Elden Ring – A Look at Boss and Enemy Design

Earlier this month, we got a chance to read some hand-on previews for FromSoftware’s Elden Ring. Those gave us a decent idea for what to expect from the project, but now, there’s also this Cook and Becker article that takes a closer look at FromSoftware’s boss and enemy design. Here’s a quick excerpt to get you started:

Souls players will surely understand. As you size up the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, the infamous Soul of Cinder, or Artorias the Abysswalker, you are looking not at a fighting machine but at a personality, a creature defined by something. And this is intentional. Miyazaki again, in another interview, on Dark Souls III: “We have the Dancer of the Frigid Valley; she is definitely a formidable enemy, but at the same time players sense not only that it’s scary, but [that] there’s a sense of sadness.”

For Elden Ring’s bosses, this rings as true as for any Souls boss. The players in the closed network test lauded the enemies they encountered, not only for the sheer pleasure of fighting something that’s difficult to beat, but also because of how suggestive these enemies look—suggestive of meaning, that is. Just have one look at the Pumpkin Head foe, or Margit the Fell Omen, and you know there’s more going on than meets the eye. As any walkthrough will show you, FromSoftware boss designs are always more than just a guy in armour, and carry ideas that may or may not be obvious when you first come across them.