Elden Ring setting was designed around its bosses

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FromSoftware designed the open-world setting of Elden Ring primarily around where its bosses would be.

In an interview with Xbox Wire (as translated by IGN), the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, said:

“Our first step when designing the map was to decide where the bosses would appear, especially the important ones. Therefore, the map was really designed on the basis of boss gameplay, then we adjusted the boss gameplay based on their location on the map.”

This was also the way that FromSoftware designed its previous games. Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Demon’s Souls to name a few. Well, to name most of them.

Miyazaki also spoke about the team’s influences while making Elden Ring:

“I don’t think we took specific inspiration from any particular game. But I’ve personally played a lot of open world games that are considered classics of the genre, and I’ve been influenced by all of them. These include The Elder Scrolls series, The Witcher 3, and more recently The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”

Elden Ring is a very good video game, indeed. In VideoGamer’s review, I said:

“In Elden Ring, FromSoftware offers us an open world with a rich and heady history, yours for the exhuming. Or not. Whether you’re a lore junky or you simply crave a fight, this is a game with such a potently present tense that hours stream by without your noticing—so fast is the seal of its mood.”