FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is out next month and has gone gold with a day one patch in the works. Producer Yasuhiro Kitao has reassured that it will be releasing on time in a new presentation filmed in December for the 2022 Taipei Game Show. However, he also confirmed that the game’s main route will take around 30 hours to complete.
“This will differ significantly by player, but in terms of targets set during development, the idea is that the main route should be able to be completed within around 30 hours,” said Kitao. That being said, if you’re looking to see everything else, then it will end up taking a lot longer. “The game as a whole is quite massive and contains many dozens more hours’ worth of gameplay, but if we are talking about the main route only, it shouldn’t take much longer than that.”
New Game Plus is also pretty much confirmed with players able to carry over their progress into a playthrough and face stronger foes. “With the world being so vast, the game is designed so that it can be cleared without necessarily experiencing everything. Some players will prefer to try and explore the entire map the first time while other will leave some areas for exploration in second or subsequent cycles.”
However, it won’t exactly be possible to experience everything that Elden Ring has to offer in one playthrough. Kitao said, “Technically, it’s impossible to reach 100 percent due to the fact that there are branching points near the end, but you can certainly get pretty close.” This may be akin to Dark Souls 3 which had different endings depending on one’s choices but time will tell if it’s really the same. As such, FromSoftware’s Souls games are known for requiring multiple playthroughs to obtain certain weapons so that may also be the case in Elden Ring.
Elden Ring is out on February 25th for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
