A recent PlayStation blog interview featuring From Software director Hidetaka Miyazaki was focused on challenge and accessibility, particularly about his team’s upcoming game Elden Ring.

He said that Elden Ring will just be as challenging as past Dark Souls games and confirms that his team is not purposefully trying to make Elden Ring easier. However, due to its open-world structure and accessible multiplayer offering, he predicts that more people will finish Elden Ring.

“This time in Elden Ring, we have many options at the player’s disposal to confront challenging situations and use their cunning to outsmart enemies and bosses.

They can come back to something later when they’re at an impasse so that they can have this freedom of progression and not have to bang their head against a wall over and over. They can figure out what to do and how to approach it again, at their own pace.”

The best part? You can get up to three friends to stand by your side during most tough fights.

“In Elden Ring, we have not intentionally tried to lower the game’s difficulty, but I think more players will finish it this time.

As I mentioned, the player’s level of freedom to progress through the world or return to a challenge later are all elements that I feel will help people get through the game at a more leisurely pace. Also, there isn’t a focus on pure action. The player has more agency to dictate their approach against, for example, the field bosses in the overworld and how they utilize stealth in various situations.

We’ve even reduced the number of hoops that you have to jump through to enjoy it in multiplayer. So we hope the players embrace that idea of receiving help from others. And we feel like the overall clear rate will go up this time because of these things.”

He also mentioned that he loves last year’s co-op gem It Takes Two, as he finished the game recently with a friend. Concerning Elden Ring, as long as it doesn’t have a lot of the obtuse hidden ending condition nonsense like in Sekiro, I’m all for whatever From Software throws at me.

The action RPG will be out for PC and Xbox/PlayStation consoles on 25 February.