From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Wunderbar]

Hearing that it's basically just another Dark Souls clone is kind of dispiriting. I was hoping for something new. Then again I guess that's just From's thing, DS was their path to financial success so expecting anything else is probably silly.

Bloodborne was Dark Souls with Victorian Lovecraft, Sekiro was Dark Souls with muh anime. What exactly you were expecting?

Usually nothing at all, just the fact they went out their way with this one to seem different I was maybe expecting some innovation. Then again that interview where they said it's basically Dark Souls again could just be marketing. I guess we'll see.

I personally see no problem with Miyazaki copying his own masterpiece. As Walter White said "it is very-very rare for a man to be really good at something". Some creators are great enough to do a multiple different great things (like James Cameron with his Terminator, Titanic and Avatar, Blizzard's Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo). Some just do the same thing (that once was great) again and again, reskinning and rethinking it (see Remedy studio and Max Payne). No problem with that.

the problem is that it seem like Fromsoft can't actually improve and refine their souls formula. Five games, and not a single one of them can be called a peak.
Demon's Souls was great, but it still had a lot of rough edges. Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels. Dark Souls 2 has fucked up world design and dickishly annoying encounters. Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance. Dark Souls 3 was a fucking popamole with shit character building. Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles. Some of those games were great, but none of them were exceptionally great.

 

[Wunderbar]

If Elden Ring ends up being just another Dark Souls but this time with horses, then they should've swallowed their pride and called it Dark Souls 4.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Demon's Souls was great, but it still had a lot of rough edges. Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels. Dark Souls 2 has fucked up world design and dickishly annoying encounters. Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance. Dark Souls 3 was a fucking popamole with shit character building. Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles

Remind me again, what are you doing in this thread.

 

[Black Angel]

Hearing that it's basically just another Dark Souls clone is kind of dispiriting. I was hoping for something new. Then again I guess that's just From's thing, DS was their path to financial success so expecting anything else is probably silly.

Bloodborne was Dark Souls with Victorian Lovecraft, Sekiro was Dark Souls with muh anime. What exactly you were expecting?

Bloodborne has enough of its own mechanics to greatly separate it from Souls, like the rally mechanic, trick weapons, and the absence of usual Souls shields and tank archetype greatly changes its moment-to-moment gameplay dynamic, despite the fact that it still quickly devolve into the usual dodgefest.
Meanwhile, Sekiro is anything *but* anime Dark Souls, the only reason I can think of that people even came to something like that at all is because they bruteforce through Sekiro like it's Dark Souls.

Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels.

I'm unfortunately still unable to play Demon's Souls so I couldn't compare, but to say Dark Souls merely 'improved' the world design is absolutely underselling it. Meanwhile, the only fucked up endgame levels are Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. The Duke's Archives, and maybe New Londo if you didn't kill Ingward to get the Key to the Seal early, are just as good as any of the pre-Lordvessel levels, while the Tomb of the Giants, while perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, is nowhere near the mess that's Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith.

Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance.

Horrible performance indeed, but "overly streamlined slasher" seems like action games just aren't your cup of tea.

Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles.

If Elden Ring ends up being just another Dark Souls but this time with horses, then they should've swallowed their pride and called it Dark Souls 4.

This, I agree.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

The Duke's Archives

This level is absolutely amazing, one of my favourite. Very dream-like.

 

[Wunderbar]

Demon's Souls was great, but it still had a lot of rough edges. Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels. Dark Souls 2 has fucked up world design and dickishly annoying encounters. Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance. Dark Souls 3 was a fucking popamole with shit character building. Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles

Remind me again, what are you doing in this thread.

i'll tell you what i'm not here for.
I'm not here to suck Miyazaki's dick and praise Fromsoft's recent output. They got lazy after realizing that there's no need to try harder because they were better than 90% of other action-rpg devs.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Demon's Souls was great, but it still had a lot of rough edges. Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels. Dark Souls 2 has fucked up world design and dickishly annoying encounters. Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance. Dark Souls 3 was a fucking popamole with shit character building. Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles

Remind me again, what are you doing in this thread.

i'll tell you what i'm not here for.
I'm not here to suck Miyazaki's dick and praise Fromsoft's recent output. They got lazy after realizing that there's no need to try harder because they were better than 90% of other action-rpg devs.

I liked DS3 and didn't like Sekiro, so not sure about "recent output".

