The director of Elden Ring: Nightreign says he's feeling "equal parts nerves and excitement" as he approaches the game's launch, and that FromSoftware is pouring all its effort into game balance "until the very end."
In an interview with GamesRadar+, Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki said that he was feeling "very excited, a little nervous going into this final week" before launch. For all those nerves, however, the director says that he's still "confident" about the game, and is "still finding it very fun to this day" himself.
We spoke to Ishizaki roughly a week ahead of launch on May 29, and it sounded as though he's getting plenty of opportunity to find the fun within his game. In the final days before Nightreign's release, he says that the team is "continually tweaking and balancing the game." In fact, the entire process "is all about the game balance at this point."
"We really try to tweak things until the last minute," he explains. "We're busy fine-tuning, getting the most out of any single session. We want players to feel happy and comfortable in each session, so we're really trying to get that player comfort and that play feel just really fine-tuned until the very end."
Putting the fact that 'happy' and 'comfortable' are two emotions I rarely associate with FromSoftware games to the side for one minute, it's certainly interesting to imagine the vibe at the studio right now.
When it comes to balance and player experience, you could argue that no game is ever truly complete, but that's an issue that FromSoftware doesn't normally have to obsess over - if something's overtuned in a single-player game, it might not be the intended experience, but it won't be a game-ruining mistake.
But Nightreign is a multiplayer-focused game, and there's a chance that if any one weapon takes chunks out of bosses too fast, or if any one boss takes similar massive chunks out of players, the entire experience is worsened. Ishizaki and his team will almost certainly be working hard on the minutiae of the game until long after release, but it's encouraging to know that he's confident that happiness and comfort will be there for players on day one.
It might technically be a multiplayer game, but we're soon to actually find out the answer to can you play Elden ring Nightreign solo?
