Elden Ring Director Doesn't Think It's Easier, But Thinks More People Will Finish the Game
Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has discussed that, while he doesn't think the game is necessarily easier than previous FromSoftware titles, he does believe more people will be able to finish it this time around.
Speaking to PlayStation.Blog, Miyazaki was asked about the "ongoing discourse" that surrounds the challenge and accessibility of FromSoftware's games, if the team was more mindful of these conversations when developing Elden Ring, and if they have impacted the way the team "tailored and maintained FromSoftware's trademark difficulty" for the game.
"Yes, we have," Miyazaki said. "It’s a valid discussion. I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. 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.
"We understand that Souls-like games are regularly associated with impossible levels of difficulty with high barriers to entry. But we try to design the games to make the cycle of repeatedly trying to overcome these challenges enjoyable in itself. So we hope that with Elden Ring and the new options it provides, it will be a success in that respect."
He continued to discuss how the level of freedom Elden Ring offers in its more open-world format should also lead to more players finishing the game, even though FromSoftware did not "intentionally lower the game's difficulty."
"In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I
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