Elden Ring is one of the most anticipated games of 2022. FromSoftware is aiming for their Breath of the Wild moment, bringing the tried and true Souls-bourne formula into the open world for the first time this February.

FromSoftware has made themselves the behemoth of a developer they are today from these titles, so when the story of Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team felt pressured by the recent Demon’s Souls remake, a lot of fans were surprised.

Being one of the highest rated titles of 2020, the Demon’s Souls remake from Bluepoint blew away casual and hardcore fans alike with its stunning visuals, great use of ray tracing, and fluid sixty frames per second gameplay on the PlayStation 5. In a recent interview with EDGE Magazine, Miyazaki that though he had not yet played the remake, but its reception has put a lot of pressure on his team to make the quality of the upcoming title their top priority, even joking internally that it was a shame that they couldn’t remake Elden Ring before February.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure our graphics-creation staff felt that pressure more than anyone else… And not just with Elden Ring, but with all the games we make. Graphical fidelity is not something we put as the top priority. What we ask for on the graphics side depends on the systems and requirements of the game itself, and it takes less priority compared to the other elements of development.”

“So this is always an area where I feel a little bit apologetic towards my graphics team because I know they work extremely hard. And they’ve worked extremely hard on Elden Ring – our graphics-systems team and our programmers have been pushing a lot of new features to create the best-looking games we’ve ever made.”

Hidetaka Miyazaki, Director of Elden Ring

When asked why he hasn’t played the remake of their breakout hit, Miyazaki stated:

“As you say, I was not directly involved in it, and I haven’t actually played the Demon’s remake. But this is because I just don’t enjoy playing the games that I’ve made in the past.”

“It brings up a lot of old emotions, a lot of old memories, and this gets a little bit overwhelming, and it doesn’t feel like playing any more. So I have not played the Demon’s remake, but I am very glad to see it get this fresh look, these brand-new current-gen graphics.

“It was an old game, so to see it get remade in this way and have new players playing it was obviously something that made me very happy.

“It was a rough game back in the day, with a relatively rough development, so I was anxious that new players would not enjoy it in that same way. That was a cause of concern for me when it was re-released but, you know, in the end, I’m just happy to see the reaction and happy to see people enjoying it.

“One thing that was really fun was seeing [Bluepoint Games] come up with things we didn’t consider and to approach certain elements of the game its visuals and its mechanics in a way that we either couldn’t or didn’t back in the day. So to see them researching and applying these new thought processes and new techniques, this was something that was really exciting and interesting for me.”

Hidetaka Miyazaki, Director of Elden Ring

Elden Ring releases on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC on February 25, 2022.

Are you excited for Elden Ring? Let us know in our Discord or Facebook group!

Source: Video Game Chronicle, EDGE Magazine, Push Square

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