Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki says he doesn't want his games to be too hard to navigate without getting help.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Miyazaki said that FromSoftware "expect" that players will get outside help; "Of course players are going to consult guides, and there's going to be a wealth of information on the web and in their communities where they have access to the secrets and the strategies."
But even with that in mind, he goes on to say that "we don't make or plan anything with that as a prerequisite. If anything, we try to cater to the player who is completely blind and wants to go through organically."
There's a potential distinction to be drawn here between how difficult a game is and how hard it is to navigate. A player might attempt to beat Dark Souls or Elden Ring and come up against a boss that's simply too difficult for them to beat, but while I never came up against a fight I couldn't (eventually) win, I know that I never would have made it through Blighttown without a map to guide my way. Miyazaki seems to be leaning closer to the accessibility to a game to those players coming in with no help, but he suggests that there might still be work to do.
If someone coming in with no help "can't do it," he says, "then there's some room for improvement on our behalf, and we'd like to try to embrace those players more in the future." Thankfully, that shouldn't be something that experienced Elden Ring players should have to worry about with Shadow of the Erdtree - if you've completed enough of the base game to access the DLC, the devs "have faith" that you'll be set for what's to come. Though that might not be great news for the two-thirds of players who haven't managed to beat the bosses who are guarding the gateway to the expansion.
