “King’s Field,” may return, but he was otherwise clear that the game’s story doesn’t overlap with what happened in the Dark Souls trilogy.
“Elden Ring” is scheduled to be released sometime next year, and is likely the most anticipated video game of 2022 that doesn’t star a princess named Zelda. The footage journalists saw already looked polished, running at 60 frames per second. We didn’t get to see the entire overworld map, but we caught a glimpse of a large chunk of it. Kitao said players would be able to use customized markers to note where important crafting materials are or where a hidden powerful enemy may lie.
“You’ll find some optional encounters that will definitely test the player’s mettle which we’ve prepared specifically for these players that love a challenge,” Kitao said. “In typical From fashion, the story is told in a fragmented way, and we haven’t changed our principle in providing a world and narrative players can interpret for themselves.”
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