Two artistic masterminds in their individual realms are coming collectively to make Elden Ring. First shown during E3 2019, Elden Ring is gently swapping the much-hyped Cyberpunk 2077 as the fiercest, most-awaited upcoming released game. But designers FromSoftware isn’t very available about details of this new venture. So what is the game, and what do we understand so far? We take a look at this and tell you all you need to know about Elden Ring.
Elden Ring sees two worlds collide.
If you’re a fan equally of Dark Souls and Game of Thrones, then Elden Ring will certainly attract you. This is a co-operation amongst the makers of the Souls series and the author of A Song of Ice and Fire. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the designer of the Souls series, will be overseeing the game. Meanwhile, the setting is worked upon from scratch by the revolutionary George R. R. Martin. Which surely is a match made in heaven.
Both admit to being fans of each other’s work. Miyazaki contacted the writer to welcome him into this project. The game creator didn’t have great expectations when he called Martin. He says he was astonished when Martin seemed to be fascinated by the project, elating Miyazaki to work on this project even more.
Miyazaki gave Martin full creative autonomy over the game’s world-building and primary narrative of the game. With regards to constructing a game around a world built by Martin, Miyazaki says that the route is akin to using a dungeon master’s handbook in a tabletop RPG.
“It really is like a guide for the world’s lore, and therefore feels quite different from his novels. As someone that loves to learn about a world’s setting, it was very exciting to read,” Miyazaki says in an interview with IGN.
A “Natural Evolution” of the Souls genre
With the delivery of the PlayStation 5, newer fans were given the amazing remake of Demon Souls. As long-time admirers of FromSoftware would already know, Demon Souls conceived the whole Souls type of games. The triumph of its spiritual successors, the three Dark Souls games, would produce a lot of both successful and lacklustre Souls-like games. It is thanks to Demon Souls that we later got masterpieces such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Bloodborne and would influence games such as Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Ghost of Tsushima.
Now, Miyazaki is ready to turn the next page for FromSoftware. On Elden Ring’s gameplay, Miyazaki described it as a natural evolution to Dark Souls. The changes from the formula will come about thanks to the game’s much larger scope and a more open world.
“With a larger world, new systems and action mechanics inevitably become necessary,” he said. “In that sense, I think that Elden Ring is a more natural evolution of Dark Souls.”
Miyazaki says that while this new game can still be considered as part of the same genre as Dark Souls, even though there will be a lot of new additions. For example, the player character will be able to ride a horse to traverse the world and will be able to fight on horseback. Dark Souls’ more nuanced, positioning-heavy fighting mechanics will be retooled to become a little bit faster-paced.
Elden Ring’s overworld will be populated not by towns and villages, but by caves and dungeons for you to explore. Still, if Dark Souls felt suffocating to you, Elden Ring will give you more freedom to explore. In this new game, Miyazaki wants to let players experience the world’s lore through exploring the different parts of the world in any order they want. This essentially makes Elden Ring an open-world, a first in the Souls genre and a step forward from what they did in Sekiro.
Story, Plot, and Development history
While we know that George R. R. Martin molded the world using his creative fluids, we don’t really know anything about this world right now. What we do know is that Miyazaki used Martin’s world-building to flesh out the in-game world. Martin designed the overarching plot of the game – possibly with a definite start and end in mind – with Miyazaki filling in the gaps and peppering the game with the small details. We can’t really get much from the game’s first trailer, so we’ll have to wait for more details to drop by.
Just like in other Souls games, Elden Ring will allow players to create their own character. Souls games usually casted the player character as a sort of saviour, but we don’t know much yet about this game’s protagonist.
Meanwhile, regarding the game’s development history, Elden Ring has been in development since FromSoftware finished The Ringed City downloadable content for Dark Souls 3 in 2016. This means that this game started development as the team was wrapping up with Sekiro. Yuka Kitamura, the composer for both Sekiro and Dark Souls 3, will return to compose the score for this game.
Elden Ring Release Date
Basing on FromSoftware’s previous game releases, 2021 is ripe time for Elden Ring’s release. Rumours say that FromSoftware has just finished the game’s initial development. However, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed back the development calendar, indicating that FromSoftware might need more time to polish this initial build. This is according to an interview between streamer WesaTwitch and Italian video game journalist Federico Fossetti.
Perhaps this is the same build that Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer was talking about when he said that he’s played “quite a bit” of Elden Ring. He had high praises for the game, saying that it’s Miyazaki’s most ambitious yet.
“I mean, I love his games,” Spencer says. “But seeing some of the gameplay mechanics stuff that he’s tackling, he and the team are tackling this time, of the setting, working with another creator (Martin) in terms of story. I love it.”
If Spencer can already say that, then perhaps Elden Ring is more complete now than FromSoftware would have us believe. However, we still don’t have any inkling on when the game will be released, but our hopes are up for 2021.
The game is set to release across PC and selective consoles, so in the meanwhile you can check up on your list of things which will make the experience the best yielding. Such as racing gaming chair, a gaming mouse and keyboard plus a gaming headset to make the most out of your playthrough with ease and quality.