Elden Ring was first revealed at E3 2019, but after that, we haven’t seen and heard anything about it virtually. Finally, the title has remerged and going to arrive in January 2022. Here is what we know about Elden Ring including the release date and many more.
First Gameplay Trailer
Elden Ring has appeared in the Summer Game Fest event which was hosted by Geoff Keighley at E3. FromSoftware brings a good vision of gameplay in this trailer with all kinds of familiar Souls game action.
Important Points
- Six main areas will be featured, each one is controlled by a demigod boss and having a more traditional dungeon.
- Now mounted combat will be featured.
- Multiplayer is in: Co-op is confirmed to support four players.
- Elden Ring offers a weather and time system.
- Players will be able to summon the spirit of dead enemies and use them in battle.
- Bandai Namco reiterates its RPG “with a wide variety of weapons, magical abilities, and sills found throughout the world”.
- There are characters “with their own unique motivations for helping or hindering the player’s progress”.
- The fast travel system is featured here.
X Juicy Quotes from Hidetaka Miyazaki
The below quotes are taken from an IGN interview given by Miyazaki to help you understand the Elden Ring.
Combat options and RPG mechanics:
A “major point of this title, is the number of choices you have available in combat. So while you can just choose to go in head-on, we also have a number of [alternative] elements, such as being able to summon the spirits of deceased enemies and use them as allies in battles. So we have a number of elements that let you approach different situations at a high level of freedom.”
“There’s a large variety of ways you can approach combat, and a large range of abilities you can acquire. We wanted to allow the player to combine these different elements to find their own strategy, and even take indirect approaches to combat if they wanted to. The stamina bar exists in Elden Ring, but we feel it has less influence on the player overall. We wanted to make it feel less restrictive.”
“Before, where there was a certain skill attached to a certain weapon, now you’re actually able to freely interchange skills between a large variety of weapons. There are, I believe, around a hundred skills in total. Obviously, you’re free to combine your different skills with different weapons. You’re free to build your character with different weapons and equipment. You’re free to learn magic as well. So if you throw all of these things in, we think the build customization is going to be even richer and even more varied than before.”
Progression:
“With this increased sense of scale and this vast new map, we had to allow for a certain amount of progression and reward no matter which direction the player took and which path they take because of that high level of freedom. You will find those elements to battle and those elements to just exploring the world, which will allow you to keep that going. You can customize and craft items on the go by using materials found in the world.”
“A part of making this new world with this new huge sense of scale was adding enjoyment to that sense of exploration… that could be through acquiring new weapons and magic spells and abilities such as the different spirit summons. We wanted to place these elements so the players will enjoy exploring the map and discovering these elements for themselves. There are cases in which you can buy them at stores or learn them from NPCs, but generally, they are hidden throughout the game’s world for the player to discover through exploration, rather than unlocking them through a skill tree as in previous titles.”
World Design:
“It’s divided into six major areas, and these are the domains of the major demigod characters… While the areas are lined up in a way so that you would normally tackle them in a specific order, you don’t have to follow it. We wanted to give a free level of progression and exploration throughout the Lands Between, so there’s a lot of different ways. You won’t be able to access everything from the start, but there are a lot of different ways you can approach each area. And there’s a lot of freedom as to which order you tackle different areas as well.”
“Each of these six areas will house its own mainline dungeon map, which is again seamlessly connected to the Lands Between itself. These will be the domains or the areas of the main demigod bosses. From here, you’re able to explore not only these mainline dungeon areas, but also a wide variety of catacombs, castles, and fortresses, which are interspersed throughout the map.”
“There is a hub area that you can access a little later into the game.”
Boss Design:
“One main theme of the main bosses of the game, in particular, are that they are essentially demigods… and they inherited the mad tainted power of the Elden Ring shards once it was shattered. We wanted to depict these beings as not just creatures and horrible monsters, but have an element of heroism and an element of mythology to them. Essentially, they are the old gods of this world… They each fell to madness and fell to ruin in their own individual ways. So while there is heroic and mythological elements to them, they are also going to have this very mad taint and this deep-seated ruin to them.”
Release Date
Elden Ring is going to be released on January 21, 2022. We hope that before the launch we might see more about the game.
Elden Ring Setting
Here is how Miyazaki has explained it:
“The world of Elden Ring, The Lands Between are blessed by the presence of the Elden Ring and by the Erdtree, which symbolizes its presence, and this has given grace or blessing to the people throughout the land, great and small. What this represented in them is this sort of golden light, or this golden aura, that’s specifically shown in their eyes. And this symbolizes the blessing or the grace of the Erdtree. However, after a time, there were some individuals who lost this grace, and the light faded from their eyes. And these are what are known as the Tarnished.
“So, the Tarnished, you could call them tarnished individuals who have lost grace. And this was a long time preceding the setting of the game, a long time before. The ancestors of the characters that are present in the world were banished and exiled from The Lands Between, these Tarnished. Then a long time after that, the Elden Ring was shattered in a historical event. This triggers the return of this lost grace and it calls out to the Tarnished, who were once exiled from The Lands Between, and it guides them back. So this is the starting point, or the impetus for the game itself, the Tarnished being called by the lost grace and returning to The Lands Between.”
George R.R. Martin Wrote the “Overarching Mythos”
After the Elden Ring announcement, Miyazaki described a bit of how GRRM was involved with the project.
“This allowed us to have many free and creative conversations regarding the game,” said Miyazaki, “in which Mr. Martin later used as a base to write the overarching mythos for the game world itself.”
“This mythos proved to be full of interesting characters and drama along with a plethora of mystical and mysterious elements as well,” said Miyazaki. “It was a wonderful source of stimulus for me and the development staff. Elden Ring’s world was constructed using this mythos and stimulus as a base. Even I myself find it hard to contain my excitement from time to time. We hope that everyone else is looking forward to the world we have created.”
Composer of Dark Souls 3 Working on Elden Ring
Yuka Kitamura, a veteran of FromSoftware is also reportedly working on Elden Ring. Kitamura was involved with the development of Sekiro and Dark Souls 3.
Stay tuned with us for more news and updates.
