As our exclusive IGN First coverage of Elden Ring Nightreign continues, we bring you our interview with game and combat designer Takuya Miyazawa. Enjoy!
To start, can you describe what it's like working at FromSoftware and getting to work on such highly acclaimed titles like Elden Ring and Nightreign?
Takuya Miyazawa – Game and Combat Designer on Nightreign:
I, myself, previously a huge Souls fan. I'm a big fan of these games and what the company's made, so it's a huge honor to get to work on such titles and as well as the fun of creating these games. I do feel a little bit of pressure and responsibility from the fans who enjoy these games as well, so thank you.
Going into Nightreign, there are a lot of really subtle differences between the combat mechanics of base Elden Ring and Nightreign. Can you talk a little bit about why you felt like you should change up some of those mechanics for a multiplayer game like Nightreign and how the resulting gameplay fits Nightreign's fast-paced multiplayer style a little bit better?
So, the changes for the design of Nightreign… Well first, let me give a little introduction to the general design of Nightreign itself. So, as you know, it uses Elden Ring as a base for the design, so the world and a lot of the assets and the base combat flow comes from Elden Ring. But while it does use it as a base for enemies and such, one area that we wanted to focus on with Nightreign was how we encounter these enemies, the flow of the battle, and the abilities you can use. And so having Elden Ring as a base allowed us to branch out and experiment in these other areas, making it into something that stood out from Elden Ring and becoming its own new thing.
So while the game base sits with Elden Ring at its core, we wanted to create a gameplay experience that was ultimately very different. Elden Ring is a much more slow-paced, a lot more open-ended. You take your time and carefully go through the world, but Nightreign is what we're calling a short RPG. So there are some constraints here. For example, the three-day, three-night time aspect, and the limitations on the player; but at the same time while we’re putting these limitations on the player in terms of structure, we wanted to allow them some freedom points that they didn't otherwise have with Elden Ring. So the way they traverse the map, they can sprint and they can clamber up walls quickly. Let's see… there's no fall damage compared to Elden Ring. So while we put these constraints on the players from a structural point of view, we wanted to open up and allow them this freedom from a gameplay point of view as well. So it was about creating that balance and that contrast.
In terms of status leveling and how the players build their character: With Elden Ring, of course, you had a character creation and building from the very start, but with Nightreign, you select from a preset character as a sort of archetype to start with and then you're free to change your weapons, change your equipment, and change your play style a little bit on the fly. So while you could start as a tank, you don't necessarily have to fulfill that tank role from a gameplay perspective.
We wanted players to enjoy the role play of each character more from their sort of character traits and their abilities than a sort of preconceived notion of approach. We also wanted to reduce the amount of time players spend in the menu, actually, within the game. So instead of carefully checking their stats and going through the leveling process, it's a lot more on the fly, it's a lot more ad hoc, and we wanted to reduce and condense these elements that we found in our previous games but in a tighter, more compact experience, this short-form RPG experience for Nightreign.
So those are just a few of the aspects that we've tried to consider when approaching this from a multiplayer co-op standpoint.
The boss that we got to check out today as we were playing was Libra: Creature of Night
So for this particular boss battle… Obviously for each boss battle in the game, we're trying to give them their own idiosyncrasies and their own unique touches to make them stand apart and feel original. We wanted each of them to feel like their own experience. So with Libra in particular, we kind of added this trade-off feature that takes place before the battle. And of course, this can allow the players to acquire a new special weapon or a significant level-up or something that benefits them. But of course, being the nature of Libra and the nature of the game, it's not always going to be exactly in their favor, so we wanted to create this interesting risk-reward sort of feature for this particular boss.
As for the actual experience during combat itself, we wanted this sort of nature of Libra to be reflected in the gameplay as well. So this sort of duality aspect of the character, both in terms of its appearance and its behavior. So we wanted to give it a two-type move set. So first, it has the sorceries and traps that can kind of confuse and trick the player and then also the sort of more power and damage-focused attacks that come as well. So we wanted this duality to reflect both in its appearance and the pre-battle and the gameplay experience as well.
One of the things that really struck me about the boss battle was that it almost reminded me of an MMO raid kind of boss with how you had to work together and coordinate with your squad to avoid the full effect of some of its attacks. Was MMO boss design any kind of inspiration in creating this boss fight and if not, what really inspired you in those aspects of the boss design?
Yes, we paid attention to other genres such as MMOs and the boss fights within them and we did take some notes and some inspiration from these. But one thing we wanted to be careful of was the fact that seeing as Nightreign is a co-op, multiplayer focused game, we still wanted to take care during these boss fights that when another player is drawing aggro, the boss still feels like a significant threat to other players in the group. So even if another player is drawing the aggro, the attacks that the boss is going to do and the way it's behaving is still going to keep other players on their toes even if they're sort of flanking it or taking a more solo-oriented approach.
I definitely felt that, by the way. Feeling threatened even while I didn’t hold the aggro of the boss. Shifting gears to classes, what goes into designing a character class for Nightreign? Are you looking to fill specific archetypes? Do you come up with a cool idea for a skill and then design a class based around that, or what does that process really look like?
It's quite an unorthodox approach we took to character design in Nightreign, similar to what we started with in Elden Ring. So for instance, we start with these kind of general roles or role titles for each of the characters, such as the tank we mentioned earlier or a mage type. So we start with these very general and loose kind of bases for the character archetype. And then from the director, we get an idea of the characters and their individuality and the sorts of abilities that they're going to use and things like this.
