I remember the moment I decided I was going to play Elden Ring, three months before I actually did buy it in April.
A friend of mine sent me an interview of the game's director. In said interview, he made a number of comments that really interested me, in particular what he said when he was asked how recent discourse over accessibility in video games impacted the development of Elden Ring. He said:
"We understand that Souls-like games are regularly associated with impossible levels of difficulty with high barriers to entry. But we try to design the games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable in itself. In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I think more players will finish it this time.
...the player’s level of freedom to progress through the world or return to a challenge later are all elements that I feel will help people get through the game at a more leisurely pace. [T]here isn’t a focus on pure action. The player has more agency to dictate their approach against, for example, the field bosses in the overworld and how they utilize stealth in various situations. We’ve even reduced the number of hoops that you have to jump through to enjoy it in multiplayer. So we hope the players embrace that idea of receiving help from others."
This wasn't the only thing that made me want to play Elden Ring. I was also interested by the director's comments on the benefits of player freedom, and the joy of discovery - how finding something out of your own intuition, without compass to direct you or a quest log to read, is the greatest thing you can do for a player when crafting them a journey. I found that idea very charming!
But I had always struggled to actually want to play the distorted image that had been crafted online of a "Soulsborne" game: where the only solution to problems is to brute force them; where there's only one way to play, and you just have to get good. Hearing Miyazaki Hideteka emphasise the freedom and wealth of choices offered by Elden Ring, and that asking for help is a valid strategy to tackling obstacles, sold me on the game immensely.
Elden Ring is a game made to give you freedom. In exploration, where you can go wheresoever you want, as well as in combat, where you can take whatever strategy you so wish.
If you fail a challenge the game poses, you can simply do something else in the game's vast world. By the time you return, you will have more cards to play, with new gear, new magic, new summons, and better stats - you're never forced to rely on just your cunning. You're never locked into one path where you have to bash your head against a wall, but free to pursue a different one and give it another go later.
What helps create that sense of freedom is that the game never actually tells you where to go. There are criteria you have to meet to win, sure, and you are told the names of token-bearers you have to fight to succeed. But you're never given a beacon pointing to their direction, and often, there's more than one way to get to them. I probably missed out on a number of things that I could have seen had I reached those points in one specific way.
It's truly stunning how the game gifts the player this freedom, yet remains meticulously well-designed. There's never something that feels only there to fill space, nor is there substantial space the game declines to fill. It's an incredibly vast game, yet still manages to have the narrow focus of a game a thousand times smaller in scope.
Elden Ring is pretty indisputably the best designed action-RPG I've ever played, and probably the very first open world game to truly game-design the freedom the genre has been promising for the better part of two decades.
As a side note, while clearly not the biggest focus for the game - nor does it need to be - I was still impressed by the depth of the game's narrative.
The game is scant on expository dialogue, with character interactions almost always focused on progressing their personal stories while imparting you with impressions of their personalities. Your time with these characters is usually very brief, but the game still finds the time to make a great deal of them pretty charming. I'm a big fan of Millicent.
A friend of mine sent me an interview of the game's director. In said interview, he made a number of comments that really interested me, in particular what he said when he was asked how recent discourse over accessibility in video games impacted the development of Elden Ring. He said:
"We understand that Souls-like games are regularly associated with impossible levels of difficulty with high barriers to entry. But we try to design the games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable in itself. In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I think more players will finish it this time.
...the player’s level of freedom to progress through the world or return to a challenge later are all elements that I feel will help people get through the game at a more leisurely pace. [T]here isn’t a focus on pure action. The player has more agency to dictate their approach against, for example, the field bosses in the overworld and how they utilize stealth in various situations. We’ve even reduced the number of hoops that you have to jump through to enjoy it in multiplayer. So we hope the players embrace that idea of receiving help from others."
This wasn't the only thing that made me want to play Elden Ring. I was also interested by the director's comments on the benefits of player freedom, and the joy of discovery - how finding something out of your own intuition, without compass to direct you or a quest log to read, is the greatest thing you can do for a player when crafting them a journey. I found that idea very charming!
But I had always struggled to actually want to play the distorted image that had been crafted online of a "Soulsborne" game: where the only solution to problems is to brute force them; where there's only one way to play, and you just have to get good. Hearing Miyazaki Hideteka emphasise the freedom and wealth of choices offered by Elden Ring, and that asking for help is a valid strategy to tackling obstacles, sold me on the game immensely.
Elden Ring is a game made to give you freedom. In exploration, where you can go wheresoever you want, as well as in combat, where you can take whatever strategy you so wish.
If you fail a challenge the game poses, you can simply do something else in the game's vast world. By the time you return, you will have more cards to play, with new gear, new magic, new summons, and better stats - you're never forced to rely on just your cunning. You're never locked into one path where you have to bash your head against a wall, but free to pursue a different one and give it another go later.
What helps create that sense of freedom is that the game never actually tells you where to go. There are criteria you have to meet to win, sure, and you are told the names of token-bearers you have to fight to succeed. But you're never given a beacon pointing to their direction, and often, there's more than one way to get to them. I probably missed out on a number of things that I could have seen had I reached those points in one specific way.
It's truly stunning how the game gifts the player this freedom, yet remains meticulously well-designed. There's never something that feels only there to fill space, nor is there substantial space the game declines to fill. It's an incredibly vast game, yet still manages to have the narrow focus of a game a thousand times smaller in scope.
Elden Ring is pretty indisputably the best designed action-RPG I've ever played, and probably the very first open world game to truly game-design the freedom the genre has been promising for the better part of two decades.
As a side note, while clearly not the biggest focus for the game - nor does it need to be - I was still impressed by the depth of the game's narrative.
The game is scant on expository dialogue, with character interactions almost always focused on progressing their personal stories while imparting you with impressions of their personalities. Your time with these characters is usually very brief, but the game still finds the time to make a great deal of them pretty charming. I'm a big fan of Millicent.