The latest Elden Rings information from an IGN interview with FromSoftware Director Hidetaka Miyazaki elaborated on the six areas and major dungeons people will visit in the game. Its The Lands Between area will be the largest of its kind from the developer, with one more area than Demon’s Souls. And every location connects to a hub in The Lands Between. [Thanks, IGN!]
When talking to IGN, Miyazaki described the Elden Ring The Lands Between hub as being similar to the Dark Souls’ Firelink Shrine and said the six areas can connect to it. Each area is a major dungeon with unique map, while the larger area has its own smaller points of interests and dungeons. There will also be fast travel available.
Here’s the exact quote from Miyazaki discussing the six Elden Ring areas and dungeons. It also discussed how people can choose how they explore them.
So The Lands Between is made up mainly of these six large areas. It’s divided into six major areas, and these are the domains of the major demigod characters who we just talked about. While the areas are lined up in a way so that you would normally tackle them in a specific order, you don’t have to follow it. We wanted to give a free level of progression and exploration throughout the Lands Between, so there’s a lot of different ways. You won’t be able to access everything from the start, but there are a lot of different ways you can approach each area. And there’s a lot of freedom as to which order you tackle different areas as well.
One of our big themes for development of this new world was that, because of the grandeur and sense of scale of it, we didn’t want players to get lost and not have any clue of what to do or where to go. So there is an element of guidance, particularly at the beginning. There is a mainline route that they can follow, but at any time they’re free to break off this route and to take the untrodden path. We wanted to focus on a design that caters to that high level of freedom, that free order of progression throughout the world – which order you choose to tackle the different areas, the different bosses, and how you approach each of them as well. You may get sent to a couple of areas against your will, but there’s a lot of ways that you can explore and approach these different situations.
Elden Ring will come to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC on January 21, 2022. PS4 and Xbox One versions will get free upgrades to the PS5 and Xbox Series X ones.
