Elden Ring is the newest collaborative project from Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki and A Song of Ice & Fire author George R.R. Martin. It has lots of fans of these creators excited for one simple reason, it’s not Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Bloodborne.
Don’t worry, those two are both great games, but they were a pretty big divergence from the formula Demon Souls and the Dark Souls games laid out. And according to IGN, Miyazaki will be crafting a story with both some beloved elements that fans know, but in a new style for FromSoftware. The story and its various actors will be a little more vague, so to be left open to interpretation, but the story itself will be told through more elaborate cutscenes.
Elden Ring will use a heavy amount of environmental storytelling as well, and by focusing on the setting itself, the story will be more about the rise and fall of the world rather than an individual journey. Players will have to rely much more heavily on exploration of the game world to figure out what’s going on. And with Elden Ring being billed as the largest game FromSoftware has ever crafted, there will be a lot of detail to uncover.
As we saw previously from the reveal trailer for Elden Ring, the shattering of a mysterious ring by a collection of decaying divine entities hints that the story will be more apocalyptic than anything else. The world could well be ripping itself apart, although the motivations for these actions remain unclear.
And with George R.R. Martin involved, a lot of the impetus to create more relatable, deep NPC characters will be realized within the game. Expect a lot of interesting interactions between the characters and the setting they inhabit to be uncovered over the course of the game.
In terms of gameplay, the game will have deeper RPG elements than previous games, and will return to the character customization and class build variety of Dark Souls. Other details remain vague, but expect a lot looser gameplay constraints in this game.
