Elden Ring’s Open World Will Include Dynamic Weather And Enemy Systems

FromSoft has emerged as one of the premier and most beloved RPG developers over the last decade. Their Dark Souls series and offshoots had a major impact on games in general, and their next title, Elden Ring, is much anticipated. The problem is that we’ve heard virtually nothing about the game since it was announced, outside vague information such as it’ll have similarities to the before mentioned Souls series. The Elden Ring Reddit page is so starved for information they’ve began creating fake lore and bosses (seriously). Now, though, we have quite a bit of information from a well known insider.

In a series of posts on popular gaming forum ResetERA (as compiled via Reddit), user Onmipotent made a series of posts over the last few days detailing various aspects of the upcoming title. As mentioned, the game will have some degree of familiarity to their previous games, but one big change is the active nature of the game’s systems. Instead of a ‘static’ world such as the Dark Souls series, where things do happen but are triggered by your actions, the world will be constantly changing with dynamic weather (though he doesn’t seem too enthused about that part), as well as enemy placements.

“Elden Ring, like past games will have opportunities to effect and change things in the world,” said the insider. “But the noteworthy element here is that the world will change on its own. I don’t mean in any singular major sense but perhaps you’re strolling down your typical route to get from point A to B, having a jolly time on your horse, blasting old town road and before you know it you’re met with some sort of towering monstrosity.

“You’ve now got 2 choices. A try your luck and attempt to take down the beast. B: Pull a big ol nope and get your ass right out of there. Maybe you pick B, and end up taking a different route from now on…but who’s to say it won’t show up there too? Or even if it’s the only one out there? Perhaps you’ve been traveling, see something cool and start traveling inside some ruins or a cave.

“You start making your way back out and hey, things look a lot darker outside than they did when I came in and the enemies that were here when I left aren’t here any more… but some other things are. Perhaps there are ways to use this situation to my advantage, but perhaps I don’t want to risk it. The game also has its weather cycles though I wouldn’t expect anything particularly expansive or exciting in this department. Ultimately you’re left with a world that feels a lot more alive and like I said immersive. Like this is a place where things live.”

Omnipotent is a pretty well known and accurate insider for FromSoftware titles. But as always, we treat any insider information as rumor until official confirmation, and even Omni himself warns that things can still change. If what he says is true, however, the gameplay of Elden Ring could be quite different than anything from the Dark Souls games, which are based heavily on fixed, static patterns. We’ll see how it all pans out once more information comes out.