FromSoftware's new open-world action RPG Elden Ring is the latest iteration of the Soulslike genre pioneered by FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki – a style of computer RPG with extensive character customization, intricately designed dungeon levels, jigsaw puzzle-style storytelling, and brutally challenging combat that encourages players to learn from every death. All the game design experience Miyazaki and his fellow developers gained from previous games in the Souls style – Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and the Dark Souls trilogy – went into the current build of Elden Ring, along with iconic gameplay mechanics such as the Power Stance system from Dark Souls 2 and the Staggering system from Bloodborne.
When the dark fantasy action RPG Demon's Souls was released by FromSoftware in 2009 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, very few people released it was going to jumpstart a whole new genre of video games culminating in Elden Ring. Executives at FromSoftware felt that the core premise of Demon's Souls was weak, and gave fledgling game director Hidetaka Miyazaki full creative control over the game's troubled production. Early reviewers of Demon's Souls were turned off by the game's difficult enemies, devious traps, and permanent consequences for death (losing HP, losing all experience collected so far, etc). Over time, though, Demon's Souls became a cult classic among PlayStation 3 RPG gamers who enjoyed the game's intricate combat system, optional multiplayer mechanics, and ultimately rewarding challenges. For these players, overcoming Demon's Souls bosses like the old monk after multiple tries was extremely cathartic, while beating Demon's Souls in its entirety was an accomplishment well worth bragging about.
Every new Soulslike fantasy RPG published by FromSoftware has attempted to refine the template first established by Demon's Souls, giving players access to new equipment, magic, and abilities they can master while also creating challenges that are challenging, but never outright unfair. As the newest Soulslike, Elden Ring contains many new gameplay mechanics such as open-world exploration, horseback riding, and spirit summons; it also includes refined versions of old gameplay mechanics and themes from the Dark Souls series and other Miyazaki-designed classics.
In the first Dark Souls game, the myriad armor sets players could collect during a play-through not only reduced the damage taken from enemy attacks, but also granted them an attribute called Poise. Heavier pieces of armor granted Dark Souls PCs higher amounts of Poise, and a sufficiently high Poise rating would let PCs withstand enemy attacks without getting stunned. This Poise mechanic was mainly meant to reward players who created character builds with the Endurance requirements needed to wear heavy armor without "fat-rolling," but canny Dark Souls players who specialized in PvP combat exploited the quirks of the Poise mechanic to create the infamous "GiantDad" and other broken Dark Souls character builds, each of which could wade through enemy attacks without flinching and stagger more lightly armored players to death.
The designers of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 wound up heavily reducing the utility of Poise in those games, instead experimenting with a "Hyper Armor" mechanic where attack animations from sufficiently heavy weapons couldn't be interrupted by enemy counter-attacks. The latest version of Elden Ring includes modified forms of both Poise and Hyper Armor, gained through wearing certain sets of armor, consuming certain items, casting certain spells, or utilizing weapon skills from certain "Ashes Of War" such as "Storm Stomp" or "Wild Strikes." Presently, Elden Ring's Poise and Super Armor mechanics are being tested by the community, as are the many possible weapon/armor/item/ability combinations available, to see if a "GiantDad" style character build is possible. From the looks of things, a Poise rating of 50 will let players "tank" an average melee weapon attack without being staggered.
Like the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, many FromSoftware fans initially disliked Dark Souls 2 for not "feeling like" a Soulslike RPG before eventually coming to appreciate Dark Souls 2 for having its own unique charm and originality. One of the most cherished features in Dark Souls 2 and its DLCs was the Power Stance mechanic, where players gained access to brand new dual-wielding attack motions if they equipped two weapons of the same type to their character's left and right hands. During the Elden Ring Network test of mid-November 2021, play-testers discovered that Power Stancing had made a triumphant comeback, and immediately had fun smashing enemies and fellow players apart with dual-wielded greatswords and lances.
In Dark Souls 3, Hidetaka Miyazaki introduced a new mechanic called "Weapon Arts" – special attacks players could unleash upon enemies whenever their PCs grasped their weapons with two hands. More mundane Weapon Arts could break enemy guards or cleave through crowds of foes with spinning attacks, while the Arts of more exotic weapons could unleash blasts of magic or let player character leap through the air like a wild beast. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a stealth-action RPG told exclusively from the perspective of a Sengoku-era ninja, let players acquire, equip, and wield Combat Arts that corresponded to the martial arts styles of certain game characters and enemy bosses.
Many of the more useful Weapon Arts from Dark Souls 3 returned in Elden Ring in the form of Skills – some of them attached by default to certain weapons, other accessed through Ashes of War players could acquire through exploration of the open world. Each Ash of War can be equipped to certain weapons or shields the player owns, letting players create custom fighting styles for their characters and modify the attribute scaling and damage types of their preferred weapons.
In the gothic horror action RPG Bloodborne, gigantic, inhuman boss-type enemies had an invisible "Stagger" meter which filled over time as as players dealt damage to their foes and attacked their weak-points. If this Stagger meter was filled, even the hardest Bloodborne bosses would keel over stunned, giving players the chance to deal them large amounts of damage with a Visceral Attack. A modified version of this Stagger mechanic formed the basis of the Posture system in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where players tried to fill up the Posture meters of their opponents using attacks and carefully timed deflections, eventually staggering their opponents and opening them up to a deathblow.
The combat system of Elden Ring includes a blend of Bloodborrne's Stagger system and Sekiro's Posture system into something called Super Armor: Every enemy has an invisible meter that can be filled up by players who parry enemy attacks or hit them repeatedly; when an enemy's stagger meter is full, they're temporarily stunned and opened up to a critical attack. Heavy attacks, jumping attacks, and guard counter attacks fill up this stagger meter more quickly, encouraging Elden Ring players to use a wide variety of combat techniques rather than just spamming the light attack button on their controllers.
