The sequel to Elden Ring already has a major story problem that could be FromSoftware’s most daunting narrative challenge to date. The studio president and creative director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, seemingly confirmed that a sequel to Elden Ring was in development in a snippet from the game’s guidebook. This news is somewhat expected. Elden Ring is a massively popular game and the studio’s most successful title yet. This creates a new issue that FromSoftware has avoided in the past. However, Elden Ring 2 will be challenged to create a new approach to avoid falling back on the tropes used in previous titles.
FromSoftware has released sequels in the past but has refrained from doing so for its more recent titles. Under Miyazaki’s tenure, the studio has only launched sequels for the Armored Core and Dark Souls franchises. While games like Bloodborne infamously neglected the possibility of sequels. While similarities between Dark Souls and Elden Ring are undoubtedly present, there is one area that the latter triumphs over all the studio’s previous games, which has now become a potential bane for the sequel. Elden Ring featured a significant degree of choice for players, so Elden Ring 2 will have to find a way to exist in a story world that players in the first game shaped.
So, it wouldn’t necessarily be frustrating if the developers chose to canonize one conclusion or the other. In all likelihood, side characters and quests from the first game likely won’t make it into the sequel, which is one way to preserve and respect the choices players made in these quests.
The trickiest part to deal with is the ending to Elden Ring’s main story. The game is an anomaly in FromSoftware’s oeuvre in that it has the most endings available for players to choose from. From Ranni’s Age of Stars to embracing the Frenzied Flame, Elden Ring’s six ending variations each leave The Lands Between in a starkly different state, making it challenging to develop a compelling continuation of the story world. However, the studio has navigated multiple endings in the Dark Souls series before, which could hint at the approach for constructing Elden Ring 2’s story.
How the Dark Souls series handled multiple endings may reveal how Elden Ring 2 will consider the first game’s six ending variations. Initially, there were no plans to develop a sequel to Dark Souls. However, this changed after the game’s success, leading to Dark Souls 2, which featured a subversive take on the first game’s ending choice. At the end of the original Dark Souls, players can opt to link the fire and banish the undead curse, or walk away to become the Dark Lord in an age of darkness. This significant choice offered two very different outcomes for the story world.
2023-09-03 08:24:03
Original from screenrant.com
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