FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki has said that although Elden Ring‘s gameplay is “not so far” from Dark Souls, the upcoming collaboration with George R.R. Martin will be a “natural evolution” of the developer’s tent-pole franchise.
“With a larger world, new systems and action mechanics inevitably become necessary,” Miyazaki explained in an interview with IGN. “In that sense, I think that Elden Ring is a more natural evolution of Dark Souls.”
Speaking of mechanics, Elden Ring‘s gameplay and mechanics are designed with an open-world environment in mind – a departure from Miyazaki’s previous works.
“While the narrow and complex dungeons of our previous games were indeed interconnected, Elden Ring’s environments will be much more open and vast,” he continued. “Creating a more open game is a big challenge for us. If we were to add towns on top of that, it would become a bit too much, so we decided to create an open-world-style game focused on what we are best at.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Miyazaki revealed that FromSoftware is allowing George R.R. Martin creative freedom in terms of storytelling by having him write about Elden Ring‘s world history rather than characters.
“By having him write about a time the player isn’t directly involved in, he is free to unleash his creativity in the way he likes,” said Miyazaki. “Furthermore, as FromSoftware we didn’t want to create a more linear and story-driven experience for Elden Ring. Both issues could be solved by having Martin write about the world’s history instead.”
Explaining Elden Ring‘s dark world, Miyazaki said that he personally sees the world as “a wasteland that is not kind to us.” As a result, the idea of bright and happy in-game worlds doesn’t appeal to him.
Elden Ring is in development for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. We’ll update our readers when a release date or window is announced.
[Source: IGN]
