During the course of the Tokyo Game Show 2021, From Software shared new details on Elden Ring and in particular on how the difficulty level.
During a live broadcast, From Software’s Yasuhiro Kitao, who deals with promotion, marketing, explains that the game will have a high level of challenge, as per tradition, but that it won’t be hard for the sake of it. Rather, the game’s design has been crafted in a way that gives the player a sense of accomplishment when they overcome a challenge or discover something new, and high difficulty is a necessary tool to accomplish this.
Elden Ring therefore does not aim to be a ruthless or unfair game, but rather offers several solutions to help the Lightless in need. Kitao explains that as in previous From Software titles it will indeed summon other players. There will also be stealth mechanics, like in Sekiro, which allow you to take behind and kill certain types of enemies. Where, on the other hand, a player struggles to complete a particularly difficult dungeon, he can always return to it at a later time and gain experience and enhance his character in a less advanced one.
According to the words of Kitao, therefore, from Elden Ring we can expect a title that will be able to test players, but without ever proving to be too frustrating or inadequate, which in the end is what also happens in the previous works of From Software.
Still on the subject of comparisons, Kitao explains that Elden Ring will have the typical dark fantasy atmosphere of From Software, but at the same time it will be different from the previous works of the software house. One of the breaking points with the past is represented by the wide-ranging open world and how this is connected to numerous dungeons, which instead inevitably will have a more linear exploration.
Kitao states that dungeons can be small or medium in size, in addition to “legacy dungeons” which are huge castles or other “classic” settings similar to those seen in Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls.
As we have known for some time, we will travel the game world riding a ghost horse, whose name is Reima, which can be summoned at any time (except in dungeons) with a whistle. We will be able to fight on our trusty steed, which will come in handy when we face massive enemies like dragons, but in more enclosed areas with little room for maneuver it is preferable to explore on foot.
Kitao states that the Elden Ring world is huge and dangerous, albeit in a different way from dungeons, thus offering variety of situations and therefore fun. The game will never indicate their next objective to the Without Light, however it will be possible to orient themselves with a map and choose a point to reach that in the game world will be highlighted by a column of light.
Elden Ring will be available on January 21 for PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, PS4 and Xbox One. We recently discovered that the game will have “Ubisoft style” towers, with a similar function to Assassin’s Creed.