 

[Egosphere]

the dragon landing animation looks worse than any animation i saw in demon souls
i doubt this trailer is of the finished product. most likely an early mock up, or some internal art direction 'mood board'

 

[Verylittlefishes]

the dragon landing animation looks worse than any animation i saw in demon souls
i doubt this trailer is of the finished product. most likely an early mock up, or some internal art direction 'mood board'

It is perfectly normal GRRM dragon animation, come on.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

this is us waiting for the unknown

 

[Egosphere]

but i must admit, seeing a dragon land and breathe fire is just disappointing at this stage. kalameet, sinh, ancient dragon, midir + a dozen or so of various wyverns is enough to last me a lifetime

 

[Silverfish]

Horrible performance indeed, but "overly streamlined slasher" seems like action games just aren't your cup of tea.

Action games are my cup of tea and Bloodborne is nothing special in that regard.

 

[toro]

For me it's just derivative at this point. But I understand a lot of people like it way more than I do. For me the fun of Dark Souls was purely level design, the gameplay really doesn't appeal to me, so the sequels kind of trend downward for me as the level design suffers a little. Or even if it remains the same, it doesn't hit with the same impact multiple times.

I don't want to be rude but you are in the wrong thread. You are cherry picking a single feature but the intertwined oppressive world of Dark Souls doesn't work without the enemies hence combat gameplay.

the problem is that it seem like Fromsoft can't actually improve and refine their souls formula. Five games, and not a single one of them can be called a peak.
Demon's Souls was great, but it still had a lot of rough edges. Dark Souls improved the world design, but has fucked up endgame levels. Dark Souls 2 has fucked up world design and dickishly annoying encounters. Bloodborne is overly streamlined slasher with horrible performance. Dark Souls 3 was a fucking popamole with shit character building. Sekiro was a rhythmic cookie clicker with worthless trash encounters and overly designed boss battles. Some of those games were great, but none of them were exceptionally great.

Bullshit. Dark Souls is already a classic which established a new genre in gaming. It's not a completely new genre but they managed to create a formula which still works after so many years. If this doesn't match your criteria of exceptionally great then your expectations are simply unrealistic.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

If Elden Ring ends up being just another Dark Souls but this time with horses, then they should've swallowed their pride and called it Dark Souls 4.

1. Demon's Souls
2. Dark Souls
3. King's Souls
4. Blood Souls
5. Soul Souls
6. Ninja Souls
7. Open Souls

 

[Perkel]

If Elden Ring ends up being just another Dark Souls but this time with horses, then they should've swallowed their pride and called it Dark Souls 4.

I know this might come as shock for some people. But Dark Souls games had actual story in them. DS3 is literally and figuratively end of Dark Souls. Main game endings had hints of it but DLCs spelled it outright.

Elden Ring being named Elden Ring actually fits perfectly. DS3 DLCs end with mainworld completely dying out and you taking the last dark soul to painter which uses that to paint entirely new world before painted world itself will die too.

There is literally nothing connecting it to Dark Souls anymore as that world is literally dead and all of concepts, ideas, characters, linking of fire, dark souls, subros and so on are no longer exist.

 

[Talby]

Not true, they could make the next Souls game be set in the age of dark. This would help save on the budget, too, as all they would need to render is a black screen.

 

[Leechmonger]

1. Demon's Souls
2. Dark Souls
3. King's Souls
4. Blood Souls
5. Soul Souls
6. Ninja Souls
7. Open Souls

Don't forget the reboot: SOULS

 

[Wunderbar]

I know this might come as shock for some people. But Dark Souls games had actual story in them. DS3 is literally and figuratively end of Dark Souls. Main game endings had hints of it but DLCs spelled it outright.

we all know "the story" is just a something they put in during the last month of development.

There is literally nothing connecting it to Dark Souls anymore as that world is literally dead and all of concepts, ideas, characters and so on are no longer exist.

inb4 Elden Ring features a poison swamp, a moonlight greatsword, Patches, sleepy knight in a fat suit, a crestfallen warrior, etc etc.

Bullshit. Dark Souls is already a classic which established a new genre in gaming. It's not a completely new genre but they managed to create a formula which still works after so many years. If this doesn't match your criteria of exceptionally great then your expectations are simply unrealistic.

they've made a couple of great games, but failed to build on them properly and instead just kept rehashing the same old ideas over and over.

 

[The_Mask]

Not true, they could make the next Souls game be set in the age of dark. This would help save on the budget, too, as all they would need to render is a black screen.

If the Chasm of the Abyss taught us something is that the absence of light, does not necessarily make a completely dark screen.

they've made a couple of great games, but failed to build on them properly and instead just kept rehashing the same old ideas over and over.

You're wrong.

 

[Machocruz]

I don't mind if Miyazaki just gonna Miyazaki. But all of FS shouldn't just Miyazaki.

 

[Wunderbar]

Playing Demon's Souls made me disillusioned with From Software.

