Elden Ring director Miyazaki says he doesn't want new players 'to stress about difficulty'
After I played hours of Elden Ring in last year's network test, I wrote that it was the most flexible Souls game by a longshot. Flexible doesn't necessarily mean easy—there are still bosses in Elden Ring who will stomp you mercilessly until you learn their patterns—but you can now explore the open world looking for easier battles or more gear. FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki cited that flexibility in a new interview on the PlayStation Blog, in which he touched on the notorious difficulty of the studio's games. «I’d like new players to feel unpressured and that they can approach the game at their pace,» Miyazaki said.
«I realize that while we offer games with a high level of challenge, we design them in a way that feels fulfilling to overcome. But I don’t want new players to worry or stress about that difficulty too much… They can come back to something later when they’re at an impasse so that they can have this freedom of progression and not have to bang their head against a wall over and over.»
Arguments over game difficulty—and whether developers should include customizable difficulty options—flare up around the release of each new FromSoftware game, and Elden Ring will likely be no different. And yes, Miyazaki is well aware of the debate.
«It’s a valid discussion,» he said. «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
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