Elden Ring Caught Lord Of The Fallen Devs by Surprise; Discuss Similarities Between the Two

Lords of the Fallen dev HexWorks state Elden Ring caught them by surprise and talks about the similarities between the two action-RPGs.

[jznrpg]

Don’t start comparing yourself to games like Elden Ring and not delivering a higher quality game. The original was ok but not Souls quality. This may come back to hurt them

[porkChop]

They were just answering a question about whether Elden Ring had an impact on development. They explained that the games are very different but there are still a lot of similarities that couldn't be changed that late in development.

[savedsynner]

Agreed. I like that they were concerned about making the game too easy with more checkpoints and then Elden Ring had statues of Marika and they were like "oh, it's ok to put checkpoints near bosses and elite enemies...cool"

I also agree that everyone was expecting ER to be great but not genre defining...especially when pre release gameplay footage looked a tad dated with it looking like dark souls with a horse...I was VERY happy to be wrong on that one. That said, I think they've gone as far as they can go with the slower souls combat vs something like Bloodborne or especially Sekiro. I'd like to see them lean more into the mounted combat and make that more....just more since while it was a breath of fresh air for the souls genre, it wasn't really fleshed out much in ER(which is not a knock on them...only so many hours in the day).

All that to say I think the LotF is looking really good and the Umbral system reminds me alot of Soul Reaver where you essentially have two worlds on top of each other. If this game is a success, I could see them REALLY expanding on Umbral since it's a cool twist on the souls formula.

[Kaze88]

It's not even the same developer making the game that did the original. Also the original was shit.

[Seraphim]

the original was a good game. Was it a masterpiece or something great, no, but it was a very solid game that was thoroughly enjoyable. let's not act like it was something subpar.

[Kaze88]

@Seraphim Even with the fastest class the combat felt sluggish and unpolished. Bosses were boring and tedious. It definitely was subpar.

[savedsynner]

Yeah, I was pretty hyped for the original but then entire game just felt so generic. I like that they improved the combat system at the time but everything else about the game felt like a step back on the strides FROM had mad eup til that point.

This game looks to have learned a ton over the past 9 years and incorporated those into this game. I really hope it's a success since I think it really has something great to offer the souls-like genre.

[Soulsborne]

So elden ring was your first Fromsoft game

[Kaze88]

Haha, nah Demon's souls was my first. From that I have played all Fromsoft games in release order, but haven't started with Elden Ring yet. I have played dozen of souls likes too like the original lords of the fallen, unworthy, unsouled, Jedi fallen order, Nioh, Remnant, Hellpoint the thespian feast, dungeon souls, Surge, Surge 2, Mortal Shell, Code Vein, Salt and sanctuary, Blasphemous, Deaths gambit, Grime etc. Too busy with my backlog atm that I promised to clear, only 3 games to go until Elden Ring.

[BrainSyphoned]

"We were very concerned that we were doing too much accessibility." Dev of the year material right there, till the journos catch wind.

[savedsynner]

Eh, people buy the vast majority of games, not journos. I remember I think it was around Sekiro you had these little opinion pieces about how FromSoft should make their games more accessible and how it being so difficult limited disabled people from playing(which was of course was just used so people wouldn't criticism their stupid opinions.

I'm all for including as many people as possible to play your game but some games are more difficult than others and are not for everyone. I think FromSoft struck a great balance of difficulty and accessibility in Elden Ring. The bosses are great, but having to run 10 minutes and re-fight dozens of mob enemies each attempt is just tedious, not difficult.