They did so many things right on their first try, sort-of refined the formula with a spiritual sequel, and then proceeded to stagnate. Not gonna lie, I'll play Elden Ring on day 1, i'll be a hype whore and preorder that bad motherfucker like as if i was Dildolos, but something tells me even without a shitty leaked video that the game is going to be just another rehash.

 

[toro]

Playing Demon's Souls made me disillusioned with From Software.

They did so many things right on their first try, sort-of refined the formula with a spiritual sequel, and then proceeded to stagnate. Not gonna lie, I'll play Elden Ring on day 1, i'll be a hype whore and preorder that bad motherfucker like as if i was Dildolos, but something tells me even without a shitty leaked video that the game is going to be just another rehash.

Based on the avalanche of copycats I would say that the Dark Souls formula is quite hard to get right and quite limited. There isn't much FromSoftware can do without fundamentally alter the formula and risk a potential flop.

Miyazaki's treatment of Dark Souls 2 is quite indicative of the fact that FromSoftware as most corporations is averse to risk (even when the risk is non-existent because there was no way for DaS2 to flop after DaS).

There is a lot of missing information but I guess, after DaS2 debacle, FromSoftware decided to play it safe until they are in a better financial position.

That's why we got 3 derivative rehashes in the forms of Bloodborne, DaS3 and Sekiro. The DaS formula was not improved one bit by either one of these games (Martial Arts!?) but they were great money makers for FromSoftware.

In this context Elden Ring is the first time in long time when Miyazaki clearly stated that they are returning to the original Dark Souls formula.

This can be seen as stagnation but at the same time it enables real refinements and innovations for the future.

Demon Souls - unrefined formula
Dark Souls - refined formula
Dark Souls 2 - tried innovation but failed because of technical reasons
Bloodborne - rehashed (start of stagnation)
Dark Souls 3 - rehashed and phoned it in sequel (full stagnation)
Sekiro - rehashed (end of stagnation)
Elden Ring - potential return to refined formula
Elden Ring sequel - potential real innovation (!?)

This is the theory but in reality there is a big chance that Elden Ring will fail to capture the refined formula because FromSoftware have not recreated the complete DaS combat mechanics since DaS2.

Honestly I don't see Miyazaki giving up on twitch-based or faster combat therefore Elden Ring will probably end up like another rehash. Well I dreamed for two days but now I'm depressed.

 

[toro]

resetera insider

• GAMEPLAY DETAILS :

• A day/night cycle has been added, and it's not just for cosmetic window dressing. Different enemies and events will occur depending on the time of day. A dynamic weather system is also here.
  
  
• Elden Ring marks the departure from the static worlds of previous titles, to a much more dynamic one. Enemies will change their positing constantly, and events in the open world will occur without the player manually triggering them. The world of Elden Ring moves on it's own, and is filled with dangers ,threats and rewards to make exploration worth it.
  
  
• Roaming enemies of various sizes will be in the vast open world, and you will see large roaming creatures in the distance while exploring.
  
  
• Elden Ring marks a major evolution in Fromsoftware's ARPG formula, but to advance they went back to pillars of the original Dark Souls, which was the sense of "world" it had. The open world of Elden Ring is fully interconnected and players are free to explore it as they see fit. It is filled to the brim with secrets and areas to explore.
  
  
• The jump from Dark Souls to Elden Ring is not as big of a jump as from Kings Field to Demon's Souls but as a whole, a bigger jump than Demon's Souls to Dark Souls.
  
  
• One of the core pillars of Elden Ring's design was to make sure they created a meaningful and fully realized world to the best of their ability. A world that contains a wide variety of exciting situations and experiences in the open world. To really make the world feel alive and as fully realized as possible, like a place you can truly immerse yourself in and lose hours to and to a massively greater degree than in previous titles .
  
  
• The game doesn't take place in just a single land like past Fromsoft titles, but multiple each with their own distinct qualities, characteristics, visuals and recognizable inhabitants.
  
  
• The Elden Ring itself effects the open world in massive ways, and its impact can be felt in the open world very strongly.
  
  
• Elden Ring will have the highest gear count & variety in any Fromsoft ARPG yet.
  
  
• Players will have more options in how they approach situations than in previous souls titles.
  
  
• Underground exploration plays a significant role in the game.
  
  
• The enemy A.I has been enhanced to reflect the more sophisticated gameplay systems and open world, enemies will now preform more elaborate and intelligent tactics in battle. The open world of Elden Ring will allow for much more interesting and dynamic combat situations due to the vast spaces you'll be exploring.
  
