FromSoftware report that Elden Ring is in the ‘final stages’ of development and won’t be delayed. It also won’t be very easy.
Considering how much information is leaked on other big games, on an almost daily basis, it’s shocking how little information there really is on Elden Ring, the next game from FromSoftware, makers of Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
Clearly it helps being in Japan, but the game is due out on January 21 and there’s really only been one proper gameplay trailer so far. According to Japanese mag Famitsu though, there’s no reason to fear a delay.
The interview is brief, and currently dependent on a machine translation organised on Reddit, but in it From’s Yasuhiro Kitao is asked how difficult the game is and replies, ‘It will be very difficult’.
Kitao does seem to be joking with the interviewer, perhaps because that’s the first question anyone ever asks him, and the title of the article actually refers to the game being something ‘that more players can enjoy’.
However, Kitao also describes how he wants players to feel a sense of accomplishment and ‘one of the ways to achieve this is to set a high difficulty level’.
‘There are systems in place to help you experience that sense of accomplishment’, he adds. ‘For example, when there are a lot of enemies, you can summon a spirit to fight with you as your companion.’
You’ll also be able to stealth kill enemies, as in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and since the game is open world you can always ‘level up and come back later’ if the area you’re in is too difficult.
Kitao describes the game as having ‘a very unusual map structure’, although it’s not really clear what he means by this other than it’s open world – which previous From games haven’t been.
‘We have prepared a large field, but we don’t have any errand quests, so players can go there or there as they like. There is also a system to help players avoid getting lost,’ says Kitao.
In-game difficulty has become a hot topic in recent years but at the moment there’s no suggestion that the game will have different difficulty settings or that it will be notably easier than previous From games.
Elden Ring will launch on January 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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