In an interview posted to the PlayStation blog, FromSoftware director Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed that two pillars of previous Souls games, multiple endings and a new game plus mode, will be present in Elden Ring.
Plus good news for FromSoftware fans:
“𝘠𝘦𝘴, 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘗𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨.” pic.twitter.com/zd0Sg4y2CY
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) January 28, 2022
Miyazaki bluntly stated that both “New Game Plus and multiple endings will be intact in Elden Ring” during his interview, which also covered the director’s own gaming habits and decisions around the game’s difficulty setting. Both features are staples of the Souls franchise, with players typically deciding the ending they want after beating a final boss instead of through story decisions made throughout the duration of a game.
FromSoftware’s approach to new game plus modes in its games has likewise been somewhat different than the approach other games take. Previous Souls titles have multiple levels of new game plus, with Dark Souls having an infinite level of reruns for its players to go through. The major difference each time, though, is that enemies will deal drastically more damage and have more HP.
The same will likely be true for Elden Ring, giving players the opportunity to explore through The Lands Between multiple times and fight increasingly difficult enemies with each iteration of their adventure.
However, Miyazaki also stated in the interview that balancing difficulty in Elden Ring is something the team at FromSoftware has kept in mind. “We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it,” Miyazaki says. “We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress.”