  
• There is an emphasis on making path commitment worth it. The more you make your way through a dangerous location, the rewards will really reflect that and will feel worth venturing in for.
  
  
• An enhanced lighting system is also here to add to the immersion of this ever changing open world " You could enter a zone at dawn on a rainy day and exit with the night setting in and clouds clearing the way for the sky".
  
  
• To make the world even more immersive, wildlife is included as well.
  
  
• There are wolves and dragons.
  
  
• Dedicated jump button, however, no mario-esque jumps on the head.
  
  
• No depth of combat from Sekiro, too complicated with the variety of construction (as in different weapons and magic)
  
  
• Online functionality, and PVP is here.
  
  
• A reminder that Miyazaki has stated in the IGN interview that there will be "interesting activities besides combat this time around."
  
  
• The way I see it is Elden Ring is sort of a new start for the Souls games. Going back to Dark Souls 1 in particular and building off of that while of course looking at what they've learned on subsequent games and implementing elements of everything that came after where they see fit. Creating a new "baseline" for future "Souls" games or From A/RPGs.
  
  
• Fromsoft Dark Souls 1 level design into a bigger world and see things again long before you can get to them and things are on a much larger scale than ever before.
  
  
• More open level design.
  
  
• Much more freedom and choice in direction and somehow progression.
  
  
• Fromsoft Dark Souls 1 level design in a bigger world and again seeing things long before you're able to reach them and things being on a much greater scale than theyve ever done before.
  
  
• More open level layout.
  
  
• A lot more freedom and choice in direction and in some ways progression.
  
  
• Effort is being put into improving both magic and melee combat and movement and there are some cool things going on there. Some QoL things are being brought over. But you're not going to get Sekiro tier mechanics and depth or anything in this game as implementing stuff like that when you've got stat allocation, massive gear variety (the most thus far unless stuff gets culled) as well as build variety, PvP and what not, then you've gotta make it fair to magic users and whatnot. Balancing that all becomes an unmitigated mess when you have so many variables to deal with. Meanwhile Sekiro only had 1 weapon + tools and linear stat progression. So i would keep my expectations in check on that front too. Going back to the earlier thought process, I'd be thinking along the lines of Dark Souls as a baseline and developing things outward from there. But I think that in terms of moment to moment gameplay some of the QoL carryovers from Sekiro (like a dedicated small jump as one example, no not hopping on heads) will help make gameplay at least feel more meaningfully distinct over just another Dark Souls sequel and provide some more movement or tactical options where it makes sense.

• LORE DETAILS :

• For the first time, the world will be populated with different races unlike previous Fromsoft titles where most races were humans or humanoid.
  
  
• While Elden Ring is a dark fantasy open world game, he also labels it a high fantasy title due to the scale of the world, locations, and narrative being of a much grander scale. With "grandiose" fantasy locations you'll explore to reflect that.
  
  
• GRRM's involvement can be fully felt, as this is the most fully realized world Fromsoftware has ever created, with an almost "encyclopedic" amount of history to it. It is a world with already functioning bodies, kingdoms, and major players. Even gods and demi gods are in.
  
  
• It will contain a lot more characters with stories that will span further across the game in terms of location and story progression with their own motives and personal ambitions. Like the larger and more involved NPC quests of DS3 but on a more consistent scale.
  
  
• The shattering of the Elden Ring has effected every single facet of the inhabitants lives, and the world itself. You as the player will see the effects of this existential crisis on the world and its peoples as you make your way through it.
  
  
• When the Elden Ring shattered, the barrier that kept out the most "horrible" and "unimaginable" things broke down, and these beings have been slowly making their way in.
  
  
• Schools of magic just aren't about what magic elements they wield, but what organization you feel the most connected to and which ideals you most closely believe in. Each organization has its own ideologues and motivations, this will be reflected in their sub narratives as well as the people who wield it.
  
  
• Your player character is human.
  
  
• Players will be given a more personal story narrative and motivation in comparison to past titles.
  
  
• The game will have a brighter overall tone, but will also have plenty of the weird and bizarre things you'd expect from a Fromsoftware game. Some of the darkest stuff they've ever done is here as well.

• Lore - https://www.resetera.com/threads/fr...current-projects.163312/page-56#post-30310951
  
  Gameplay - https://www.resetera.com/threads/fr...-current-projects.163312/page-8#post-28112018
  
  World - https://www.resetera.com/threads/fr...current-projects.163312/page-36#post-29563025

 

[Wunderbar]

Miyazaki saw my rant, went back in time and fixed the game.

 

[RapineDel]

Gothic's world design with Dark Souls' combat would be the dream but I don't want to get my hopes up for that.