Elden Ring’s development story begins in
2017, right after the Japanese game studio FromSoftware was done with the last piece
of DLC for Dark Souls 3. As with most FromSoftware titles, renowned
developer Hidetaka Miyazaki assumed the role of game director. He shared this position with Yui Tanimura
however, as he was also co-directing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice at the same time. Directing two games concurrently presented
quite the challenge for Miyazaki, especially because he likes to be involved in pretty
much every aspect of development. He’s often called himself a micromanager
and helps pick out the right fonts, find the perfect shape for a specific sword, make sure
trees have enough branches and he even acts out certain movements to help animators translate
his vision for how a character should move. It’s also worth mentioning that Miyazaki
doesn’t only direct FromSoftware games, he’s also the Representative Director and
President of the whole company. Therefore, it’s certainly unusual for someone
like Miyazaki to be as hands-on and creative as he is, but that’s perhaps because he
doesn’t actually consider himself as part of management at the studio. Instead, he likes to be around his fellow
developers to create a work-relationship based on trust and compassion. “The thing I prize is total openness from
the staff; I try to be frank about my own mistakes. Because of my influence over these games,
people are often reluctant to give their honest opinion, even when it may matter most. So I try not to let pride get involved, and
try to create trust.” From the very beginning, Elden Ring was planned
as being a more classic fantasy title as opposed to Sekiro and while Miyazaki’s development
approach is very much the same for every project, there was one key difference this time around. Acclaimed fantasy author George R.R. Martin was brought on board to help shape
the setting for what was about to become FromSoftware’s biggest and most successful title yet. Miyazaki is a huge fan of Martin’s work
and refers to Fevre Dream as being his personal favorite, calling it a masterpiece among vampire
fantasy. While the director wanted nothing more than
to team up with Martin, he fully expected to get turned down. Nonetheless, FromSoftware’s executive business
director Eiichi Nakajima reached out to Martin who, to much surprise, agreed to have a meeting
to discuss the project. Shortly after, Miyazaki flew out to America
and sat down with the writer to talk about Elden Ring’s themes, ideas as well as many
game-related aspects. It turns out Martin was already aware of the
Dark Souls franchise, which gave Miyazaki a pleasant boost during their initial conversation. The whole experience was incredibly fun and
engaging according to Miyazaki and from that moment on, they both knew it was a perfect
match. When dealing with narrative in FromSoftware
games, the developers like to focus on implementing lots of lore for the player to naturally discover
through environmental storytelling, rather than to create a linear storydriven experience. However, this way of telling a story comes
with a lot of restrictions for the writer. Now that George R.R. Martin was officially involved, Miyazaki wanted
to avoid this problem so that Martin was able to unleash his full creativity for Elden Ring. Therefore, he suggested Martin should write
about the history and mythology of the setting and characters, rather than the game’s actual
story and in-game text. Martin agreed and both parties would routinely
meet in the following months to establish the foundation of the game’s world. FromSoftware presented him with very vague
and broad ideas, along with the themes they typically like to explore. Based on this, the fantasy writer started
detailing the overarching mythos and came back to Miyazaki with lots of ideas. This started a back-and-forth between the
two, which felt very fresh to Miyazaki. Speaking to someone like Martin, who shares
a deep affection for the fantasy genre and to see him express the same kind of pure joy
and sense of curiosity while filling in the historical events of Elden Ring, was a wonderful
source of stimulus for the director. One of the vague ideas the team had before
Martin was involved, for example, was the concept of the Elden Ring itself, although
it wasn’t an actual ring at that point, and how its destruction sets things in motion. Furthermore, no visual elements, like the
Erdtrees for instance, were established at that point so all of Martin’s world-building
ideas simply came from talking to Miyazaki. The famous author is of course mostly familiar
with writing novels and short stories, but during the development of Elding Ring, his
work read more like a guide that details the setting’s flow of history and the figures
who appeared throughout it. These backstory details were then given to
the entire team, who would then interpret them in their own way and provide the visuals
to build the game. The actual text you see in Elden Ring, like
NPC dialogue and item descriptions, is mostly written by Miyazaki himself. Before active development even started, the
studio knew they wanted Elden Ring to be their biggest title yet in terms of sheer volume. This inevitably meant taking their first shot
at the open world genre. Miyazaki felt confident enough tackling such
a daunting task now that the studio had grown over many years and garnered plenty of talented
developers. To get a better understanding of the open
world genre, Miyazaki studied games like The Elder Scrolls and Grand Theft Auto. He admitted in an interview with “4players”
that no title served as specific inspiration, but he did mention how much respect he has
for the design and the amount of freedom the player has in The Legend of Zelda: Breath
of the Wild. Fumito Ueda's work, especially Shadow of the