Just to give one example of that. You might have used her in the network test or in your play session, the Recluse. Her archetype actually started as a mage, a magic user, plain and simple. But from there, we started to think about and discuss what's fun and what's interesting about playing as a mage from a player's perspective. And that is, of course, using magic, using your intellect to kind of suss out the enemy and its weaknesses and sort of piece the puzzles of the battle together as you go. Of course, just blasting magic is fun in itself, but we wanted there to be an extra layer to that such as how you use your resources, the timing of your spells, using multiple spells in conjunction. And so we started to design a system around that new kind of concept of a mage and how players would interact with that. So that's the kind of approach we took to the character design.
Another aspect of our approach to the class designs was how you engage with them in a multiplayer environment. So of course, Nightreign is a three-player co-op game at its core and we wanted these skills and characters to be interesting both from a solo and multiplayer perspective. So one example of this could be the restage skill of the Duchess. So obviously, this is a very powerful skill when you're playing in solo play, but if you're going to take it to the next level and master it, a nice idea might be to watch what your allies are doing, watch for when they're doing some big damage and then restage their attack patterns and get some extra damage that way. So it really encourages this sort of teamwork and thinking as a group and thinking in terms of co-op play.
This is really the first from Soft Souls with fully developed, pre-made classes that each have their own unique skills and abilities. Does that have any effect, or rather, does it raise any challenges with regards to how you design bosses or enemy encounters, knowing the powerful tools that a squad will be able to take into a fight?
In terms of each character's individual abilities and their ultimates and skills, we didn't want to have that dictate how we approach the enemy design or encounter design and vice versa as well. We didn't want the player action level to infringe too much on the enemy action level. We wanted to concentrate on these characters and making them feel unique and fun to players in and of themselves, first and foremost, rather than having these encounters and these boss battles sort of affect that negatively and impact the fun.
One area we did concentrate on is the feeling of a role or responsibility within each character. So you might have somebody who feels it's their duty to try and protect the others during a difficult boss fight or try and distract the enemies, the adds (enemies) during a certain boss fight. Something like this was a feature of the pre-made designs that we could include in Nightreign that maybe we didn't experiment with too much in previous titles.
Of course, another aspect is because this is a co-op game that focuses on having a three-person team, we did want to make the bosses feel particularly hardcore from that standpoint as well. So they will use very large-scale attacks. They will use certain abilities that will inhibit or restrict the player or kind of put a sort of urgency to their moves like the timer that's inflicted on them in the Gladius Boss fight. Things like this, we really wanted to make them feel unique and imposing in each their own way.
You mentioned the Duchess ability and comboing that with a very strong ability that one of your allies will use. Do you have any other favorite ability combos or synergies from the available character classes?
Another example I could give is the Raider character who raises a giant totem from the earth. This itself does damage to the enemies and bosses, but at the same time, the different characters can clamber up atop it. So you could, for example, have the Ironeye character raining down arrows from the safety of the tombstone or reviving a character by shooting them with long-range attacks. Something like this, we feel that there's a nice breadth and synergy that you can experiment with each of these characters.
Another example might be a more general example is the Recluse who you could also use in the network test. Her ultimate art actually marks enemies, puts this sort of seal on them which grants you HP and your teammates HP as you attack. So this, used in conjunction with high damage output or fast subsequent attacks from your teammates, could be very effective at healing the team, keeping them alive. Things like this, we hope players will really have fun experimenting and playing around with these different combinations.
Was the Libra Boss battle inspired by any specific characters or mythos?
Well, he can't speak to any specific titles or names. One of the main inspirations for the Libra Boss battle was this sort of massively multiplayer raid battle sort of focus, so with this idea of having a lot of players coming together to fight this boss battle together. This involves not only the kind of exciting and dangerous elements of that fight, but also the puzzle elements as well, sort of figuring out the right time to attack, figuring out the time to retreat, figuring out the different elements to this boss fight. So we wanted it to feel like an intelligent boss design rather than just an all in, every man for himself kind of appeal.
Personally, what Nightreign character is your favorite to play and what is a build that you really hope players will dig into and enjoy?
A personal favorite of mine is the Guardian, the avian-type knight character with the shield. He favors a more defensive-y and tank-y kind of build that this character archetype provides. I enjoy being able to both attack and defend at the same time or provide that kind of bulwark and that area of safety for his team. If players are more not so keen on the fast dodge rolling and sort of the perfect timing of the parries and things like that, this is a nice character for them to feel like they're really contributing to the team aspect and able to enjoy the battle in that sense as well.
Generally, we designed the game for the players to be able to beat it as any character. So we wanted them to feel like they could choose a character they liked, either from an ability standpoint or from an appearance or backstory standpoint, and beat the game just in their own play style and with a character they enjoy. That said, balance is still important and the team synergy we talked to, finding a good balance of, say, a tank type character, a mage type character, and a damage deal type character. This is often important as is the boss selection that you make as well. So sometimes, a different Nightlord Boss fight will encourage a different synergy or a different sort of group of roles, a different team composition. So we want players to enjoy figuring out these aspects and experiment with various characters and while they're doing that, find some that really resonate with them.
We really wanted both the boss characters, these encounters, and the player characters themselves to feel unique each in their own way. And we wanted it to feel unique enough that players can go back to the game and approach with another character entirely. So even if they have beaten a boss with the Guardian, they might want to go back and try it as the Recluse and see what other tricks they can come up with. Players also might enjoy doing a three-Recluse team, so tripling up on a certain character and seeing what kind of crazy stunts they can come up with, so I'm really looking forward to that aspect of the game.
Final question, and this might be the hardest one, but just what are some of your favorite video games?
As I mentioned earlier, I really like From’s games, these action RPGs that we make. I'm also a big long-time fan of Final Fantasy 14 and other multiplayer online games as well.
