Elden Ring: Nightreign has a solution to stale strategies, says director
Also, a word on buff wizards
"Attacking is the most consistent element of Elden Ring Nightreign’s gameplay," says director Junya Ishizaki in a new PlayStation blog, explaining the choice to have players revive each other by hitting wounded mates with swords - a famously crucial tenet of the hippocratic oath. "We tested to see if it would work for resuscitation, and we discovered a wide variety of tactics depending on range, frequency, and probability, so we formally implemented it. We also found it quite amusing (laughs)."
Crux of FromSoft right there, I reckon: expert awareness over when to trim the fat, absolute lack of self-consciousness over being goofy as hell while doing it. Nightreign is set for release at the end of the month, 30th May, but despite us being in the midst of hypetown, the PlayStation interviewer shattered my expectations for a promotional blog by actually positing a potential negative about the game. A FromSoft game, no less! Your bravery has not gone unnoticed.
"After playing the network test, while I enjoyed building my characters, I also felt like the strategy aspect became a little repetitive. Can we expect more unpredictability that encourages players to be more tactical, in the final product?" they ask.
"We’re also pursuing that approach," replies Ishizaki. "The same strategy won’t always work when fighting the bosses. Your initial strategy may be effective for a while, but the bosses will gradually evolve and your tactics will no longer be viable, forcing you to rethink your approach."
It's not entirely clear what Ishizaki means by "evolve" here - it's one of those vague marketing words developers like to use. It could be a reference to the second, more powerful phases FromSoft bosses traditionally have when you've beaten them up a bit, stat modifiers, or simply that different bosses act differently. I'd love it to be an Arkham Mr. Freeze situation, obviously, but I doubt it.
"In the final version of the game, you’ll be able to determine the weakness of each boss before heading out," Ishizaki continues. "So, if poison is effective against an upcoming boss, you may proactively search for and loot items that inflict poison more often in that run. Taking advantage of their susceptibility will give you an edge in the fights. We intentionally designed the game so that you’ll need to adapt and evolve your strategies along with the changes that happen in the game."
There's that evolve word again, but this all broadly sounds within the spirit of Elden Ring to me. Ishizaki goes on to talk about some tweaks following the recent network tests, such as more player guidance. He also chats a bit about designing the playable characters as fantasy archetypes for common builds. "A character like a ‘macho wizard’ may exist if there were a hundred variations, but it’s a bit too eccentric when we only have a few playable characters". Here's a D&D 5e homebrew wiki page for a Muscle Wizard, in case you're as disappointed by this news as I am.