In a lengthy presentation and video Q&A, producer Yasuhiro Kitao revealed that Elden Ring was designed to be less stressful, though no less difficult, compared to other FromSoftware games. Kitao-san went on to say that given the large size of the map, FromSoftware had to allow close respawning in the most challenging areas of Elden Ring. The challenge was to place enemies in a way that would keep players interested, but still provide them with a low-stress experience. This applies to item distribution too, as well as in-game events. Fine tuning these placements and timings has been ongoing until the very end. Changing enemies for all times of day would create a kind of pressure on users to play the game at various different times. We felt this was a stress our users could do without. Even the addition of horses and their unique ability to travel on air currents is meant to reduce stress in Elden Ring. Elden Ring will be released on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X. Ray tracing will be introduced with a post-launch patch.
