Running back to a boss fight after dying can be tough in the Dark Souls games, much more so in Demon’s Souls where going back to a boss if often more difficult than the fight itself, but FromSoftware has confirmed that boss run backs will be easier in Elden Ring.
In a recent media roundtable with Producer, Yasuhiro Kitao, we were able to ask him about the checkpoint placement before bosses. This is because, in the Elden Ring Network Test, most of the main bosses had a close Site of Grace (aka Bonfire) or Stake of Marika (the game’s version of checkpoints).
“While it’s not all bosses, it’s certainly the case that we were more mindful of this distance between the Sites of Grace and the Stakes of Marika in each boss fight,” said Kitao. “We wanted to reduce the stress of repeating the trek to the boss room, and we feel like with a much more expansive world in Elden Ring, this would definitely result in stress if we were to have a long run back to the boss every single time. The Stakes of Marika in particular, are placed strategically in order for us to alleviate that stress when exploring in the open and to encourage exploration.”
“Having the checkpoints just before the boss also lets players tune their builds and tune their characters a little bit, or level up a little bit in order to try a different strategy before facing the boss again,” added Kitao.
The more generous checkpoint and save point locations should make fighting bosses again after dying less stressful. After all, a lot of players resort to just running past enemies just to get back to a boss in the previous Souls games or in Bloodborne.
While boss run backs are easier, Kitao mentioned that Elden Ring will not have a boss replay or a boss rush feature that’s found in Sekiro Game of the Year edition.
“There will not be a boss rush or boss rematch mode in Elden Ring and we’re not currently planning on adding one,” said Kitao.
Elden Ring launches on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC on February 25, 2022.
Related:
Elden Ring will let players reallocate stats and easily change their appearance
FromSoftware: Elden Ring will not be affected by the Dark Souls RCE exploit
It’s a sensible move.
I don’t mind repeating tough boss battles, watching for patterns and opportunities but I can’t stand being forced to replay 15-30 minutes of drudgery just to get back to the boss that killed me. It bloats the game with unnecessary repetition and it’s the reason why Soulsborne games don’t appeal to me.
I am optimistic that better checkpointing will provide a challenge without the Groundhog Day experience and Elden Ring should appeal to a broader audience because of it 🙂
Personally I really enjoyed figuring out the best way to get best hordes of enemies. It really felt like leveling up and growing stronger in your skill. No doubt, some were too excessive, but many were extremely fun. It was a cool extra challenge that didn’t involve combat. I think it’s a good move to limit long run backs. But honestly I don’t remember too many horrible runbacks from the soulsborne games, just a few awful ones, some really fun ones, and one’s where there already really wasn’t much of a run needed. So I just hope they don’t eliminate it entirely. At a certain point for the hardest bosses, it does get old for sure. I just hope they have a couple places that include that aspect of challenge of the run back. I feel that if they are trying to appeal to a broader audience, there’s a risk they’ll lose what made the games so special in the first place. But quality of life updates are a great thing, and I do look forward to being able to challenge the hardest bosses over and over again without painfully long run backs. So I’ll remain optimistic about this update. I know that Miyazaki cares a lot about the quality of his games, and he won’t wreck his own creation to appeal to the masses.
“While it’s not all bosses…”
I totally missed this part in my first read through. I think this is altogether fantastic.
Is there gonna be a plan to add buy backs for items? I’ve accidentally sold an item that I received from a main boss. So if there’s no plan on adding an option to fight those bosses again. Could we have buy back on objects?