It is on the strength of this success that the famous game designer of Souls, and incidentally President of FromSoftware, returned to Xbox Wire Japan on the design of the game in a short interview. He explains in particular what motivated this new open world experience, much less compartmentalized than the studio’s previous games.
“In terms of the overall design of the game, aside from the sense of accomplishment, a constant notion since Dark Souls and its sequels, I think the focus on the sense of adventure, where you can freely meet the challenges of a vast world full of unknowns and threats, has been a determining factor.“The freedom to move freely from one end of the Underworld to the other, without having to continually come up against a boss or a hostile zone, remains indeed one of the main assets of the latest FromSoftware, which requires a particularly colossal preparation work upstream of development.
Fortunately, director Miyazaki was able to rely on the experience accumulated within the team to delegate. “As far as the actual production goes, this is a much bigger game than before, which means more of the responsibility has been given to other people than me. In other words, the staff that I could entrust with this project had matured, which is why we decided that the time was right to make this game.“.
If the open world of Elden Ring seems to learn from the many open worlds trodden before him, Miyazaki”don’t think he and his teams were inspired by any particular game“, but obviously several: “As a gamer, I’ve experienced many open-world games that have become classics, and I’ve been inspired by each one. I can only name a few, such as the Elder Scrolls series or even The Witcher 3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is also a particularly recent example.“
The boss of the franchise even indulges in a few confidences in terms of design, the time to raise the central question of bosshighlights of the adventure: “Early in the design of a map, especially a large map, the bosses that will spawn in the area are set in stone. The maps are therefore designed based on the gameplay of the bosses, and the gameplay of the bosses is adjusted based on the maps in which they appear“, he reveals.
And who precisely has the favors of the boss from boss ? “It’s very difficult to decide, but I’ll go for Radahn“, in reference to the colossus who martyred the lost souls in Caelid.”He’s a fascinating character, and I also really like all the staging related to the Radahn festival. I think that we find there these feelings mixed with celebration and exuberance, but also a melancholy which is specific to each“, explains Miyazaki, who adds that no one in the team really took the idea seriously when it was first brought up. As for adding two more boss on this unofficial podium, the game designer leans towards Godrick and Rykard. What about Malenia then?
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