As FromSoftware’s first full-fledged open-world game, Elden Ring absolutely blew players’ minds away. It offered a kind of freedom that not only innovated upon previous FromSoftware games, but also the generally stagnant formula followed by many open-world games these days.
It’s not difficult to fathom that making a world this enormous, interactive, and rife with lore wasn’t easy, and even game director Hidetaka Miyazaki admitted it in an interview with PlayStation Blog, citing two new challenges he faced while making the 2022 Game of the Year.
Balancing FromSoftware Gameplay With The Open World
The first big problem the team faced was translating the traditional FromSoftware gameplay format to a big open-world setting. Hidetaka Miyazaki explained:
The first was expanding upon the level of freedom. More so than our previous games, Elden Ring has a vast world with an open overworld, so we were faced with the ordeal of how we maintain our gameplay style while offering a renewed sense of openness.
In their older games like Dark Souls, the level design was more constricted. In Elden Ring, the world is huge and sprawling, and figuring out how to keep battles exciting while also letting players explore freely is a hard balance to strike.
“So with elements like balancing the player’s exploration alongside boss fights, the order of progression that players go through the game, and the progression of the events themselves throughout the map–trying to expand on player freedom while balancing all of this was a significant challenge,” added Miyazaki.
Considering the sheer enormity of the map, it was inevitably a lot to juggle, but Miyazaki says they learned a lot of “great lessons” while trying to make it all work.
Setting The Pace Of Elden Ring‘s Open World Was Tricky
Another tricky aspect of open-world games is how fast or slow players move through them. Someone who checks out every single corner of the world will obviously have a very different experience from someone who just blitzes through the main story.
Miyazaki acknowledged this as a challenge too, saying:
Another challenge making an open world game is the tempo and pacing of the player’s progression, essentially trying to balance how the player paces themselves as they explore this vast open-ended map and how that factors into the scope of freedom and progression they provide. So we also learned some valuable lessons while making adjustments in that regard.
This balancing act is super important because the developers would want both experienced FromSoftware veterans and potentially careful newcomers who like to take their time to enjoy the Lands Between, and toeing the line in terms of pacing is crucial for that.
It’s quite astonishing that Elden Ring was their first foray into open-world games, and they knocked it out of the park in such a major way. Players loved the unadulterated freedom of the open world, but the hallmarks of a FromSoftware game – challenging bosses, gorgeous art direction, and deep lore – were all present and correct.
The lessons Miyazaki and the team learned while making Elden Ring will no doubt show up in future FromSoftware games. The game’s upcoming expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, may be the very first to reap the benefits.
When it comes to open worlds, Miyazaki prioritizes freedom, but keeping that all-important FromSoftware DNA intact is also essential. Whether we go back to the Lands Between or explore a whole new world in the future, we can count on FromSoftware to make it a definitively amazing experience.