Colossus, did inspire the look and feel of the landscape in Elden Ring. Aside from video games, works like Lord Of
The Rings and The Eternal Champion novels had a great impact on Miyazaki’s vision
for Elden Ring. All that being said however, Miyazaki mainly
focused on creating his own ideal game. “I don't approach it in terms of 'This is
the kind of open world game I want to make', it's just that the open world enriches this
ideal experience I'm trying to achieve. To give some very simple examples, if I was
to explore this world, I'd want a map – a proper map. Or, you know, if I saw something over there,
I'd want to actually be able to go over and explore it. And I'd want to fight with a dragon in an
epic arena. Things like this. It's very simple stuff, but Elden Ring allows
a lot of these things to become a reality for me, creating something that's very close
to my ideal game.” Before we move on, I’d like to talk about
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previous titles, going all the way back to King’s Field, laid the groundwork for Elden
Ring’s level design, RPG-elements, combat-related systems and balancing the difficulty. Unsurprisingly, Dark Souls is the one franchise
the studio leaned on the most, said Miyazaki, going as far as calling Elden Ring a natural
evolution of the popular trilogy. That being said, taking all the things they
learned from Dark Souls and applying it to a huge open world, came with its own set of
unique challenges. One of the trickier obstacles was trying to
stop the player from getting bored. Unlike Dark Souls, where the devs were able
to craft a more controlled and linear experience, Elden Ring allows for a much greater amount
of progression and reward no matter which direction the player takes. Player freedom was at the heart of the game’s
core design. Because of this, the team had to account for
every single direction the player could take when they see that vast open world for the
first time. In other words, the pacing for every possible
scenario had to be perfect. For the most part, this essentially meant
incorporating lots of characters, enemies and events for players to discover throughout
their adventures. Miyazaki recalls how much more difficult this
was in an open world however, versus how they did it in Dark Souls. “You don't want anything to tread on the
toes of anything else – you want it all to mingle and to mesh nicely with the player
and their own motivations as well. But you want it to be there, and you want
it to provide that stimulation for progressing forward and exploring. So that was probably one of the biggest challenges.” Miyazaki realised the amount of freedom and
agency Elden Ring provides might be overwhelming to some players who just want to experience
the main story so FromSoftware tried to combat this by implementing the guidance of grace. It points players in the direction of the
next story quest in an unobtrusive way. While it’s a valid option to experience
the bare minimum, refusing to follow the guidance is a choice in and of itself that can feel
meaningful to the player, according to Miyazaki. The guidance is both visible during gameplay
and on the map screen. Speaking of the map, the developers wanted
exploration to feel varied and exciting, even after dozens of hours of playing. To create that sense of variation, the team
developed a system where the player is either exploring a completely unknown area or exploring
a location with a better sense of what’s to come. See, the map starts out with little to no
detail, but as you progress through surrounding areas, you can pick up map fragments which
only reveal the layout of certain chunks on the map. It might make it easier to decide where to
go next at that point, but it doesn’t take away from the fun of discovery in the game
since you don’t know if there’s going to be lots of enemies, a new boss, friendly
NPCs or anything else. It’s certainly possible to beat Elden Ring
without collecting any map fragments, but Miyazaki himself thinks it’s more fun to
explore with a map which is why he and the team made it easy to collect them. While the map is definitely useful to plan
where you’re going next, Miyazaki felt it important to also include plenty of visual
landmarks to help players find their way and to nudge them in a certain direction. The giant Erdtrees are a good example of this. Apart from serving as landmarks, the Erdtrees
also represent the visual identity of Elden Ring and make it easy for people to instantly
recognize what game they’re looking at. Additionally, the giant glowing trees perfectly
capture the spirit of what Miyazaki always tries to achieve with his worlds, which is
beauty surrounded by darkness. “Light looks more beautiful in darkness. When there is something beautiful in the middle
of a wasteland, we are able to appreciate it more. One jewel doesn’t look like much when you
have a pile of them, but if you find one jewel in the midst of mud, it is worth so much more. Personally, a world that is happy and bright
is something that just doesn’t feel realistic to me. It may sound like I have a trauma or something,
but I believe that the world is generally a wasteland that is not kind to us. That’s just the way I see it.” Although finding beauty in darkness is a common
theme in FromSoftware games, Miyazaki wanted Elden Ring to feel more mythological compared
to Dark Souls. This is why the overworld and setting, called
“The Lands Between”, is specifically designed to invoke this sense of mystery and the unknown. The starting area especially needed to feel
like an invitation to this vast open world that’s ripe to explore. It’s therefore no coincidence that one of
the first things you see as a player is a giant glowing Erdtree, which gives off a very
mystical and ethereal presence. As a result, the game looks more vibrant with
color compared to previous Souls games. Miyazaki explained they intentionally added
more color to communicate that the Golden Age has passed through the lands of Elden
Ring’s world and that the player can still see traces of it. The team also wanted to provide The Lands
Between with a much more painterly look that better fits the high fantasy theme they were
aiming for. What’s more, Miyazaki thought it would be
too oppressive if such a large open world was brimming with darkness the entire time. Instead, it was the perfect opportunity to
show the appeal of both a light side and a darker side that’s more reminiscent of what
players come to expect from the studio’s previous work. The mythological theme is also present within
lots of the boss designs and have a heroic appearance as a result. Some might not exactly look heroic, but do
have a tragic background of once being heroic before falling from grace. This same concept was further applied to the
various skills, weapons, shields and spells, which is why they all seem more godly and
impressive than in previous Souls games. In the world of Elden Ring, they’re meant
to be used as tools for defeating mythological heroes. Curiously, Miyazaki said in an interview with
Famitsu that all the armors were designed with cosplay potential in mind, although it
still had to look good and make sense in the game itself of course. When it was decided to develop an open world
game, Miyazaki knew from the start they would need a faster way of exploring the setting
then just going by foot. The team prioritised ease of use and wanted
something to appear when needed and disappear again when the player decides to explore back
on foot. Mounting and dismounting also had to be almost
seamless and feel good to use. Aside from being faster, it also needed to
expand the player’s options during three-dimensional movement so it would make exploration more
interesting. All these requirements culminated into the
idea of designing a spectral steed called Torrent that fits the established mythological
theme and has the ability to double jump. As mentioned before, Sekiro was being developed
alongside Elden Ring at FromSoftware’s studio but it’s Miyazaki’s understanding that
there weren’t any direct influences or decisions being made based on Sekiro’s development. That being said, he does believe there were
some indirect inspirations taken from the game. For example, the enemy stance break mechanic
is similar to Sekiro’s posture system. While the mechanic initially came from wanting
to add more depth to the Dark Souls-like combat, it was probably further expanded thanks to
Sekiro’s active development. As some of you watching may know, Sekiro is
a lot more direct in regards to its storytelling compared to previous Souls-like titles and
this is somewhat true for Elden Ring as well according to Miyazaki. It’s still a fragmented narrative mostly
being put together by the player themselves, but there’s a bigger focus on human elements
and drama with more straightforward NPC dialogue that’s meant to help players explore the
open world and find interesting locations. Lastly, Sekiro’s more fast paced traversal
was also referenced when they were creating the horse mounting system. There is a noticeable difference when comparing
Elden Ring to other open world games and that’s that there’s no settlements or large cities
that are populated with residents. It being their first open world title, the
developers thought including populated cities was going to be too much work and wanted to
focus on their strengths instead. Despite that, the game kept increasing in
scope and becoming more complex than initially planned, forcing the studio to increase the
size of the team, as well as outsourcing more tasks. Luckily, the team was able to explore some
new procedural systems that allowed them to fill out the world in ways that didn't require
people to always be hands-on and do it manually. During an interview with GamesRadar, Miyazaki
gave the example of creating and placing trees and vegetation. About 80% of that task was done with a procedural
system, followed by artists going in and adding the finishing touches by hand. Graphical fidelity is not something FromSoftware
necessarily strives towards with any of their projects and the studio rather likes to focus
on creating unique-looking worlds and characters. However, the graphics department did feel
more pressure than usual this time and it was all because of Demon’s Souls, one of
their previous games that basically started the whole Souls-like genre. The Demon’s Souls remake developed by Bluepoint
Games was released on PS5 in 2020 and featured impressive graphics that went well beyond
FromSoftware’s latest games at the time, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro. While Miyazaki acknowledged how great it looked,
it wasn’t his number one priority to match what Bluepoint had achieved. He did say that the graphics team and programmers
pushed a lot of new features to create the best-looking game the studio has ever made. It’s no secret FromSoftware likes to make
more difficult experiences, or at least games where the player dies more frequently, and
this stems from Miyazaki's own history playing video games. “I’ve never been a very skilled player. I die a lot. So, in my work, I want to answer the question:
If death is to be more than a mark of failure, how do I give it meaning? How do I make death enjoyable? I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels
there’s just too much to overcome in my games. I just want as many players as possible to
experience the joy that comes from overcoming hardship.” He went on to say it’s not something they’re
thinking of abandoning anytime soon, emphasising that creating challenging and difficult experiences
is part of their identity. It’s not that the studio is trying to make
difficult games for the sake of making difficult games, but instead they focus on creating
scenarios where players die in interesting or amusing ways. They want people to walk away with an entertaining
story they can share with others. What’s more, FromSoftware tries to design
their games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable
in and of itself. They want players to use their cunning, study
the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. The last thing they want is for the experience
to feel unfairly punishing. With that said, FromSoftware set out to make
their most accessible game as of yet and added multiple new ways to ease players into the
experience and give them an optional edge during tougher battles. For starters, the open world this time around
encourages players to explore other areas when things get too tough in a certain part
of the game. They can then upgrade their gear and come
back to that difficult location with newfound spirit and strength. The much bigger and open world also means
players have more agency to dictate their approach on handling enemies far in the distance,
making stealth a viable option for instance. There’s an item called the Birdseye Telescope
that’s meant for exactly doing that. There’s also the addition of spirit summons
which provide temporary support while battling a boss or other enemies. Miyazaki is personally fond of the collection
aspect that’s attached to them and might give players an extra reason to explore as
much as possible. A crafting system is also present and this
was implemented to let players go on for longer in the open setting without feeling too stressed
about running out of items. It’s for the same reason there’s also
more resources to recover health during your adventures and why defeating groups of enemies
recovers your flask charges. A wider selection of weapons, magic, items
and the ability to add any skill to any weapon also makes it more convenient than ever before
for players to find a style of play that suits them. Lastly, they’ve reduced the number of hoops
players have to go through to enjoy the multiplier aspects, making summoning other players for
help a more attractive option. In the beginning of 2022, once development
was almost done, Miyazaki told GamesRadar that he wasn’t feeling well. “It's not a pretty state of mind, I will
tell you that. This is a tough point in the development of
any game, not just Elden Ring. At this point, this is when I really start
to have regrets and doubts about releasing the game into the wild, and seeing what everybody
thinks. I start thinking, 'I could have maybe done
this better… I could have maybe approached this in a different
way…’. There's a lot of these thoughts that build
up just on the cusp of a game's release that are involuntary and they plague your mind
a little bit as you're finishing off work on the project. It's a tough time, and it doesn't get easier
with experience.” To cope with his feelings of doubts near the
peak of any game project, Miyazaki likes to retreat into his office that’s full of creative
inspiration to surround himself with. There’s also books, video games, a fridge,
anything he needs for him to basically live there. He jokingly added there’s no bathroom so
he does go home to take showers. On February 25th, 2022, Elden Ring was finally
released after much hype and anticipation. Everyone was talking about FromSoftware’s
newest title and to say people were pleased with how the game turned out, is probably
understating it. With a 95 on Metacritic and reaching the number
four spot on OpenCritic, with only Red Dead Redemption 2, Breath of the Wild and Super
Mario Odyssey having a higher score, it’s safe to say Elden Ring has been one of the
biggest releases of 2022 so far. On top of that, almost 900,000 viewers were
watching streamers play Elden Ring on Twitch within 24 hours after release. Only Lost Ark and Cyberpunk 2077 debuted with
better numbers on the streaming platform. In november 2021, after it was announced that
Elden Ring had been delayed from January to February 2022, publisher Namco Bandai stated
in a Q&A with investors that they expected Elden Ring to sell 4 million copies within
the first five weeks of release. Yet, after just 17 days, 12 million copies
were sold worldwide. To put that into better perspective, it outsold
Dark Souls 3, which sold 10 million copies in total, in less than three weeks. The entire Dark Souls franchise has sold 27
million copies since 2020. Even compared to other open world games, Elden
Ring puts up impressive numbers. Ars Technica published an article that compares
sales numbers and shows how FromSoftware’s open world title sold more copies in the same
timespan as GTA 4, Skyrim, The Witcher 3 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s safe to say that the studio’s first
attempt at an open world game is an immense commercial and critical success. FromSoftware’s future is looking brighter
than ever. Elden Ring is almost certainly a Game of the
Year contender and who knows how many copies it’s going to sell in the next couple of
months. There’s also a strong suspicion that the
game will receive DLC in the near future, given that dataminer Lance McDonald found
an abandoned colosseum that’s currently inaccessible. It might hint at some sort of planned PvP
update, but perhaps it’s just content that was cut during development. It’s worth mentioning however that all three
Dark Souls games received similar PvP updates in the past, so all the speculation is certainly
warranted. Whatever happens with Elden Ring in the future,
it no doubt already made its mark on the gaming industry and Miyazaki believes the game will
have a strong influence on what they decide to develop next. Whether that means a sequel or a completely
new open world game is anyone’s guess for now, but fans are most likely already looking
forward to it.
